Wishing You Were Here

I’ve been married for almost four months now; it’s an interesting experience to say the least. I know that would be the case for just about everybody. Moving from the single life to the married life involves so many things—everything really. But I’m doing it for the first time at the age of 73, which means that I’m bringing the experience of a whole lifetime with me. That enables me to evaluate the situation from a different perspective than most people. I’m surprised by some things because it’s my first time, but in other ways I can appreciate the circumstances informed by a longstanding engagement in the Christian walk. I’ve been a Christian for over fifty years and I’ve pressed hard after the Lord, seeking to understand the Gospel and its potential to inform every aspect of our existence. The questions are there for all of us. Who is God? How are we supposed to understand Him? What does He want from us? How does the Lord affect everything else that pertains to our lives? These questions are answered in part by those who’ve gone before us. The Bible is comprised of documents of various types that were written by people of the past who had experienced the reality of the Lord in various ways. And these documents were written in a variety of formats depending on what was being focused on at the time. Histories, songs, poems, lists, warnings, personal experiences, letters; they’re all included in the compendium of documents that comprise the written Word of God: our Bible. People experienced the reality of the Lord and authored a variety of writings derived from that experience. Of course the Lord superintended the process; as believers we invest in a divine oversight of the production of the sacred text. What I’m doing here in this post is providing a written expression of my own experience with the Lord that’s resulted from getting married…married for the first time. It’s obviously not to be understood as sacred text, but it is informed by a lifetime of Christian experience.

The first thing to consider is what marriage provides that can’t be obtained as a single individual, and I’m not talking about sexual relations. Sex can be obtained without marriage…to our detriment but it can be obtained. But intimacy is another matter. Intimacy is about knowing someone and being known by them in a special way that is truly significant. I don’t mean just the capacity to stand in front of somebody naked without being embarrassed. Anybody can do that without the commitment of matrimony. The intimacy that I have in mind is the condition that results from two people letting down their guard and allowing their “significant other” to see and know them as they really are; and to accept each other in their flawed condition because they truly love them. It’s scary…but it’s also fulfilling. I know that my wife and I are new to this and it’s a bumpy ride to achieve and maintain true intimacy, but what we have experienced is wonderful. If you’re a serious Christian who’s been walking in the faith for any length of time, then you should know that apart from spreading the “Good News” to others, we’re also called to become like Jesus in the way we act and the way we think. But in order to do that we have to be willing to walk in His light, allowing ourselves to be exposed for who we are now, and encouraged by whom we can become through our fellowship with Him. However the Lord doesn’t impose His influence on us except in extreme circumstances. We’re able to ignore Him if we choose to. This is indicated in the Apostle Paul’s admonition regarding proper conduct for the Christian.

Therefore, laying aside falsehood, SPEAK TRUTH EACH ONE of you WITH HIS NEIGHBOR, for we are members of one another. BE ANGRY, AND DO NOT SIN; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. He who steals must steal no longer; but rather he must labor, performing with his own hands what is good, so that he will have something to share with one who has need. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:25-32)

This indicates to us that we have to learn to pay attention and follow God’s lead in order to develop fellowship with Him that truly impacts us and enables us to represent Him well as we live out our lives in the company of others.

What’s become increasingly obvious to me is that achieving this is something that we can’t do alone; when it comes to evaluating ourselves we need outside help. The call of God does include a call to align our behavior with the Lord’s stipulations, and the archetype of that mandate is the Ten Commandments. We all know them and they stipulate that we’re to love the Lord and follow His commands that pertain to our conduct on various fronts. (Exodus 20) However rather than simply leaving us with a set of rules to follow, we’re confronted by a mandate that reaches into our very soul, as it was expressed by Jesus Himself when He was asked what was the greatest commandment. His response was to say:

‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)

This isn’t just a call to follow the rules; it’s a mandate to be someone other than who we were when we came to the faith. Love isn’t just a determination to do certain things. We may do things to express our love, but love as it’s commanded in the Bible is more than just a choice to do something, it’s a choice to be something, to be someone who reflects the nature of our Lord! And the way I said it here is key to our understanding. True love is a reflection of God Himself. It pertains to our relationship with someone other than ourselves and is essentially a feature of our God!

