Seriously.  Marriage should be FUN!   I thank God every day for a partner who keeps me laughing, who reminds me to have fun, and helps me remember to not take myself too seriously.    We will blog about this more in upcoming posts.

But today, we seriously need you to know we take at least one thing seriously.  As in, we are both passionate about it.  Seriously.  And here it is:

We are FOR marriage.  (I know, you’re thinking this is obvious…)  No, we mean it.  We are passionately FOR the institution of marriage, the success and joy of marriages, and the purposes and plans God has for it.

Imagine for a moment the famous ceiling of the Sistene Chapel where Michaelangelo painted the magnificent scenes of the Genesis creation.   People have come from all over the world, for over 500 years now,  to stand in awe and behold the wonder of such a masterpiece.  It is awe-inspiring, God-inspired, beyond beautiful.

Now imagine if someone came in and decided that, while Michaelangelo’s creation was fine, they might add some different scenes to the ones already there.  Spruce it up a bit, bring in the modern look.   Add some different textures, update it some, but still call it Michaelangelo’s  Sistine Chapel masterpiece.

This ‘creative modern artist’  would be arrested in seconds!  People would be appalled!  No one would stand for changing even a single inch of such a masterpiece!  To honor the artist, the integrity of his work must be preserved for all time.  

You know where this is going.  But this is a good time for overstating the obvious;  because what used to be obvious isn’t so obvious anymore.

God is the great Creator and Designer of Marriage.   It was His idea, His creation, for His purposes.  It is the bringing together of his two greatest works of art – a man and a woman – to form a new entity, a new creation – called marriage.

“God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life.  The Man came alive – a living soul!   Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the Man he had just made in it….   God said, ‘It’s not good for the Man to be alone;  I’ll make him a helper, a companion.. . . God put the Man into a deep sleep.  As he slept he removed one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh.  God then used the rib that he had taken from the Man to make Woman and presented her to the Man…. Therefore a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.”   Genesis 2: 7-8, 20-22, 24

This was God’s original design, His masterpiece.  Two people coming together to rule the earth, subdue it.  To be fruitful and multiply and spread the rule and reign of His Kingdom all over the earth.  God’s original plan.

We then get excited when Jesus, who came to show the world what his Father was like, re-affirmed this design:   “And he said this:  “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’  ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’  So they are no longer two, but one flesh.  Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate.”  Mark 10:6-9

And after the resurrection, in the early years of the church, the Apostle Paul (who himself was single) confirmed the will of the Creator when he quoted Moses and Jesus by writing  the exact same truth in Ephesians 5: 31-32, the great chapter on marriage.  “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her .. Husbands have the obligation of loving and caring for their wives the same way they love and care for their own bodies, for to love your wife is to love your own self.  No one abuses his own body, but pampers it – serving and satisfying its needs.  That’s exactly what Christ does for his church!  He serves and satisfies us as members of his body.  ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ . Marriage is the beautiful design of the Almighty, a great and sacred mystery – meant to be a vivid example of Christ and his church.”

We, as married people, and any of you who may be married one day,  are part of a much bigger picture here, something bigger than ourselves!!  Our calling is to have marriages that depict the love and service and covenant commitment that God has for us, His people.   The world should be able to look at our marriages and say, “Oh.  THAT is what God is like.   Amazing!  Magnificent!  Beautiful.”

God is for marriage!   We stood before Him and made our vows to one another.  We are joined now in a covenant.  God’s has also made a covenant with US!  His love for us is committed and faithful.  He sealed his ‘vows’ to us first through a covenant with Abraham, then one with Moses.   Then on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he made this statement:  “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you…”  Luke 22:20   Jesus shed his own blood to seal His covenant of love with us, proving that He had chosen us, would always be faithful to us, and would become one with us forever – never to be separated.

Our marriages are to be a picture of THAT.  Choosing one another daily, faithful always, becoming one, till death do us part.    We realize the world we live in -and thus our relationships within this world – are often a bit broken.  We don’t always live up to our end of our covenant with God or each other.  That’s why Jesus’ came.  Both fully human and fully God, he fulfilled His end of the covenant and ours.  Both.    Now, he is the Redeemer of even our broken relationships and unkept vows… and when we allow Him, He restores us and gives us innumerable chances to start again, and become like Him in the ways we love and serve and care for one another.

We are grateful that Jesus got it all right for all of us.  That there is hope for our broken messes and new beginnings for those who came out of marriages that didn’t make it.  For this we are so thankful.  But instead of lowering the standard and changing the original design & definition of marriage, let us proclaim even louder and more clearly God’s original masterpiece!   Let us work to preserve the perfection and integrity of this beautiful work He designed, even when we must confess that we come short of it sometimes!    For when we are loving as he loves and staying committed as he has to us, we are part of a magnificent Masterpiece that represents our Creator!  He ENTRUSTED us with the commission to bear His image, to show the world what He is like through our marriages, and He empowers us daily to do that which he has trusted us to do !!   Our Artist and Designer is working with us and in us to re-present Him every day.   Because He is with us, continually cleansing and restoring us, we can do this.

There are a lot of replicas out there.   A lot of new adaptations on the original piece.  The enemy loves to have a counterfeit for every true and good thing our Creator ever made.  But we, his representatives must preserve the integrity of His creation, and thus continue the purposes for which He made it!  There is only one definition of marriage – a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.

“Marriage is to be held in honor by all (that is, regarded as something of great value), and the marriage bed undefiled (by immorality or by any sexual sin)… ”      Hebrews 13:4    

Seriously.