I have a few seasons in my life… winter, construction, and wedding season. As a pastor I get the amazing honour of being involved in weddings… it’s one of my favourite parts of my calling. Summer tends to be the time when most weddings take place, so I’ve been thinking about marriage a lot. Right in the beginning of Genesis, when God is referred to, it’s in the plural – we know that to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then in Genesis 2, God creates male and female and after we learn how they complement each other and how they were created. Verse 24 says this in reference to their union (marriage & sexual), “ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” So God, in perfect union/relationship with Himself, creates humans to be in relationship with Him and each other and in reference to the first man and first woman, God unites them in the first marriage. Though there is no ceremony or mention of a wedding or marriage, the context is clear that this is the type of relationship that Adam and Eve had.
God designed us to be in relationship with Him, and each other. The amazing thing is, we see that in a marital relationship between a man and a woman, humans can experience the kind of relationship God has with God – a union. Separate, but together. God also invites us into relationship with Him. Throughout the Bible that is called a union as well, that we are one in Christ. All of these relationships s are covenant relationships, deep and binding and intimate. So for a married couple here’s what it looks like… man and woman are one, man is one with God in Christ Jesus, and woman is one with God in Christ Jesus…
Make sure you’re following… because this is a big deal. Father, Son, & Spirit.. God, Man, and Woman – three in one. Why is marriage between a man and a woman so important and sacred? Because it’s not something that is manmade or an old fashioned idea. It is the very place where we are invited to experience the kind of intimate relationship with God and another human that God has within Himself… perfect love. It’s what we long for as humans and it’s one of our deepest needs.
Sure we’re flawed as humans and not all marriages work that way. But our failure to be united to God in following Jesus, and our failure to be united to our husband/wife in the perfect way God designed and intended doesn’t negate the design, the beauty, or the purpose. So as I perform marriages this year I do it with the highest of hopes that as guys and girls follow Jesus with all their heart and life and are united together that in that 3 in 1 relationship of Christian marriage they will experience something unique, something amazing, something God designed and Jesus died for…