“After You’ve Said I Do”  Mark 10:1-16

Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- May 7, 2006

A business man's wife was experiencing depression. She began to mope around and be sad, lifeless--no light in her eyes--no spring in her step--joyless. It became so bad that this "man of the world" did what any sophisticated person would do. He made an appointment with the psychiatrist. On the appointed day, they went to the psychiatrist's office, sat down with him and began to talk. It wasn't long before the wise doctor realized what the problem was. So, without saying a word, he simply stood, walked over in front of the woman's chair, signaled her to stand, took her by the hands, looked at her in the eyes for a long time, then gathered her into his arms and gave her a big, warm hug. You could see the change come over the woman. Her face softened, her eyes lit up, she immediately relaxed. Her whole face glowed. Stepping back, the doctor said to the husband, "See, that's all she needs." With that, the man said, "Okay, I'll bring her in Tuesdays and Thursdays each week, but I have to play golf on the other afternoons." 

Maxie Dunnam, Preaching, May-June, 1986.

Marriage should be a duet--when one sings, the other claps. 

Joe Murray, Cox News Service.

In colonial days, a Boston sea captain named Kemble was sentenced to spend two hours in the stocks for kissing his wife in public on Sunday, the day he returned from three years at sea.

Source Unknown.

An old Kentucky law states that a wife can't move the furniture in the house without her husband's permission. But then a man in Kentucky has restrictions too: he can't legally marry his wife's grandmother.

Source Unknown

Every day, 175 Americans aged 65 and older get married (eight of them for the first time.)

Source Unknown.

Our text today is found in Mark 10:6-8, 14 and it deals with Jesus’ teaching about marriage.

“From the beginning of creation, male and female made He them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh…Suffer the little children to come unto me; forbid them not: for to such belongeth the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Mark 10:6-8, 14

This passage contains two stories. The first deals with the coming of the Pharisees to Jesus, who questioned him on the subject of divorce, and the second with the bringing of the children to Him.

Matthew and Mark put these two stories in close relationship with each other. And the focus of the teaching of Jesus here is a revelation of the Christian ideal of the family.

We need to note that between the teaching of the disciples in Capernaum, and these two stories, much has transpired that Mark does not record. Jesus has probably visited Jerusalem twice in this period of time. He sent the seventy out on their mission. After they returned, he went to Perea. Now we have him leaving Galilee for Judea, for the last time prior to his crucifixion. So this is the beginning of his last journey. His face is set toward the cross; his heart filled with compassion for redeeming men.

The Pharisees ask him about divorce.

In his answer to them, Jesus’ response is to teach them about the true nature of marriage:

“From the beginning of creation, male and female made He them. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh: so that they are no more two, but one flesh…”

And then the truth about children is plainly put when he says, “Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Let’s consider the true nature of marriage first.

When Jesus instructs these people about God’s intention or plan for marriage he directs their thinking beyond their interpretation of the law of Moses, whom they said permitted divorce; he takes them back before the law given to Moses to the very beginning of creation. It is a time before even the law was given. In the beginning…at the time of creation God made man and woman. For this cause…Jesus said…a man shall leave the closest relationship he has ever had to enter into another even more intimate.

Moses allowed a bill of divorcement to be written, they said.

Jesus said that he did it because of the hardness of their hearts. And Jesus goes back before the word of Moses, which was born of that hardness of man’s heart and says God has a plan for men and women. That plan is reflected in the positive purpose of God for marriage.

If you go back to the Book of Genesis, especially in the King James Bible, you will read that the woman is to be a help meet to the man. Now, what on earth is a help meet? We have often seen this translated as a “helpmate”. The woman is a helpmate to the man. In our modern world, this smacks of being a little sexist to some people.

The point of the Scriptures is that the woman is a helper, suitable for the man. She is the perfect complement to the man.  Each has their purpose in creation. And the scriptures speak of a unity that exists between the man and the woman. That is the secret in the true nature of marriage. The man and the woman complement each other. Strengths in one help to mitigate the weaknesses in the other.

The teaching here is that man is a unity not a unit; man is dual, but not two; the full idea of humanity is in the unity of fatherhood and motherhood. And spiritually, humanity is not represented in the man or in the woman but in their union…the becoming of one flesh.

Man is made in the Divine likeness and the Divine Image partially. Woman is made in the Divine likeness and the Divine image partially. Each have elements of the Divine likeness and Divine image. It is in the union of the two that these elements are brought together in unity.

Again in our modern age, we hear people speak of God not as Father but as Mother. While that is a little irritating, because it is usually done in a manner that denies the Fatherhood of God, in the mystery of the Divine Being there are qualities that we associate with men and those qualities we associate with women. It is in this union of man and woman that there is an expression of truth concerning God. In the plan of God, humanity is completed in man and woman.

Jesus quoted: “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife…” For what cause? It is for the unity created by the cleaving together of the man and woman.

