But Do You Love Me - The Essential Question of Marriage

BUT DO YOU LOVE ME......


Ephesians 5:25-33 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife [see] that she reverence [her] husband.

We stood as the judge walked into the room and was seated. He was given honour by calling him that name. It was my first experience in that room that so many of the broken pieces of our world pass through. I was impressed with the way his Honour was treated.

What I didn't find out until later, as I grew to know the court system, was that almost everyone on that particular stage hated that particular judge. I would have never guessed it by the way everyone acted. It seemed he was deeply respected by all. He was accorded honour on the principle that made our society work a hundred years ago. His tribute was a relic from an age gone by when people honoured offices and consequently people.

Yesterday I phoned a professional nursing office to find out about housing for a widow I was helping. The lady answered the phone and placed me with a counsellor. The lady answered and informed me that I was speaking to "Brenda Jacobs". For a moment I struggled inside of myself. I then asked if I should call her Brenda or Jacobs..... She is a part of a revolution which has changed everything in our world. She will not be known or honoured for her position in marriage.

I am a pastor. I live and work in between the world of the judge and Brenda. I have worked in churches that honoured the role of the pastor highly. I have served in traditions where the pastor had to ask the choir director what his sermon topic should be in order to fit it in with the hymns. In both I have found a mysterious relationship between love, acts of loving and marriage. Almost incidentally I found a wonderful truth about the growth of churches.

Love is like many words which have no physical model to which we can point. We are all sure we know what we mean by it. When we talk to one another we are sure that we are communicating what we mean but often we aren't. Love is this kind of a concept. We often miss what it really is in favour of other concepts like honour or intimacy. Love is neither honour nor intimacy though it cannot truly be in a person's heart without displaying both.

The marriage vow speaks of the honour of keeping a commitment to love until death. It speaks best to that part of the world who still feel a vow is sacred and to be kept in spite of all that occurs to darken the emotions that brought the couple to the day of covenant.

"I didn't love her anymore....." This tragic view of love has crossed my path many times. It sees love through Brenda's eyes. Not a commitment but a feeling.

To her world covenant relationships are not reflective of "reality". Love is either there or not. If it is not then the outward forms have no meaning.

Love in the modern era is intimacy without commitment. It requires real emotions in the heart but when they leave or are not found it does not demand effort to bring them to life again.

How many marriages do I know that have come weekly to my church and stay together through the years because they honour their word.

Countless numbers of people that still stand for the judge though, they hate him, still honour marriage and the lifetime commitment to it. It is here that our brave new world has lost its virtue. It is here that we find the source of almost all marital breakdown.

Marriages are failing externally today because of a lack of honour of promises made. If you do not believe this simply ask a person that recently divorced their spouse (i.e. the one that left) how they feel about the fact that they broke their vow to stay with this person and love them until they died.

If they are like most people that I counsel they will look at you with great amazement.... or anger. They will most likely point out the worthlessness of keeping vows that you no longer "feel". They belong to Brenda's world. They took their vows in the world of the judge but when love as an emotion left they "faced the facts" and decided that his world wasn't real. They lost intimacy and so the relationship was over.

On the other side of this I must say that I hurt deeply for those who just "keep their word". Wives’ faces fill my mind that have literally died from anger they quietly sat on for years in order to save face and "do what is right".

I think of men who in their despair have confessed to me that they were living in a nightmare of external conformity while their hearts had become like bitter poison. The poison was held by the bottle of external keeping of promises made but their power was killing the one in the bottle....themselves. They are the victims of a doctrine that teaches it is enough only to act like you love.

I remember a little church I pastored. It was in the early years of my ministry. I was still an idealist. Almost the first thing they did was put my name up on their sign.

It is funny but at the time I thought it quite odd that one of the board members proudly marched me out to that sign the first week I was there.

In my idealism I thought all churches changed their signs immediately He beamed as he said, "We got your name painted on there as soon as we knew you were coming".

That church grew under my ministry rapidly. They gave me precious memories of what it is like to be loved by a congregation. I preached better for them...I prayed more for them...I visited them with joy and they grew.

A few years later the autumn winds blew the leaves across the yard as I left the house of a parishoner named Bill and his new wife. My new church honoured the pastor highly.

The couple called me pastor Terry all night in spite of my request to drop the formality. I thought about how he had showed me so many pictures of his former wife who was now dead. I could not help but notice the emotions that both displayed. He spoke with deep affection for his former spouse. She became quiet.

I could not put my finger on the emotion I was experiencing until I got to church. As I pulled past the church sign I saw it was still there on the sign....the former pastor's name.

I had come in the early summer yet he was still with me. In fact his name was still on the sign when I left. they never. Oh he had vacated the parsonage. My parishoner's wife had died. They were both still here though. And I felt silence.  

As I prayed that God would take the hurt out of my heart I remembered that unusual board member at my former church who took me out to show me my name on the church sign.

I then knew what was wrong in my parishoner's new marriage. He couldn't see it. He loved his wife who died and that could not be wrong. He honoured marriage. He would be faithful to his new wife, provide for her and in action love her as long as they both would live. I understood that young bride's silence though. I felt it keenly in my new ministry. We were honoured but they were loved.

Inside of my heart that night I came to a clearer understanding of the difference between a good and bad marriage for those who honour that sacred commitment.

Almost in passing I found more evidence of the secret of a church that grows and one that just continues to exist.

It was expressed best through the lips of one who long ago recognized the difference between honour, intimacy and love. One of his disciples had both of the former. He had followed Him all over Galilee. He expressed the commitment he held for him when at His last supper with his beloved friend he proclaimed, "though all forsake you yet will I not".

He had honoured that vow when he bravely fought when his enemies came to take his teacher away.

But before a rooster let out his morning cry he had refused to bear the name of Jesus.

Some weeks later as Jesus sat on that ancient shore where he had first called Peter, he asked him a question which put his life back together. It was the question that finished his attempts to "keep his word" while having a heart far from Him. Jesus would not fill an office. He would not allow a lesser character quality to fill the place where relationships hold together.

It is true that Brenda's world will not support love in the fuller meaning of the word. Love takes commitment. It takes vows that are honoured. We must recover this if marriage is to succeed. But we must not stop there. We must not assume that every marriage must simply reduce to silence in the attempt to "keep the show going".

We must let the penetrating light of truth bring us to our senses. We must not cover the reality of loveless hearts with feigned acts no matter how noble that may seem. Still, we must let the firm resolve to keep our vows force us into action. We must let nothing stand in the way of us answering the master's question to his best friend in truth for the one whom we share the most intimate of all human relationships with.

"Do you love me?", "Yes, you know that I love you".