2140AFC100121 – Bless God for Consecration
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1 John 4:12 – 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Mark 10:6-9 – 6 But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.
The liturgy this weekend in many churches will focus on marriage and the pledges given to God and to each other by men and women who share the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. That is a topic I would love to write about because it is such a perfect exemplar of the wisdom of God’s Creation and God’s Plan. The readings on October 3, 2021 come from Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 128, Hebrews 2:9-11, and Mark 10:2-16. All of these passages make references to the blessings inherent in a happy and consecrated relationship between a man and a woman. It is just one of the countless ways God blesses us in ways that show us – by example – how his universe and his law work together to make our lives replete with blessings. I will share with you an example of how a man and a woman living a life consecrated to God can begin. This is a lyric I wrote for my sister Merilee’s wedding many years ago.
MY LOVE, MY JOY
My love. My joy
I will want you all my life
Close to me
And yet, still free.
We shall be
One My Love
Together we will reach for stars
And always find them near.
With Jesus as our constant friend
We’ll have nothing to fear.
When times get rough,
Or things go bad,
We’ll stand together
Hand in hand
My Love. My Joy.
This will be our first of days.
My Love. My Joy.
With this ring I do thee wed.
Just to refresh our memories, let’s look at how God gifted Adam with a corresponding earthling: Genesis 2:21-25 – 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man*, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman** and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” 24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
* אּישׁ (ish) {eesh} – man, husband
** נָשִׁים (ishshah) {ish-shaw’} – woman, wife
In the passage above, we have a description of how God brought about this marvelous duality of beings. Eve was created from the flesh and bone of Adam. You might call it mythology, but I call it Common Sense. Here’s why:
God had created animals out of the clay even as Adam was created, and Adam gave them names (↔ Music Link). When God saw that none of those were suitable for a companion and helpmeet for the man, he took part of the man and made of that a partner for him. Adam liked the change! He took one look at Eve and said, “at last!” I have a suitable companion. That joy in seeing Eve was a blessing for God. It made God happy to see Adam happy, and I dare say Eve was happy to see Adam as well. She was, quite literally, “made for him.” Talk about love at first sight! But, as we well know, later those two came to a rough patch in the road. Maybe it had something to do with the quality of materials used to create them?
Man comes from dirt, and – as I have often said here – that pretty well defines his character – dirt. Woman comes from dirt that had been improved by making it a living being; woman was created from the flesh of the man. Woman, it could be said, was created from better ingredients, not just dirt, but improved dirt. I might be borrowing from Papa John Pizza a little – “Better Ingredients. Better People.” Men – who come from dirt, remember – have a hard time accepting that “first” is not directly-equal to “better.” I am reminded of “The Diaries of Adam and Eve” as translated by Mark Twain:
Adam: “Dear Diary. This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don’t like this: I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals. (To himself) Cloudy today, wind in the east, think we shall have rain. We? Where did I get that word? I remember now, the other creature uses it.”
When a married couple learns that the pronoun “WE” is the appropriate pronoun for a couple, that is when God is also praised, because that is when God’s intentions for Man and Woman come together. They are “one flesh” and – in many ways it seems – also one soul if everything is working well. I cordially invite you to look back with me to February 14, 2011 for a special message about how that works for Crucita and me! We have celebrated that Wedding Day for over 52 years – 2737 weeks – and there is still Love (↔ Music Link)
Please take a look at the key next to today’s Key Verses. You see the three rings? That’s what a consecrated marriage is all about – the three of us opening doors to ever-greater blessings. Wait, why is it three? Well, there’s you and there’s me and Jesus makes three. In our courting days, Crucita and I came to complete and irrevocable agreement on living a Christ-centered marriage. It’s always “we three.” Once Crucita was explaining that to a child and he replied, “It must be crowded in bed that way.” Well, no, it’s not crowded because we all share equally. Note that in the key, the circles are of equal size. There’s a better way to understand that. Do you remember Venn Diagrams? Take a look at this one:
The heart of a consecrated marriage – the place where love lives eternally – is right there in the middle of that. Each contributor has room to express self, and also shares equally with self and other. When all-self and all-other share equally, all is well because all is Blessed. Sometimes some folks have a hard time believing that a married life, a consecrated married life, is a blesséd life. That’s the imperfection of humanity expressing itself and sort of smudging up the edges and intersections of those circles. God knows what it is supposed to look like though, and he sends us directions for corrections. That’s one way God blesses us. It’s also one way we bless God.
We see these words “bless the Lord” in scripture so many times, especially in the Psalms (see Psalms 16, 68, 104, and 134 for samples). When I think of a blessing, I usually think of a gift, a really nice gift, which God has given me. “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts ….” He blesses me constantly with food, shelter, love, friendships, knowledge, skills, abilities, feelings, beautiful surroundings, temporal comforts, and (best of all) Salvation. Anything I have, I have only because it came from him so anything I return to him was already his in the first place. How is that a blessing? How can someone who is clearly insignificant give a gift that makes the Infinite greater? Or maybe I just don’t understand what “bless” means.
