Comments on: Marriage and the Glory of God http://prodeoetpatria.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/marriage-and-the-glory-of-god/ Foxhole faith...everyday Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:44:19 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: R. Eric Sawyer http://prodeoetpatria.wordpress.com/2008/04/08/marriage-and-the-glory-of-god/#comment-772 R. Eric Sawyer Tue, 08 Apr 2008 22:50:24 +0000 http://prodeoetpatria.wordpress.com/?p=134#comment-772 I have been wanting to write more fully about this very topic, but resisting, probably out of fear of not doing it justice. This might just push me to it this weekend. For now, a few thoughts. I have gained a great deal in my understanding of marriage as unto the glory of God through my own experience of failed marriage, legally lasting 27 years, several separations, and eventual divorce. This was followed six months ago by remarriage, to the same “wife of my youth.” The interim was filled with a period of prayer in which I distinctly heard God (something I am not prone to!) telling me to work on amending my life by reading the Bible, which I did twice, straight through over a 9 month span. I read with great profit Bp. FitzSimmon Allison’s book “The Cruelty of Heresy” I can to see marriage, not as something God designed as an accommodation for us, and a way to organize family life, but as a way to live a life that is reflective of the Holy Trinity (not confusing the persons nor dividing the essence). I began to see the recorded story through the Bible as a romance, as much as any Jane Austin invented. A story of initial love, separation and betrayal, infidelity, restoration without change, and ultimate break in Jeremiah. The lover, however never gave up on his beloved, there is an action of heroic sacrifice, and ultimately at the end of the Revelation, the marriage and the longed for union. Marriage is very near the meta-story of the Bible, and not a perfect relationship, either. This relationship God wants so much is a deeply flawed one. Of course, the flaws are only on one side, but that’s the way we usually see our own. God deeply values this flawed relationship, pursues it, and will one day perfect it. Marriage is, among all the other blessings, a way to live out, live into, and demonstrate to the world the life of the Triune God. One and yet plural, bound in love, each complete and yet together one, submissive yet not subordinate. As I told my daughter and her husband, it kind of makes me wish that a standard part of preparation for marriage would be a requirement of at least an attempt at a paper on this topic: “The doctrine of the Holy Trinity and how it affects our understanding of Christian marriage.” I did an essay on another of the reasons on my blog, scroll down to “Sweethearts in Heaven” I have been wanting to write more fully about this very topic, but resisting, probably out of fear of not doing it justice. This might just push me to it this weekend. For now, a few thoughts.

I have gained a great deal in my understanding of marriage as unto the glory of God through my own experience of failed marriage, legally lasting 27 years, several separations, and eventual divorce. This was followed six months ago by remarriage, to the same “wife of my youth.”

The interim was filled with a period of prayer in which I distinctly heard God (something I am not prone to!) telling me to work on amending my life by reading the Bible, which I did twice, straight through over a 9 month span. I read with great profit Bp. FitzSimmon Allison’s book “The Cruelty of Heresy” I can to see marriage, not as something God designed as an accommodation for us, and a way to organize family life, but as a way to live a life that is reflective of the Holy Trinity (not confusing the persons nor dividing the essence). I began to see the recorded story through the Bible as a romance, as much as any Jane Austin invented. A story of initial love, separation and betrayal, infidelity, restoration without change, and ultimate break in Jeremiah. The lover, however never gave up on his beloved, there is an action of heroic sacrifice, and ultimately at the end of the Revelation, the marriage and the longed for union.

Marriage is very near the meta-story of the Bible, and not a perfect relationship, either. This relationship God wants so much is a deeply flawed one. Of course, the flaws are only on one side, but that’s the way we usually see our own. God deeply values this flawed relationship, pursues it, and will one day perfect it.

Marriage is, among all the other blessings, a way to live out, live into, and demonstrate to the world the life of the Triune God. One and yet plural, bound in love, each complete and yet together one, submissive yet not subordinate.

As I told my daughter and her husband, it kind of makes me wish that a standard part of preparation for marriage would be a requirement of at least an attempt at a paper on this topic:
“The doctrine of the Holy Trinity and how it affects our understanding of Christian marriage.”

I did an essay on another of the reasons on my blog, scroll down to “Sweethearts in Heaven”

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