Relationship Retreat
Grace Lutheran Church - Muncie, IN
Genesis 2:18, 21-25/Ephesians 5:1-2, 19-33; 6:1-9/St John 15:12-17
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is not good that man is alone because God, who alone is good, is not alone. He exists, from all eternity in the Blessed Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created man to abide in His presence, to be the object and recipient of His unconditional love. Until the Lord God used the very body of man to build woman and bring her to the man, the man was unable to love as God loved, in self-sacrificing service to another.
And briefly, while they were perfect, holy, unblemished and without sin, the man loved his wife unconditionally, as a gracious lord; without resentment or exasperation. He loved her as his own body, fashioned in the image and likeness of the Lord. He nourished and cherished her, without compulsion and without discontent. And though he was a lowly man, a dirt-man, Adam was a philosopher-poet who spoke eloquently concerning his beloved, effectively writing his own wedding vows, saying: This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
And in return the Woman joyfully submitted to her husband, not in inferiority or passive aggression, but willingly. She cleaved to him as one and the same with her own flesh. He loved her and she honored him, which is “a far higher thing because honor includes not only love, but also modesty, humility, and submission to majesty hidden in him” (LC I 106).
They gazed upon one another in self-sacrificial love and devotion, not noticing their own nakedness nor ashamed of the other’s, for they beheld one another in beauty and splendor.
Sin ruined everything. It rent asunder their one flesh union, turning them from gazing upon one another to being curved inward on themselves. For the first time they noticed their own nakedness. And they knew shame. But more, sin tore them from their union with the Blessed Holy Trinity. Divorced them from His gracious lordship and wed them to His enemy, now our ally in the flesh, that old evil foe.
This is your inheritance.
And this is why when you now hear the exhortations of St Paul you scoff and chafe, you cover your shame with fig leaves and attempt to hide yourself from God and from each other. Since the Fall it is difficult to gasp was gracious lordship and joyful submission look like. You hear the letter to the Ephesians, which is a letter to you, describing the perfect marriage, the perfect husband and wife, and you squirm.
It is because we are curved inward on ourselves. We do not hear the pleasant voice that calls to us in this Table of Duties. The promised Seed of Genesis 3 is proclaimed here in Ephesians 5.
Husbands and wives, love and submit, as Adam and Eve, as the Man and Woman, as Christ and the Church. “For a Man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.
You chafe and squirm because you think St Paul is indicting you, when actually he is preaching about Christ! For you can’t know what it means to be a man, a woman, or a child apart from Christ Jesus and His Church. You can’t comprehend the significance of marriage and family, except by way of Christ and His Bride the Church. For man is made in the Image of God, which is to say, in Christ Jesus; and marriage and family belong to that divine image.
And it is He who is the exact imprint of the Father’s nature, as the author to the Hebrews says (1:3), who sits at table with His disciples, with His companions. And He calls them friends.
He comes as the Helper of mankind; come that you may leave the house of your father, the devil, the father of lies, and that you may cleave once more to He who made you in His image and likeness, who desires your companionship within the Blessed Holy Trinity.
For how does our Lord Christ speak to His disciples? Tenderly, not as a Master to a slave, but as a friend, giving His commands of gracious lordship and joyful submission, restoring what was lost through your first parents. And listen again dear children, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, for He speaks not only of your, but of Himself. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down his life for His friends. You are my friends.
And He lays down His life for you. He, the God-Man, the heavenly Bridegroom laid down His life for you, the Church, His beloved Bride.
Falling asleep in the deep sleep of death, His side was opened, and pouring through His ribs was water and blood, from which He has fashioned you, the Church, the beautiful Bride of Christ. He has presented you to Himself without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish.
And Christ the God-Man says of you, “This at last is bone of My bones and flesh of My flesh, you shall be called Christian, for you are taken out of Christ.”
