Reframing the Purpose of Marriage in the Modern Family (Eph. 5:25-27) Chris Altrock, May 27, Sunday Morning Message

“The Power of Love” is the title of a song by a group called Huey Lewis and the News.  It was written for the 1985 blockbuster film “Back to the Future.”  The song was very popular, giving the band their first number-one hit.  There are probably many reasons for the song’s fame—a catchy tune, a tie-in with a hit movie, etc.  But perhaps one reason this song gained such acclaim is that it resonates with a storyline that is woven deep into human culture.  The band touched on an ancient narrative in these words: “The power of love is a curious thing; Make one man weep, make another man sing; Change a hawk to a little white dove; More than a feeling that’s the power of love… Make a bad one good make a wrong one right; Power of love that keeps you home at night; You don’t need money, don’t take fame; Don’t need no credit card to ride this train; It’s strong and it’s sudden and it’s cruel sometimes; But it might just save your life; That’s the power of love.”  The band sang of love as something that transformative.  One person, with the right type of love, can transform another person from a hawk to a dove.  The right kind of love can make a bad person become good.  It can make a wrong person become right.  One person loving another in just the right way can save that person’s life.  Human love, the band was saying, has a transforming power.

This is a theme that shows up again and again in old and new forms.  In 2009 Disney took the Grimm brother’s fairy tale “The Frog Prince” and animated it in their feature “The Princess and the Frog.”  In this story, Prince Naveen has been turned to a frog by a witch doctor.  Tiana has also been turned to a frog.  Over the course of their misadventures, the pair of humans-now-frogs fall in love.  And when they are wed, and they kiss, the curse is lifted and they are transformed into a beautiful couple.  The love between Prince Naveen and Tiana has a transforming power.  Their love for one another changes them from slimy and ugly frogs into a gorgeous bride and a handsome groom.

In 2011 filmmakers adapted Alex Flinn’s novel Beastly into a feature-length film.  It is set in modern-day New York City.  Kyle is a handsome yet arrogant and selfish student who is transformed into a gruesome and scarred figure by a witch.  She makes him as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside.  He has one year to find someone who can love him in spite of what he looks like.  Toward the end of the movie, a classmate names Lindy falls for Kyle.  Lindy learns to love him and she’s glimpses the man he could become.  This love transforms him.

Disney’s 1991 retelling of “Beauty and the Beast” was the first animated film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.  A young prince is turned into a hairy beast when he mistreats an enchantress disguised as an old beggar.  Through a series of events Beast and a woman named Belle meet.  Though she is at first sickened by Beast and despises him, she comes to see something within him.  And she falls in love with him.  This love, in the end, transforms him:

That’s the power of love.  It can change a hawk to a little white dove.  It can make a bad one good and a wrong one right.  It might just save your life.

Why are stories and songs like these so popular?  I think their fame comes from the fact that they are rooted in a much truer and older narrative.  We find the plot on which all these stories are based in Scripture.  For example, when the prophet Ezekiel searched for a way to communicate the nature of God and his relationship with us, Ezekiel told a story of a rejected person who is transformed by love:  ⁴ And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. ⁵ No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.  ⁶ “And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ ⁷  I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.  ⁸ When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. ⁹ Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. ¹⁰  I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. ¹¹  And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. ¹² And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. ¹³ Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil.  You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. ¹⁴ And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God. (Ez. 16:4-14 ESV)  This unpleasant and unattractive human is despised and rejected by others because of her repulsive nature.  Her birth cord was not cut.  She was not washed of the filth of childbirth.  She was cast out on the open field and abhorred.  But God sees her wallowing in her own blood and breathes life into her.  His love nurtures her.  He bathes her and anoints her with oil.  He places fine clothes on her.  He adorns her with radiant jewelry.  The result?  Her renown goes forth among the nations because of her beauty.  And notice that the beauty was not her own.  God says “And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you.”   She becomes beautiful because of God.  Ezekiel is telling us that God’s love has a transforming power.

Paul tells this same story in Ephesians 5: …Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Eph. 5:25-27 ESV).  This is the story told by Ezekiel.  Paul doesn’t say it here, but earlier in Ephesians he describes this bride as a woman as good as dead, involved in the kinds of things we can’t even speak about this morning (Eph. 2:1-3).  But this unpleasant and unattractive human becomes the object of Christ’s adoration.  He pays dearly to have the chance to woo her.  He washes her.  He cleanses her filth.  What others have rejected he embraces.  And by her love she is transformed.  She is sanctified.  The word “sanctify” refers to a supernatural process by which a human goes from deplorable to adorable, from ghastly to gorgeous, and from loathsome to lovely.  The result is a bride who is arrayed in splendor.  Not a stain.  Not a wrinkle.  Not a blemish on her.  She is gorgeous.  God’s love has this transforming power.

And notice the point.  Jesus does not love her because she is beautiful.  She becomes beautiful because Jesus loves her.  By herself, she is beastly.  She needs to be cleansed.  On her own, she is filthy and unpleasant.

The reality is that every one of us is that us is that bride.  Each of us has a dark side.  A part of us that is beastly.  If we appeared on the outside the way we appear on the inside, people would gasp in horror.  If our faces revealed the state of our hearts, no one could stand to be around us.  In moments of clarity, we know this.  In moments of honesty, we admit this.  And what we long for, more than anything else, is for someone to love us in spite of that dark side.  Someone whose love just might change us into someone better.

