The Orthodox-Catholic Anglican
Our Lord teaches us today about the Sacrament of Matrimony. He says to the Pharisees: “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” Saint Paul, writing to the Ephesians, adds “This mystery is a profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” Why does God want man and woman joined? And what does it mean to say that this refers to Christ and the Church?
One thing we see in the Genesis creation story is that God has endowed human beings with a great deal of freedom. You may eat of the fruit of any tree in the garden, God told Adam, which in the literal interpretation means: have at it, enjoy yourself. This is not an unqualified or unlimited freedom, for there is one tree forbidden: the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet overall, freedom abounds. What is this freedom for? What is its purpose? What is more, male and female united in matrimony somehow express or make known what it means to exist in this world of God-given freedom. How does this work?
This country has a lot to say about freedom. It is part of our identity as a nation. Ingrained in us is the phrase, “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In the Declaration of Independence these are called “unalienable Rights,” meaning impossible to take away. That is because these rights come from God: they are endowed by the Creator. That which comes from God mankind has no ability to remove. We the creatures live within the parameters of creation set forth by our creator God who is omnipotent (everywhere powerful), omniscient (everywhere knowing), and omnipresent (everywhere present).
All people, whether married or unmarried, are created to worship God. We are created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord. Fueled entirely by His grace, this is how we save our souls. And as an aid to that activity, an aid to our worship day in and day out, all of the other things on the face of the earth are created for mankind to help us in attaining the end of worship. “It is not good that man should be alone,” our Lord said, and it is as if He might have added, “amid all this freedom.”
And so out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air. They were formed of the same substance as Adam: the dust of the ground. So although humans and animals share an origin in earthly material and are both conceived in His mind, the primary difference between man and animal in Scripture is this: unlike the rest of animals, man has the ability to name the animals, that is, to reflect on their existence. Animals cannot do that. Men and women can. We can reflect on the creatures of the world, and name them. In the ancient world of Scripture, naming something is an action that comes only from understanding the true nature of that thing.
It seems as well that not only can we reflect on the true nature of our fellow creatures, but that it appears that we must. Again Saint Paul, to the Romans: “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” Clearly perceiving things that God has made, that is His creatures, reveals God’s power and deity. We must have a constant awareness that everything around us is made by God, and this comes from deep, spiritual perception. The Devil, on the other hand, wants us to be oblivious to this fact; or, if not oblivious, then to have the attitude of “Yes, God man everything; so what, no big deal.” And yet, it is more than a big deal, and for this reason: God makes Himself known to us through creatures. How to worship the Lord—which means to know and love Him—is revealed by understanding the nature of human beings.
Freedom – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – summarizes how to live in God’s creation. As Saint Paul wrote to the Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free.” The fully Christian understanding of freedom is poetically expressed in the ninety-sixth Psalm—O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth stand in awe of Him. To be free means the freedom to fully experience holiness, which comes through worshiping the Holy Trinity. Through “holiness” we recognize God’s presence intimately—an intimate presence in the world, an intimate presence in another person, an intimate presence in each of us. And so, freedom is worshiping the Lord in the beauty of His intimate presence; let the whole earth stand in awe of Him. Awe and wonder—the technical term for which is “fear”—this is the beginning of wisdom. Awe and wonder is the beginning of discipleship. Our ongoing transformation into more mature Christian spirituality happens with awe and wonder at the sheer beauty of the maker of all that is, both seen and unseen—utterly transcendent in His power, knowledge and presence—impossibly close to our hearts and minds, closer to us ever than our own breath. What profound intimacy God has with us!
Man and woman united together in the Sacrament of Matrimony are able to know that kind of profound intimacy. And in knowing with such intimacy, they can experience Christ in each other in the most mysterious of ways. The man experiences Christ in his wife; the woman experiences Christ in her husband. They experience Christ together, for they are one flesh. The Sacrament of Matrimony makes the fundamental unit of humanity–male and female, united –into the fundamental unit of worship. Through each other, they worship the Creator present in His creatures. This is how Matrimony refers to Christ and His Church. The mystery of Christ in us, as Paul again writes: “the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” The mystery of man united with woman replicates the mystery of the Church because God seeks to be known intimately, and man and woman united in matrimony are able to know God intimately in each other, and constantly live deeper into that intimacy.
This is I think gets at, perhaps in the deepest sense, why God made them male and female. He created us male and female to properly be free, needing to be joined together to experience Christian freedom, which is freely choosing to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor (in this case, our spouse): choosing a life of holiness, which is a journey of understanding Christ in each other, and sharing this understanding with everyone around them: children, relatives, and neighbors. A man and a woman need each other to properly worship God, and the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony enshrines this truth. Matrimony is a true embodiment of the Church on earth: that through the man and woman united as one flesh sacramentally in matrimony, the grace of Christ can truly be known, for Matrimony is a channel God uses to pour upon the world the sacrificial grace of His Son. To put it simply: to be a Christian is to be in love with Jesus, even He Who lives and reigns for ever with the Father and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.