He who left His Father in heaven and His blessed Virgin Mother, has wedded you to Himself in the Cross, and has made you one flesh with Him. You are no longer naked, for He has covered you with the baptismal robe of His righteousness, which forgives all your sins. You are dressed up in Christ, imitator of God as His beloved children, fashioned once more in His image and likeness, no longer alone, but given to dwell in the presence of the Blessed Holy Trinity and given to live at peace with one another, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives joyfully submitting to your husbands as to the Lord. Husbands loving your wives in gracious lordship as Christ loved the Church and died for her. For it is in His Cross that Christ reorients lordship and submission once more; restoring what was lost. For you did not chose Him, but He chose you. And this is how He has appointed you, within your various stations, that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.
Thus, husbands are called to sacrifice themselves in order to give life to their wives. And wives are called to trust Christ in their husbands, to receive life from Him through them, and so to bear in faith and love the children that God the Father gives.
And fathers and mothers together bring their children to Christ in His Church, and to God the Father in heaven, understanding that children are created and born for life with God, both now and forever. Withholding them from Christ and His Church, in order to make a life for them in this world instead, would be a grave offense and a serious stumbling block.
As it is written, Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who attempt to build their own (Ps 127:1).
In truth, there is finally and forever one God and Father, one heavenly Bridegroom, one holy Bride, adorned and radiant with His Holy Spirit and His Righteousness. But there are and remain many sons and daughters of God, many brothers and sisters of our one Lord, Jesus Christ. So it is that marriage and family and every other human relationship is taken up into the unity of the Spirit and the bond of Peace in the holy communion of one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all.
Dearly beloved, here He receives you to Himself, to have and to hold unto eternal life. With His own wounded hands, and by the bloody sweat of His brow, He has built you a house that shall remain. His labor has not been in vain, but He shelters you with His good work and His perfect righteousness. Whatever hardness of heart you have harbored, whatever animosity or stubbornness or contempt you have nursed, He has opened to you and given to you His own beating heart of flesh and blood, He has cleansed you and given you a clean conscience, and enduring faith toward Him and a fervent love to one another.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Grace Lutheran Church - Muncie, IN
Genesis 2:18, 21-25/Ephesians 5:1-2, 19-33; 6:1-9/St John 15:12-17
In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.
It is not good that man is alone because God, who alone is good, is not alone. He exists, from all eternity in the Blessed Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created man to abide in His presence, to be the object and recipient of His unconditional love. Until the Lord God used the very body of man to build woman and bring her to the man, the man was unable to love as God loved, in self-sacrificing service to another.
And briefly, while they were perfect, holy, unblemished and without sin, the man loved his wife unconditionally, as a gracious lord; without resentment or exasperation. He loved her as his own body, fashioned in the image and likeness of the Lord. He nourished and cherished her, without compulsion and without discontent. And though he was a lowly man, a dirt-man, Adam was a philosopher-poet who spoke eloquently concerning his beloved, effectively writing his own wedding vows, saying: This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
And in return the Woman joyfully submitted to her husband, not in inferiority or passive aggression, but willingly. She cleaved to him as one and the same with her own flesh. He loved her and she honored him, which is “a far higher thing because honor includes not only love, but also modesty, humility, and submission to majesty hidden in him” (LC I 106).
They gazed upon one another in self-sacrificial love and devotion, not noticing their own nakedness nor ashamed of the other’s, for they beheld one another in beauty and splendor.
Sin ruined everything. It rent asunder their one flesh union, turning them from gazing upon one another to being curved inward on themselves. For the first time they noticed their own nakedness. And they knew shame. But more, sin tore them from their union with the Blessed Holy Trinity. Divorced them from His gracious lordship and wed them to His enemy, now our ally in the flesh, that old evil foe.
This is your inheritance.
And this is why when you now hear the exhortations of St Paul you scoff and chafe, you cover your shame with fig leaves and attempt to hide yourself from God and from each other. Since the Fall it is difficult to gasp was gracious lordship and joyful submission look like. You hear the letter to the Ephesians, which is a letter to you, describing the perfect marriage, the perfect husband and wife, and you squirm.
