Participating in the Great Metaphor|Jane Caroline

{Marriage 101 Guest Post by Meaghan}

God’s word tells us that marriage is a Big Deal. He uses the marriage metaphor over and over again to describe His own relationship with His Church.

In the Old Testament, God compares Israel to His bride. Sometimes she is beautiful and lovely, but often God pleads with adulterous Israel to return to Him.

In Jeremiah, God reminds His bride Israel of her first days:

I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness…
Jeremiah 2:2

In Hosea (an entire book about God’s marriage metaphor), God tells Israel:

And it shall be, in that day,
That you will call Me ‘My Husband,’
… I will betroth you to Me forever;
Yes, I will betroth you to Me
In righteousness and justice,
In loving-kindness and mercy…’”
Hosea 2:16, 19-20

In the New Testament, things get even more beautiful. Check out Matthew 25, where Christ compares the Kingdom of Heaven to virgins waiting for the bridegroom (that’s Jesus!) to come for them, or Revelation 19:7-9, where we are invited to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb!

Now, miracle of miracles, when we enter into marriage, we participate in this great metaphor. For those who are called to it, earthly marriage provides us a way to better understand Christ’s relationship with the Church (for those called to singleness, God has other wonderful lessons in store!).

In my short six months of marriage to my husband Greg, I’ve started to see some of these 3 lessons.

1. Marriage lets me work on submission.

I thought I was doing pretty well with submission, and then I got married. To a boy. A fallible, human boy who asks me to do things like put the pot on the back burner (I promptly set it on the front burner) and pray out loud (but I pray in pictures!). We’re still working out what mutual submission looks like, but I know that submission to my husband is making me better able to submit to my Lord. Submitting to a physical person is good practice for submitting to an invisible God!

2. Marriage encourages me to sacrifice for another daily.

Whether it’s getting up early so my husband can make it to class, cheerfully putting down my blogging to help him work, or laying down my desire to be pouty to be forgiving and cheerful, marriage is daily sacrifice for someone else. In each little sacrifice, I conquer my will to do these things because I love Greg.

God’s sacrifice for His bride was ultimate – He gave His own life. These little sacrifices for my husband – and the big ones we know are to come – teach me in small measure about God’s sacrifice for us.

3. Marriage is covenantal love.

Oh, don’t get me started on how amazing and beautiful covenant is. (Focus, Meaghan, focus.) God’s love for His Church is a covenantal love upheld by God Himself, not us. It doesn’t matter how good or bad we’ve been; God loves us.

In our wedding, I promised to love Greg for the rest of our lives, no matter what. Working out this love day by day – seeing how Greg loves me when I am unlovable, and doing the same for him – is giving us the tiniest taste of the incredible love God has for us, His Church.

These ideas of comparing my marriage to Greg with this grand, cosmic marriage were, at first, quite overwhelming to me. How could I be stepping in to a role that echoes that of Christ’s Church? I am a fallible, sinful human being not capable of loving Greg properly.

The great, wonderful, amazing thing about being part of the Church is that God gives me mercy and grace to love that way. He gives Greg and me the ability to love one another. He forgives my wrongs and forms me into a person who can be His bride: pure and unblemished. Amen!

As a practical step towards ingesting these realities for yourself, take a trip over to BibleGateway.com. Do a word search for “bride,” “marriage,” “wife,” or “husband.” You’ll have to wade through “So-and-so married so-and-so,” but you’ll also get a great picture of God’s love for His people and a broader picture of marriage. Enjoy!

Meaghan and Greg have been married for a whole six months, and are currently tackling (punching, wrestling, and pleading with) grad school for PhDs in bioengineering and chemistry. Meaghan blogs about faith, graduate school, dance, and kitchen (mis)adventures at xorosxaris.wordpress.com.