One recent Saturday afternoon I sat among the folks gathered to witness a wedding. Tissues dabbed throughout the audience as memories washed over the crowd. When the father and bride moved toward the front I remembered walking my own two daughters down the isle escorting them toward the men they had chosen as companions for life.
At times I’ve also watched as two young people each picked up a container filled with colored sand. With some difficulty, (poetically appropriate!) they pour their two different individual “sands” into a new single container. The symbolism is fitting and profound; two have become one. The word marriage means joining. There would be almost no possible way to divide that sand out into individual piles again! And such was the Lord’s intent as He provided the commentary in Mat. 9:6.
“And He answered and said to them, "Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, '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 then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." (Mat. 19:4-6).
The words about which the Lord asked, “have you not read...” came from the very first book of the Bible, Genesis. Since Jesus was part of the creation of the “first pair,” there was literally no one on earth who had a better understanding of the intention of God to make a permanent bond in the act of marriage.
Every day being married is not delightful. Every experience is not wonderful. Every memory is not great, but ... the whole is wonderful! The creator of all things created men and women for each other. In every way they are companions -- by design.
It is an indescribable experience to stand with parents or grandparents as they share a 50th wedding anniversary! There is a glow and satisfaction that wells up into the heart of children and grandchildren to witness mature love that has grown for a lifetime. That is multiplied more when the couple is also joined in Christ.
The powers of the world are attempting to destroy God’s creation of marriage. Among some they will succeed. But I believe the Lord’s words that until He comes at the end of the world, people will continue to enjoy God’s great gift of marriage (Mat. 24:37-39).
-Tim Orbison