It is because we are curved inward on ourselves. We do not hear the pleasant voice that calls to us in this Table of Duties. The promised Seed of Genesis 3 is proclaimed here in Ephesians 5.
Husbands and wives, love and submit, as Adam and Eve, as the Man and Woman, as Christ and the Church. “For a Man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the Church.
You chafe and squirm because you think St Paul is indicting you, when actually he is preaching about Christ! For you can’t know what it means to be a man, a woman, or a child apart from Christ Jesus and His Church. You can’t comprehend the significance of marriage and family, except by way of Christ and His Bride the Church. For man is made in the Image of God, which is to say, in Christ Jesus; and marriage and family belong to that divine image.
And it is He who is the exact imprint of the Father’s nature, as the author to the Hebrews says (1:3), who sits at table with His disciples, with His companions. And He calls them friends.
He comes as the Helper of mankind; come that you may leave the house of your father, the devil, the father of lies, and that you may cleave once more to He who made you in His image and likeness, who desires your companionship within the Blessed Holy Trinity.
For how does our Lord Christ speak to His disciples? Tenderly, not as a Master to a slave, but as a friend, giving His commands of gracious lordship and joyful submission, restoring what was lost through your first parents. And listen again dear children, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, for He speaks not only of your, but of Himself. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that He lay down his life for His friends. You are my friends.
And He lays down His life for you. He, the God-Man, the heavenly Bridegroom laid down His life for you, the Church, His beloved Bride.
Falling asleep in the deep sleep of death, His side was opened, and pouring through His ribs was water and blood, from which He has fashioned you, the Church, the beautiful Bride of Christ. He has presented you to Himself without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, holy and without blemish.
And Christ the God-Man says of you, “This at last is bone of My bones and flesh of My flesh, you shall be called Christian, for you are taken out of Christ.”
He who left His Father in heaven and His blessed Virgin Mother, has wedded you to Himself in the Cross, and has made you one flesh with Him. You are no longer naked, for He has covered you with the baptismal robe of His righteousness, which forgives all your sins. You are dressed up in Christ, imitator of God as His beloved children, fashioned once more in His image and likeness, no longer alone, but given to dwell in the presence of the Blessed Holy Trinity and given to live at peace with one another, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives joyfully submitting to your husbands as to the Lord. Husbands loving your wives in gracious lordship as Christ loved the Church and died for her. For it is in His Cross that Christ reorients lordship and submission once more; restoring what was lost. For you did not chose Him, but He chose you. And this is how He has appointed you, within your various stations, that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.
Thus, husbands are called to sacrifice themselves in order to give life to their wives. And wives are called to trust Christ in their husbands, to receive life from Him through them, and so to bear in faith and love the children that God the Father gives.
And fathers and mothers together bring their children to Christ in His Church, and to God the Father in heaven, understanding that children are created and born for life with God, both now and forever. Withholding them from Christ and His Church, in order to make a life for them in this world instead, would be a grave offense and a serious stumbling block.
As it is written, Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who attempt to build their own (Ps 127:1).
In truth, there is finally and forever one God and Father, one heavenly Bridegroom, one holy Bride, adorned and radiant with His Holy Spirit and His Righteousness. But there are and remain many sons and daughters of God, many brothers and sisters of our one Lord, Jesus Christ. So it is that marriage and family and every other human relationship is taken up into the unity of the Spirit and the bond of Peace in the holy communion of one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all.
Dearly beloved, here He receives you to Himself, to have and to hold unto eternal life. With His own wounded hands, and by the bloody sweat of His brow, He has built you a house that shall remain. His labor has not been in vain, but He shelters you with His good work and His perfect righteousness. Whatever hardness of heart you have harbored, whatever animosity or stubbornness or contempt you have nursed, He has opened to you and given to you His own beating heart of flesh and blood, He has cleansed you and given you a clean conscience, and enduring faith toward Him and a fervent love to one another.
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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