Contemporary musician Kelly Clarkson sings about this in her recent hit “Dark Side”:

There’s a place that I know; It’s not pretty there and few have ever gone; If I show it to you now, will it make you run away; Or will you stay, even if it hurts? Even if I try to push you out will you return? And remind me who I really am? Please remind me who I really am. Everybody’s got a dark side. Do you love me? Can you love mine? Nobody’s a picture perfect.  But we’re worth it.  You know that we’re worth it. Will you love me, even with my dark side? Like a diamond from black dust, it’s hard to know what can become if you give up.  So don’t give up on me, please remind me who I really am.  Don’t run away.  Don’t run away.  Just tell me that you will stay.  Promise me you will stay.  Don’t run away.  Don’t run away.  Just promise me you will stay.  Promise me you will stay.  Clarkson voices the deep longing of all of us.  What we want more than anything is someone who will love us in spite of our dark side.  Someone who won’t run away.  Someone who knows we’re worth the pain of loving.  Someone whose love can transform us from black dust to the diamond we were meant to be.

And Jesus is that someone.  We’re the beast.   But he can change us into something beautiful.  He loves us in spite of those dark sides.  He loves you in spite of the filth and the muck of your life.  He doesn’t love you because you are beautiful.  But his love can make you beautiful.  His love is capable of transforming you from deplorable to adorable, from ghastly to gorgeous, and from loathsome to lovely.  God’s love has a transforming power.

And that story which is reflected in these modern songs, contemporary movies, old fables and in Ezekiel and Ephesians is the story that speaks to the purpose of marriage.  Last Sunday we looked at the prominence of marriage—why marriage matters.  And we saw that marriage matters because it is a reproduction of the gospel.  This morning we’re looking at the purpose of marriage.  What purpose should a husband or a wife pursue in a marriage relationship?  What is the goal that a husband or a wife should pursue in a marriage?  Paul puts it this way: ²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, ²⁶ that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

This story of transforming love is to be the guiding story for marriage, according to Paul.  What is the purpose of marriage?  What is the point of marriage?  Ideally, Paul’s teaching here shows that marriage is the relationship in which a husband and wife love one another with the kind of love that helps transform the spouse into Jesus’ beautiful bride.  Paul is not just pointing to the transforming love of Jesus as some disconnected example.  He’s saying that this love is the model for the love between a husband and wife.  In marriage, a wife loves the husband with a love that helps transform that husband into Jesus’ beautiful bride.  A wife pursues the purpose of loving her husband so much that he begins to look more and more like the man Jesus wants him to be.  In marriage, a husband loves the wife with a love that helps transform the wife into Jesus’ beautiful bride.  A husband pursues the purpose of loving his wife so much that she begins to look more and more like the woman Jesus wants her to be.  A husband does not love a woman because she is beautiful.  She becomes beautiful because of her husband’s love.  A wife does not love a man because he is handsome.  He becomes handsome because of his wife’s love.  Marriage is the ultimate context in which two people strive to help one another become the person Jesus knows they can be.  In marriage a husband a wife remind each other who they really are and they patiently and persistently love the other until that black dust becomes a diamond.  The purpose of marriage is for two people to help transform one another—by love—into the people Jesus knows they can be.

This turns modern ideas about marriage on their head.  Most today think you marry a person because that person is so beautiful.  Paul teaches something different.  You don’t love a person because he or she is beautiful.  He or she becomes beautiful because you love that person.  What we should be looking for in a potential spouse is not someone with the greatest beauty.  Not someone who is a finished product.  What we should be looking for is someone who has great potential to become truly beautiful.  Tim Keller writes this, “My wife, Kathy, often says that most people, when they are looking for a spouse, are looking for a finished statue when they should be looking for a wonderful block of marble. Not so you can create the kind of person you want, but rather because you see what kind of person Jesus is making.”[1]  We are seeking a person who can become the bride Jesus wants them to be.  And we join Jesus in transforming that person with our love.

Not only does this keep us from looking for the wrong kind of person to get married to, it keeps us from leaving the right person once we are married.  Again, Timothy Keller writes, One spouse looks at his or her spouse’s weaknesses and says, “I need to find someone better than this.” But the great thing about the model of Christian marriage we are presenting here is that when you envision the “someone better,” you can think of the future version of the person to whom you are already married. The someone better is the spouse you already have. God has indeed given us a desire for the perfect spouse, but you should seek it in the one to whom you’re married.[2]  Everybody’s got a dark side.  Paul’s model of marriage acknowledges the dark side.  It admits that your spouse can be a beast.  But it also shows that you’re already married to someone better.  Jesus is making them into someone better.  And he’s placed you by their side to love them and help them transform into that better person.

And the result of that kind of stubborn love, a love that won’t quit, a love that won’t run away, will be nothing less than life changing.  One final quote from Timothy Keller: When two Christians who fully understand this stand before the minister all decked out in their wedding finery, they realize they’re not just playing dress-up. What they’re saying is that someday they are going to be standing not before the minister but before the Lord. And they will turn to see each other without spot and blemish. And they hope to hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servants. Over the years you have lifted one another up to me. You sacrificed for one another. You held one another up with prayer and with thanksgiving. You confronted each other. You rebuked each other. You hugged and you loved each other and continually pushed each other toward me. And now look at you. You’re radiant.”[3]

Marriage becomes a relationship in which we finally find a human who, just like Jesus, loves us in spite of our dark side; reminds us who we really are; knows that we are worth the pain and promises to stay and not run away.  Marriage becomes a relationship in which their love changes us, and our love changes them.    It becomes that relationship in which we truly experience the power of love.