Real love is a reflection of our Lord and in order for us to reflect Him in our lives we need to submit ourselves to Him. However, the caveat to this is that our God does not present Himself in a substantial manner. He usually makes Himself known by His Spirit. And in walking by His Spirit we have the capacity to ignore Him or distort what He’s saying as we commune with Him within our own minds. Fortunately He’s provided us with something more concrete than our imagination: He’s provided us with the written Word. However, anybody who’s spent any time studying and researching the Bible knows that there is much debate about what the Bible means and how it’s to be applied to our lives. I’m not going to try and explain all the various approaches taken to study, understand and apply what the Bible teaches us—there’s a lot there to be considered and argued about. Instead I want to point to one basic event presented to us in the Bible: the crucifixion. Now you should know that the basic principle presented in the crucifixion is that sin demands punishment; that’s according to Old Testament law. The Ten Commandments outline the basics of Old Testament law showing what we are to do and not to do. The first five books of the Bible provide an amplification of these basic laws and address how the followers of God in the ancient world were to order their lives as individuals, and as part of a community that was made up of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, i.e. Israel. The stipulations touch upon diet, personal hygiene, sexual activity, relationships with other people, business activities and everything else pertaining to existence in the ancient world. Deviations from the expected norms were often addressed through restitution and or sacrifice, depending on what was being considered. Blood sacrifice was often engaged as part of the process for reestablishing and maintaining right standing with our holy God. To violate the law was “sin” against God and blood sacrifice was a means to counteract the impact of sin.

The problem of course is that we are all imperfect people unable to fulfill all the stipulations of the law consistently. The people of the ancient world couldn’t do it and neither can we. Estrangement from God in the ancient world of the Israelites required atonement. The shedding of blood was involved in some form that worked to render people ceremonially “clean.” Blood sacrifice was pivotal in Old Testament law. And that is what the crucifixion is all about. The ultimate act of shedding blood in order to counteract estrangement from God was rendered through the death of Christ Jesus on the cross; and His resurrection demonstrated that the cross rendered blood sacrifice obsolete because no greater sacrifice could be made to appease the wrath of God. It was the sacrifice of the Son that established once and for all the way for all mankind to be reconciled with God. But forgiveness of sin requires an acknowledgement of sin, repentance from that sin and recognition of the cross as the means for forgiveness of sin. But in order to walk out our lives as forgiven children of God we need to consistently pursue a life that reflects the holiness of the Lord. That means that we need to walk in an informed manner, alert to the impact of our fallen world and making every effort to be consistent with God’s holiness, repenting when we fall short, and choosing to order our steps in a way that fosters a consistency with God’s holiness.

Taking this mandate seriously is not easy in today’s modern American society. We’re becoming a people who are saturated with media. Words, ideas, sounds, and pictures are pumped into us through all manner of platforms via the devices that have become virtually impossible to avoid in our society. At my age I can still remember a time when reading a book was the usual way of gaining information and being entertained. The first television my parents purchased only displayed three channels, and that was in the big city of Chicago! When the transistor radio came along it introduced a way to be isolated and continuously entertained and “informed” by whatever was presented through it. And the driving force for these developments is the same force that has ordered the progress of society for thousands of years: commerce. Commerce is the engine for innovation on a variety of fronts which, taken in isolation, seems like a wonderful thing. But the Bible tells us through some of the Old Testament prophets that commerce is also the engine of idolatry. (Ezekiel 8, 14, 27) And it’s because of this that we really need to evaluate ourselves carefully in order to achieve a mature understanding of our Lord and Savior. The Lord does provide a means for obtaining forgiveness of sin, but that doesn’t mean that we have an easy ride for entering the kingdom. He expects His children to pursue a maturity of righteousness derived from an increasing reliance upon Him in all aspects of our lives. And a primary means for doing that is fellowship; fellowship with likeminded believers who are given access to our hearts, providing an unobstructed view of who we are. As I’m saying this I know that I’ve often lived in an isolated condition only allowing others a limited view of who I really am. As a married man, that isolation has been breached. Marriage isn’t always comfortable but it’s been good; and the essential result of knowing and being known by someone has been a true blessing. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that as we submit our lives to the Lord in the course of our marriage, my wife and I have a wonderful opportunity to become more and more like Jesus and that’s really what our lives are all about.

Thank you God! Your “lovingkindness (really) is better than life.”