8-25-2024

“DEARLY BELOVED”

Text: Ephesians 5:22-33

Sunday August 25, 2024 – Pentecost 14

Trinity Lutheran Church – Creston/Mount Ayr.

Grace, mercy, and peace is yours from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Our text for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost is the Epistle lesson from Ephesians 5 that was just proclaimed.

Let Us Pray: Dearest Jesus, you send your Holy Spirit to remind us that you sacrificed yourself for us your church and that marriage as you designed is a picture of how you gave yourself for us. Amen.

Dear Fellow Redeemed in Christ:

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the presence of God to consider his Word. Today he speaks to us about marriage.

There is perhaps no set of verses in the Scriptures on the topic of marriage as soaring, informative, and elucidating as this set.

There is also perhaps no set of verses on the topic of marriage as dismissed and as countercultural to our times as this set. Almost immediately, we’re brought back to last Sunday’s Gospel, wherein many said, “ ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’

But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, ‘Do you take offense at this?’ ” (Jn 6:60–61).

With open ears and open hearts, hear clearly and hold firmly to what God the Holy Spirit teaches us about a special union.

1. Marriage as it has been instituted by God

a. God is the author and designer of marriage (Gen 2:20–24).

(1) Despite what human courts may decide, the Lord God says that marriage:

(a) Is . . . a lifelong union between a man and a woman.

(b) Is not . . . simply the functional arrangement between two persons—who may or may not love each other.

(2) Men and women are but office-holders who have no authority to refashion marriage into any other shape or form.

b. God gives marriage for these reasons (LSB, p 275):

(1) For “the mutual companionship, help, and support” of the husband and wife.

(2) So that husband and wife may “find delight in one another.”

(3) For “the procreation of children.”

c. Since God is the author and designer of marriage, it can’t be redefined by humans.

(1) Anyone who would attempt to redefine, amend, abbreviate, or adulterate marriage as the Maker has given it fits Isaiah’s description (Old Testament Reading, Is 29:13).

(2) For the Church to teach otherwise would be to reject “the commandment of God in order to establish [our] tradition!” (Gospel, Mk 7:9).

2. Christ and his Bride, the Church

a. We come now more directly to our text, which you may think is chiefly about the topic of marriage.

(1) It’s not; at least not in the way one might initially suppose.

(2) It’s about Christ and his Bride, the Church. And only if one understands that foundation can he rightly understand what compels Paul to direct wives and husbands to live toward each other as he does.

b. Most of us are familiar with the classic fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.

You’ll remember that it’s the story of a belle named Beauty whose life and family circumstances brought her to cross paths with a beastly figure who dwelt in a distant castle. By his own fault, he had been cursed with a hideous appearance.

As the tale goes, Beauty came to dwell for a time in the castle of the Beast. As she did, she grew to know him and at length to love him.

In the Beast’s most desperate dying hour, the kiss (or in one version, the tear) of Beauty’s love fell on him, and he was suddenly and gloriously transformed. The curse was lifted, and the Beast appeared in a restored, beautiful, and noble nature.

There can be a bit of truth in fairy tales. While it doesn’t all relate, there’s a bit of truth here when we think of our relationship with Jesus Christ. But reverse the roles! Jesus Christ is the beauty; we’re the beast (Eph 5:25–27).

(1) While there’s much similarity to Christ and the Church, the roles are reversed!

(a) He’s the noble, glorious, compassionate one.

(b) She—you and I—is the one stained by sin, blemished by defect and blame, wrinkled, not at all lovely.

(2) There’s clearly nothing to be attracted to, and yet he . . . loved . . . us! He called us his beloved.

c. This is precisely how Paul describes it. This is how Christ loved us!

(1) “He handed himself over on her behalf” to suffer her shame, and to save her life.

(2) This he did “in order that”:

(a) He could set her—us—apart as special, and wash her clean (v 26)!

(b) He could present her—us—to himself a glorious Church. That’s how he sees us (v 27)! Picture him standing beside her proudly: “I’m not ashamed to call her mine!” Picture him standing beside her as her advocate.

(3) That’s “Love to the loveless shown That they [too] might lovely be” (LSB 430:1)!

Our Beloved’s Great Love for Us Generates and Animates Our Love for Him and for One Another.

3. The Gospel: Christ for you! It’s why . . . !

a. It’s why husbands ought so to love their wives; it’s how you’ve been loved.

(1) It’s why they ought not be harsh with them. Has Christ been harsh with you?

(a) He nourishes you, not belittling you, but building you up.

(b) He cherishes you, caring for you, his own Body.

(2) It’s why husbands ought never embarrass their wives, make a spectacle of their flaws; for Christ gave all of himself to present you to himself as glorious.

(3) It’s why husbands ought to be entirely self-sacrificing, even to the point of death, if love requires it (V. S. Grieger); for Christ was for you.

b. It’s why wives ought to surrender themselves in all things to their husbands (V. S. Grieger); do so out of reverence for Christ, who desires it.

(1) You don’t do it because your husband deserves it, for he deserves it no more than you deserve his entire self-sacrifice.

(2) You do it, as he does, because it’s living out the Gospel and honoring Christ.

Dearly beloved, married or not, this text is all about you. It tells us of our Beloved, Jesus Christ, and how he loved—loves!—us.

Therefore, moved by his love and in deepest gratitude to him, we all can honor his institution of marriage, wives and husbands, by living the Gospel toward one another as we ought, and all, married or not, by encouraging husbands and wives to live as our Lord desires, and by honoring marriage in what we say, think, and do. Amen.

Now may the peace of God which far surpasses our human understanding guide and keep us in the one true faith until life everlasting…Amen