Christian Marriage

Christian Marriage : an alternative view.

Most theology as experienced by fundamentalists arises out of the experience of the Reformation.  That period of time represented the breaking away of Christians from pseudo-piety of the medieval church.  Subsequent 20th century churches have evolved from that tradition, but in doing so have often reverted back to an Old Testament interpretation of the life of Christ.  --  “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” !!

The early church celebrated actions not things.  Jesus created no new rituals or celebrations.  Events had been distinguished in rituals for decades and centuries before His life.  The mystical significance of water, light, and the breaking of bread, had been celebrated from nearly the beginning of Man’s existence.  “Communion”, the breaking of bread in fellowship with other Christians, was a way in which the ordinary Christian celebrated his or her communicating with other members.  Christians were a group of people with a common awareness of their life in Christ.  Ministry was action that applied to each individual Christian, not just the Elder or Bishop who orchestrated the celebrations.

As the sense of fellowship declined, so did the sense of being church decline.  The celebration of, for example, initiation into the Church, or communion with other members became “things” that you “went to church” to “receive."  Marriage became separate from the shared story of a couple’s gradual coming together and the couple became recipients of a thing, rather than celebrants in an ongoing “mysterium” celebrating the union between man and woman (Ephesians 5:32).  This letter clearly refers to the marital relationship not the ceremony, a celebration of the love of God experienced and related to one’s own story, a sacred reflection on experience.

For many centuries marriage has been seen as a contract, the liturgy centering around the exchange of consent and the terms of specific legal bonds.  However for Christians marriage is a covenant, a celebration and ceremony that “seals” the couple’s commitment.  If the couple’s coming together is a gradual process of growth, accommodation and acceptance; then the meaning of their union lies in the shared experiential understanding, not in the thing of marriage.  One can conceive that this whole process should be celebrated, not just the final legality.

Thus living together, sexual intimacy would become part of the process of relationship that would eventually lead into the Covenant of Marriage, celebrated within the body of the whole Church.  The ceremony would be analogous to a Rite of Initiation into a new aspect of reflection, and a new “life” within the Body of Christ on Earth — the Church.  The grace, or Holy Spirit, flowing from that celebration would be intimately bound up with individual desire for that spirit, awareness of the process by which the person comes to that state, and conscious choice towards the covenant of man with woman, of the couple with God.

Many moral Christians feel that they need to experience that commitment growing within their relationship before they can stand before a Christian community and call that community to witness the solemn and binding covenant of marriage.  The couple want to discover that there is a sacrament before they can celebrate it.  Genuine Celebration is seen as action rather than object.  The Covenant made between two people is a loving and infinite promise made more meaningful with the understanding of the original Covenant made between God and His people and renewed by the Coming and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?

The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.                    I Corinthians 15, 55-56