Easter Sunday March 31st, 2024
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Eph 5:25)
It is hardly a novel thing to say that American Christianity has shaped in her church a myopic, overly individualistic version of the story of the work of salvation. When most American Christians think of the gospel they think of the message that Jesus Christ died on the cross to save “me” from “my” sins. Jesus died for you and me, so that we could spend eternity with him in heaven. Right?
As we have pointed out with other common ideas from the American church, it isn’t that this thinking is wrong, it is just that it is myopic, or nearsighted. It falls short of the big picture. And to be honest, it plays into our naturally narcissistic natures. It makes the story about us, when it just isn’t. Thankfully the story includes me, but it isn’t about me. The real story is far more grandiose and dramatic.
The epic saga of scripture is introduced in the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible, and it begins with this idea:
Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
In the next chapter, more detail is revealed about this metanarrative:
2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him . . . . 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept 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;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
I would offer that this very first love story told in the pages of scripture is a dramatic symbolic foreshadowing of the most remarkable plan of God for all of history. It reveals God’s plan and purpose for his only, unique son Jesus Christ, and the bride he intends to present to him in human history in order to fulfill God’s mandate of ruling and subduing the earth.
There just aren’t any words adequate to convey the high drama.
We are told this story explicitly by the Apostle Paul in the book of Ephesians that the marriage between a man and women is a picture of Christ’s relationship with the Church:
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her (died on the cross, fell into a deep sleep - a common metaphor for death), 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. 28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body (bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh). 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
It is no coincidence that a key detail in the crucifixion of Jesus, who is compared to the first man Adam from Genesis extensively by Paul in Romans 5, includes getting speared in the side to ensure his death. It was out of that irrefutable evidence of death, demonstrated by water and blood gushing out of his side, that God provided for the creation of Christ’s bride.
1 John 5:6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.
There are several stories from the gospels that give us insight into the way the story of Jesus overlaps with the story of Christian marriage. In Luke 19 Jesus tells the story of himself as a nobleman that left his home (shall leave his father and mother) to go away to a far country to receive for himself a kingdom. The story tells us that the nobleman was rejected by the people, but in spite of that initial rejection, when he later returns to receive the kingdom, Jesus shares something that is so shocking most of us skip right over it. He says:
Luke 19:27 But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’”
In Luke 19 Jesus is using a parable, which functions as a metaphor for a plan that is literally going to play out in the future. We are given more specific details about this plan, upon the return of Jesus Christ to the earth, found in the book of Revelation in the section called “the letter to the seven churches”:
Revelation 2:24 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. 25 Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end (the one who doesn’t succumb to apostate teaching within the church and holds fast to the Apostolic tradition and practice of the true Christian Church), to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28 And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’
This story is the reason if you were to visit our website at fmclamesa.com, the very first thing you are going to see is a picture of the cross with the Christogram “IHS” etched on it (which simply stands for the name “Jesus Christ”), and the words written large and in gold letters “Training for Greatness”. There is much more behind that summons to the people who call this place home than just a catchy slogan. We mean that quite literally. There just aren’t word’s big enough to capture the calling that God has placed upon us to become a wife who is “a helper fit for him”.
We are being trained by the hardships we suffer. We are being made fit through the temptations we are waiting and working patiently to overcome, refusing to surrender in defeat to them even though we seem to fighting a losing battle many times. We are developing courage and strength to unashamedly remain faithful in our beliefs and practice in the midst of an increasing decadent culture and apostate church.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim March 31, 2024 (Easter Sunday), as Transgender Day of Visibility.
And we have to put aside childish ways of thinking. Church we have to develop an appetite for the meat of the Word of God. There are trials approaching the faithful church which cannot be withstood with the Christianity we have practiced in America over the past 100 years. That Christianity is going to be dismantled so that God can bring forth his plan for all of the ages, producing a wife as a helper that is made fit to rule alongside of his Son. We have a place in the plan, but it will only be secured by our agreement and participation to go into strict training in Godliness.