The reason is that of the fundamental unity of man and woman. This involves a great spiritual declaration: that when God created man, he created male and female, and the two aspects of Deity are to be represented in the two. They make a unity of humanity. The woman is the complement to the man. The idea of the complement is that of finishing something that is lacking.

The man shall leave the nearest and dearest relationship he has ever known for a relationship that is nearer and dearer than father and mother. The experience upon which marriage is based is that of supreme reciprocal affection between the man and the woman. The basis of that experience in marriage is the outgoing of love to love consummating a union that is indissouluble.

“The two shall become one flesh” Jesus said. That is the symbol of a spiritual unity and reality without which a marriage is a disaster and the occasion of all the misery we hear so much about regarding marriage. Oh, the negative things we hear about marriage.

            Among couples who would ultimately stay together, 5 out of every 100 comments made about   each other were putdowns. Among couples who would later split, 10 of every 100 comments     were insults. That gap magnified over the following decade, until couples heading downhill            were flinging five times as many cruel and invalidating comments at each other as happy      couples. "Hostile putdowns act as cancerous cells that, if unchecked, erode the relationship over             time," says Notarius, who with Markman co-authored the new book We Can Work It Out. "In             the end, relentless unremitting negativity takes control and the couple can't get through a week     without major blowups."

            U.S. News & World Report, February 21, 1994, p. 67.

What we are to understand is that this unity in marriage is an outward and visible sign of an inward spiritual grace…of the very nature of God in man.

That is why God declares “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

But the world we live in is an imperfect place, filled with imperfect people who sometimes are in marriages that are not anything like the ideal. And there are practical needs and reasons for people to terminate that relationship. If hardness of heart never entered into our relationships, there would never be a reason for anyone to seek a divorce.

We should discourage divorce and encourage people to show one another loving kindness because there is involved a spiritual unity that is the plan of God for man and woman.

I think it fair to say that God hates divorce…but he loves divorced people. And he works to restore those who have encountered circumstances that have left them with less than the ideal for marriage.

Jesus then teaches us something about children that tells us something very important about children and the family. Jesus was busy ministering to needy people. Some of those people who were following Jesus had their children with them. And the disciples saw the children as an interruption to the important things Jesus was doing. And because they were an interruption, they told their parents to keep their children away from Jesus so that he could attend to important things.

Our text says that Jesus became angry and he rebukes his disciples regarding those children.

He shows his disciples that the children are anything but an interruption. In fact, Jesus told his disciples to encourage the little children to come to him. Why? It was because these children were in the Kingdom and if you want to enter the Kingdom you must come as a little child. If we do not have the faith of a little child we will never see the Kingdom of God.

Isn’t it interesting that God has so ordained creation that wherever and whenever children are conceived God cooperates and creates eternal spirits? 

When God gives a child its essential spirit life, that child has potentialities that are peculiar to that child. We cannot and we must not ever be of the opinion that children are an interruption or that they are not important enough for Jesus to give them his undivided attention. And if we will let the children alone, they will come to Jesus. If they don’t, the fault will be ours.

Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven….and that is how we all must come to Jesus…with the faith of a little child.

What shall we conclude from this passage? Because of the true nature of marriage:

Marriage, ordained by God from the very beginning of creation, is the union of a man and a woman in a spiritual unity that reflects the very nature of God.

God’s desire is that marriage be indissoluble, “Don’t let any one end it” God says. Only adultery is cause enough to break the bond of that unity between the man and the woman. When we consider the teaching of Jesus and that of the Apostle Paul, we realize that it is the breaking of the bond, of that unity by one or the other in the marriage union that frees the other to remarry should they choose to do so.

We tend to think of adultery as only a forbidden sexual relationship with someone other than one’s spouse. I think it is much broader than that by definition: It is the introduction of another intimacy into the unity of the marriage bond that will break it.

Think of the kinds of things that can come into a person’s life that destroy the unity of that marriage bond…physical adultery, alcohol, drugs, abandonment, physical abuse, work to name just a few. When these things take the place of the intimate relationship between a married man and woman, they are just another kind of adultery. If the bond of unity is broken by one’s spouse, the other may choose to end the marriage through divorce. What we might call the injured party is free from the bond of unity the other has broken. They do not have to terminate the marriage, but are free to do so if they cannot remain in it.

Jesus answered the question regarding divorce raised by the Pharisees by speaking to them and his disciples – not about divorce- but about the true nature of marriage and the importance of recognizing the true value of children in the family. Marriage is honored by God and should be by us as well. We must never take marriage lightly. Children are not an interruption in our lives. We can never treat them as such, while we go about doing the important things of life. Children are that important and valued highly by God. It should be the same with us. We must value marriage and the product of that marriage, the children God has blessed us with if we would truly honor Him in our lives.

--Dennis Gleason