Living Out Christian Marriage – An Example

Paul instructs husbands:

Love your wives as also Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, in order that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that He Himself might present to Himself the glorious church, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,  that she might be holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:25-27, my translation).

How does a husband live out this command? What does such love look like?

My parents were married for 71 years until my father’s death almost four years ago. Since my mother’s death in August, I have read hundreds of their letters, including many from 1953 – the third year of their marriage – when he, a 22-year-old Air Force pilot, was stationed in Okinawa and she was in Charleston, where she gave birth to my older sister. Their separation lasted ten months. These letters display time and again how they laid a solid foundation of Christlike, sacrificial love in their marriage that endured for so many decades.

The following excerpt was written three weeks after my sister’s birth.

April 12, 1953

Sweetheart, how can I ever repay you for everything you give me? Charm, grace, beauty, tenderness, consideration, intelligence, wit, adorableness, capability, these are but a few of the many fine qualities you possess and so freely share with me. I believe I’ve said this before, but its repetition can only serve to impress upon you my absolute sincerity and continual consciousness of it. The one fact which never ceases to amaze me, [to] bolster me when I’m weak, and [to] give me any desires or ambition I may have, is the ever-present, wonderful, and inexplicable fact that you love me.

I want above all, my love, to make you happy and explain if possible my own love for you. I want to give you things, many and beautiful, but such things as watches and flowers, no matter what they cost, are valueless in themselves. If I did not know that you appreciate and accept them not for themselves but for a small token of my love, I would not even wish to give them.

You know, I’ve been speaking of “your love for me” or “my love for you” as if they were two separate entities existing apart from each other. Yet shouldn’t it be always “our love for each other.” I feel that never again can I do something without your love and presence even though you are 10,000 miles away.

Four points to highlight:

First, he honors her. He delights in her and explains why. Furthermore, he tells her not only who she is, but implicitly who she can become. This encourages her to strive to move toward her glorious end, when she will be “without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.”

Second, he is not at all reluctant to repeat what he has said previously. In the troubles and banality of day to day life, we tend to forget and to neglect who we really are and how much others love us. He takes steps to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Third, he looks to give her tokens of his love and reminds her of the love behind every gift.

Finally, he highlights that their love is necessarily mutual. God has made them one, a unity – so their love for each other is intertwined.

We husbands can learn much from this letter – but all of us believers, as part of the Bride of Christ, can profit from the analogy. Remember:

1. Jesus honors His Bride! He is making Her – Us! – into a perfected reflection of Who He is. Nothing will prevent that from happening. And today, He delights in the work He has already accomplished within us. We are His joy, His love. So strive all the more toward that glorious end.
2. Keep reminding yourself of these truths from the Word – and remind one another of them. Without continual reminders, we grow discouraged and despondent, moping around because of the fallenness of the world around us, as well as our own fallenness. We need to hear again and again how much our Savior loves us and delights in us.
3. Notice and acknowledge the tokens of Jesus’ love that we encounter every day. Thank God for the beauty of a rainbow, the mystery of the hummingbird at the feeder, the ability to breathe and walk and run, the encouragement of a kindly word from a friend. See through each of these to the Source – the kindness and love of the God of the universe.
4. Always see your love for God as subsequent to and part of His love for you. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Your own love for Him is a gift – part of the work of conforming you to the image of His Son.

So, if you are married, live out these truths – and, all of us, walk every day as part of the beloved Bride of Christ. As we will read in this Sunday’s service:  “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).