Here I go again, looking at the real words used in the real Bible so I can understand the real meaning. The word used in verses 1 and 2 is the Hebrew word “barak” which means “bless.” It looks like this: ברך barak {baw-rak’}. Among the synonyms are bless, salute, blessing, praise, kneel down, congratulate, give thanks, and to be adored. Now, that makes more sense! If I add all of that together, I come up with “worship” or “honor” or “reverence.” I am not trying to confer my favor on God; I am offering him my recognition of his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, and Omnibenevolence. I am acknowledging he is God and I am not. I am extolling, praising, exalting, applauding, revering, lauding, and glorifying God. And there’s another one of those words! Glorify God. God is the penultimate Glory. So that makes me wonder …
Q: What can my puny existence add to his Glory?
A: Nothing.
Q: What does God need from me?
A: Nothing.
Q: Then what can I give to God?
A: Everything.
Huh?
Q: If he’s got everything and he created everything and he is everything and he’s in everything, and everything I have comes from him … how can I give him everything?!?
A: By extolling, praising, exalting, applauding, revering, lauding, glorifying, and thanking God. That is how we bless God.
There is also the idea throughout the Bible that blessed and happy are the same thing. “Blessed are the poor in spirit …, blessed are those who mourn…, blessed are the meek…, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness….” We know those blessings mean “happy are those who….” So I believe we can also bless God in the sense that we make him happy. He does everything he can to make us happy, so we surely can think of some things we can do to make him happy. In fact, we have a whole Book called the Bible which is full of ways to make him happy. One of the best ways he recommends is to make him happy by loving each other because he loves us and because we love him. Love. My Love. That is something I can give to God that is mine to give even though I received it first from him (please follow this link to 1 John 4:19 to see what I mean). And it’s just what he wants, too. Note I did not say it’s just what he needs; he doesn’t need anything from me; but, he will accept my love. He will accept your love. Most remarkable of all, he accepts and participates in the consecrated love in Holy Matrimony.
And do you know what else? He will accept our love! When you and I take the love he has given us, break it up, multiply it, and share it with each other … we can give that multiplied love to him too. When we bless the Lord, it is because we have understood that we are blessed by him. When we understand that blessing, we understand better how to recognize the blessings he keeps heaping into our lives. We feel grateful, so grateful that we bless him for his goodness.
Adam and Eve were Consecrated by God to God For God. Validly married couples share that blesséd state; it is what God intended from the get-go.
God created man for God, not as God, but for God. God created Woman for man and only for man – not for woman, not for beast, not for abuse or neglect – for man; and in and with man, Woman is created for God. They are consecrated by God to God for God and for each other. Sin has corrupted that Consecration, but sin has not eliminated that Consecration. Earthlings have tried mightily for all of recorded time to get around the idea (and ideal) of that Consecration, and they’ve made quite a mess of Life because of those efforts, BUT we have not eliminated the holiness of being created to serve God together as one flesh – as one entity if you will. In our sinful stubbornness, we’ve tried thousands of ways to wiggle out of that – everything from divorce, to prostitution, to domestic violence, to gender confusion, to character assassination. All of those things are wrong because they contravene the Holy Consecration of Man and Woman to God. We have made prodigious efforts to essentially slap God in the face for daring to create us as complementary, harmonizing, paired beings. We have demanded that God “stay out of our business” so we can redefine his Gift of Consecration according to our own poor judgment. What foolishness that is! (See Isaiah 45:9 and Romans 9:21) Throughout our history we have contrived to make society primarily patriarchal – with a few exceptions of matriarchal structuring. Whichever we choose, we have nearly always forgotten that LEADERSHIP IS NOT OWNERSHIP. (Please reread Ephesians 5:22-33 as a reminder of how God intends Matrimony to be lived.)
Men and women who attempt to replace individual perceptions of self with anything other than what God created us to be forcefully disrupt the essence of human nature. Husbands and fathers who neglect their children and abuse their spouses, wives and mothers who neglect their children and abuse their spouses, men and women who manipulate and abuse each other to satisfy carnal cravings – all of these are contrary to the Creator’s intentions for the descendants of אּישׁ and נָשִׁים. Pause and reflect for a moment on this quote from Matthew Henry (1662-1714):
“Eve was not taken out of Adam’s head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.”
God did not, has not, will not Consecrate or condone any other Matrimony. Earthlings have attempted to change the definition of Matrimony and marriage as a marriage solemnized as a civil contract without religious ceremony between any two human beings regardless of gender. Some have also decided that it’s pointless to even consider marriage when cohabitation – regardless of gender or number – brings psychosocial satisfaction to participants. Let me state as plainly as possible; this is wrong and must be condemned as must all other aberrations of relationships between men and womenbe condemned. It is equally wrong to say, “it’s none of my/your business.” If that’s not acceptable, we’ll have plenty of time between now and the Resurrection to complain about it to God – you see, he makes the rules; we don’t!
Bless the Lord (↔ Music Link), O our souls, and all that is within us bless his Holy Name. That is the Prayer of Gratitude from the heart of a consecrated marriage. How blessed are we who have been gifted in such a Divine way!! My Love. My Joy. We shall be ONE My Love!
Belovéd if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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