Marriage & Weeping
I tuned in to an interesting discussion on ESPN radio earlier. A popular talk show host was going on about the need for marriage to “evolve” in this country. What he’d like to see is marriage vows take the form of sports contracts. Just like athletes know that after five years they’ll be free agents, it would be good for husbands and wives to know that they could opt out, upgrade, or choose another team. All of the callers I heard get on the air, both male and female, were in agreement with the host. Think of the benefits they said. Husbands and wives would be much more health conscious and physically active. If you knew that you and your spouse would become free agents, you wouldn’t let yourself go physically. You’d lay off the fries and go to the gym more often to keep yourself marketable for your current spouse or potential others. Everything else in society has evolved, claimed the host; technology, culture, etc. It’s time for marriage to do the same.
Now, even though he didn’t give any indication that he was joking, I’m not sure whether or not he was being absolutely serious. He may have just been trying to provoke some controversy.
What his and the callers comments speak to is a clear admission of the unreasonably high divorce rate in America. The host, who is divorced, even talked about how great his relationship is with his ex-wife now that they’re divorced. Since men and women are going to get together, the solution to the divorce problem is not to change people, but to change marriage. It’s unreasonable, they said, to expect men and women to stay together for 20, 30, 40 or, God forbid, 50 years.
“Solutions” like this one are really interesting because they are a veiled admission of hopelessness, the hopelessness for the human enterprise to fix what’s wrong with this foundational institution for society. Frankly, this is symptomatic of the “it’s all about me” disease that we human beings suffer from.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. It’s a day when we look back on Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on a colt as the crowds spread palm branches along the road and shouted, “Hosanna!” It’s a day when we also look forward to his coming again in glory. I’m reminded of Luke’s account of the triumphal entry in chapter 19 of his gospel. He tells us that as Jesus drew near to Jerusalem he wept over it. He said, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from you eyes.”
When I hear off-the-wall “treat marriage like a sports contract” solutions to the divorce epidemic in our day, there is a weeping in my heart. We are still blind on this day to the things that make for peace. They are still hidden from our eyes. Sometimes the brokenness of this world makes us laugh at ourselves. Beneath the laugh, however, is a desire that the brokenness be made right.
Are you married? Are you thinking about getting married? Are you re-married? Are you single because of the dissolution of a failed marriage? Whatever state you find yourself in relative to this God ordained institution, learn from Jesus the things that make for peace, peace with God. Learn from him that his overriding concern for your marriage is that it glorify him by your growth in holiness. Yes men, that might mean that you won’t get to play as much golf or tennis as you’d like. Yes ladies, that means that the human relationship you ought to pursue most vigorously is the one with your husband, not your girlfriend.
May God, by his grace, begin to cure us of the “it’s all about me” disease.
In Christ’s love,
Pastor Irwyn
Now, even though he didn’t give any indication that he was joking, I’m not sure whether or not he was being absolutely serious. He may have just been trying to provoke some controversy.
What his and the callers comments speak to is a clear admission of the unreasonably high divorce rate in America. The host, who is divorced, even talked about how great his relationship is with his ex-wife now that they’re divorced. Since men and women are going to get together, the solution to the divorce problem is not to change people, but to change marriage. It’s unreasonable, they said, to expect men and women to stay together for 20, 30, 40 or, God forbid, 50 years.
“Solutions” like this one are really interesting because they are a veiled admission of hopelessness, the hopelessness for the human enterprise to fix what’s wrong with this foundational institution for society. Frankly, this is symptomatic of the “it’s all about me” disease that we human beings suffer from.
Tomorrow is Palm Sunday. It’s a day when we look back on Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, riding on a colt as the crowds spread palm branches along the road and shouted, “Hosanna!” It’s a day when we also look forward to his coming again in glory. I’m reminded of Luke’s account of the triumphal entry in chapter 19 of his gospel. He tells us that as Jesus drew near to Jerusalem he wept over it. He said, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from you eyes.”
When I hear off-the-wall “treat marriage like a sports contract” solutions to the divorce epidemic in our day, there is a weeping in my heart. We are still blind on this day to the things that make for peace. They are still hidden from our eyes. Sometimes the brokenness of this world makes us laugh at ourselves. Beneath the laugh, however, is a desire that the brokenness be made right.
Are you married? Are you thinking about getting married? Are you re-married? Are you single because of the dissolution of a failed marriage? Whatever state you find yourself in relative to this God ordained institution, learn from Jesus the things that make for peace, peace with God. Learn from him that his overriding concern for your marriage is that it glorify him by your growth in holiness. Yes men, that might mean that you won’t get to play as much golf or tennis as you’d like. Yes ladies, that means that the human relationship you ought to pursue most vigorously is the one with your husband, not your girlfriend.
May God, by his grace, begin to cure us of the “it’s all about me” disease.
In Christ’s love,
Pastor Irwyn
posted by Irwyn at 9:31 AM
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