Text Ephesians 5 Christ the Spouse and Christian Marriage St. Paulb]
Be Subject to One Another in Christ. Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. 22 Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24 Just as the Church is subject to Christ, so also wives must be subject to their husbands in everything. 25 Love One Another in Christ. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her 26 in order to sanctify her by cleansing her with water and the word,[c] 27 in order to present the Church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such flaw, but holy and without the slightest blemish. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own body; rather, he nourishes it and cares for it, even as Christ does for the Church, 30 because we are members of his body.
31 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery. Here I am applying it to Christ and the Church.
Context>> Paul begins his thoughts with these words in Ephesians chapter 4 and 5:
Eph. 4: 15 Professing truth and love, we will in all things grow into Him Who is the Head, Christ. 16 From him, the entire body, joined and held together by every ligament, continues to grow Eph.5: 2Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a sacrificial offering whose fragrance is pleasing to God. 3 Indeed, fornication and impurity of any kind, as well as greed, should not even be mentioned among you…5 You can be absolutely certain that no immoral or impure person or one who is greedy —that is, an idolater—will have any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no one deceive you with worthless arguments. These are the very things that bring down the wrath of God on those who are disobedient.7 Do not associate with them. 8 Once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light,9 for light produces all goodness and righteousness and truth. 10 Discern what the Lord finds pleasing.
1st Reading today is from Joshua. “Choose Who(m) you will serve.”
Gospel reading is from John.
The Bread of Life teaching is difficult. Some leave Him because of it. Peter says: “Where would we go but to stay and follow You?!+You have the words of eternal life!”
Connection: I am wedded to you, Lord!
Homily
Christ the Husband
It’s a big important chapter among the epistles of Paul. It’s Ephesians chapter 5. Our lector proclaimed a good half of it at the ambo today, from the Lectionary. Bible lovers know this chapter as important to the place of marriage in our faith, as well as to our self-identity as “church” and “spouse” to the Lord.
Here is what I’d like you to get out of Ephesians 5 today, ponder this: The husband to the Church is Jesus Christ.
The husband to the Church is Jesus Christ. Thus, the Lord is your proposed Groom, dear Christian! The Word says, then, here in Ephesians 5, of how we are called to be bride or bridal, to Him (as the wedded one), to Christ the Husband. The Word surely says how Christ Jesus is Husband to us. Let’s concentrate on that view of things.
What is the Husband Christ Jesus like?
These verses from St. Paul tell us. Jesus is a husband that greatly blesses his wife. Also, He lives in love—this is his foundation for everything. The verses also say He loves the Church and gives Himself up for her. That verse of St. Paul reminds us when the Savior said “No greater love than to give one’s self up for a friend. You are my friends…” That’s from John 15:13.
Christ the Spouse (for us) loves us as for a response to Him. It’s an unconditional love from Him. He loves not to get loved, but He hopes we will freely love Him in return, moved by His heart for us. He wants to cleave to us. So says Ephesians 5:31. Cleaving is a physical and spiritual joining up. The Bible calls it to “become one flesh.” This is a good husband’s desire. Jesus’ desire. Like a good partner for life, He has become friends to us, and deeply so.
We had a wedding yesterday in the parish. The Groom says: I marry my dear friend. The Bride says: So do I marry my best friend, and more. It’s a beautiful vow, a sacred and mutual self-giving promise.
God became flesh in Jesus Christ, and so the God/man can indeed become one flesh with us, and wed us.
Have you pondered deeply of Christ Jesus as Husband?
The Old Testament has this image, best expressed in the Song of Songs, in a lofty idea of marriage to suggest God’s faithful love coming for His people. (Ps 45; Song 1:3; Isa 54:4, 8; 62:4-5; Ezek 16; Hos 1:3).
Jesus tells us in His parables the secret that He is the Groom. The one in Matthew 25 is surely about it. Verse 6 has the exclamation: Here is the Bridegroom!
Of course the prophet John the Baptist knew the secret far ahead, calling his role in the Messiah’s life as “the friend attending to the bridegroom.” John 3:23.
St. Paul adds on more to the image, saying: The husband, Who is Christ, loves his wife, the church, even as to hand himself over for her as so to sanctify her, as in her plunging in love into a cleansing bath of water. Hear these verses as your relationship back to Christ the Husband. We all become the woman, the betrothed, in this view of salvation. His love brings you (her) into “a cleansing bath.” So is this an intimate bathing exercise? Is there a Jacuzzi involved? Or spa springs? ☺ I suppose yesterday’s groom could have led his wife up to Berkeley Springs West Virginia today for their famed mineral waters spa! Yet ☺ the cleansing bath, we hear, comes from the Husband’s word, Jesus, that he might present her as to be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but rather to shine in splendor and become holy. Jesus is speaking about all his days of loving us on earth and blessing us in grace until we do meet at the Wedding Feast in Glory, and Jesus IS the Spring of ongoing faithful love Who will help us, the bride, to shine, and become whole. Wow.
We need an intimacy with God through this Lover Jesus, God’s sent One, a husband figure. His close love will present to us a divine work and love that will help us into brilliance! That’s simply brilliant!
Be this Lover to me, O Lord.
He cleanses us by His Word. Jesus the Lord is the One in the Beginning, as Eternal Son, Who said: “Let there be light, and then light came to be in creation.” Genesis 1. Now He is come to love us into His Sacred Heart and His Vivifying Spirit, as like Him speaking “Let there be love” but then, what will happen next? You and I and all peoples have a response to make to Him. It will have to be a free response, and a deeply honest and humble one, and a full, ongoing one, as our hearts say: “Let it be so.” May I love You and may You love me eternally, as in covenant promise.
Amen. So be it. Let it be so. Do you recall when at Mass we say this anew? Think of the Amen(s) you pray from the heart at Mass.
Especially when you pray Amen as the host of Jesus is presented to you.
Especially when the Eucharistic Prayer wraps up with forever and ever. You say Amen.
The Church seeks to prompt you to a fundamental response to God and His will in you, His love in you. The Church asks you to keep making Sunday renewals of it, too.
The priest prepares the congregation to receive the Lamb of God, and prays: Blessed are those who are called to His (wedding) Supper.
You will come forward to renew your love to Jesus at Eucharist. You are saying “yes” or “Amen” to the Groom’s plan for your life. Ephesians 5 asks the bride to make Christ her head. This you can do, for He is the One utterly trustworthy for it.
You may have had a moment when you have dramatically told Jesus how you loved Him, and it may have broke open the relationship for all good things to come. Hopefully, you have entered into your promise to Jesus already, and are living it out. How are you responding to Christ the Husband right now in your life?
If you are new at this, or back from a long absence at this, then pray this today right now. “So be it, Lord Jesus. I will open this heart of mine to Your great love for me, for that saving love, to come into me, right to the core. I thank you for wanting, thus, to love and save me, for I am an unworthy sinner. Like any other person, I cannot save myself, and I would be a fool to try to live for myself over loving you with my whole being. If I’d choose foolishly, then I’d end only with me-myself-and I, and nowhere to go. Instead, I want to be wise and courageous and respond to a wedded love proposal by you. I will lay down my life for you right now in acceptance of your covenant love.”
Sunday, August 25th, 2024. I rsvp from the heart, with a yes to You as my eternal love.
Now for the rest of us, we have an ongoing relationship with Jesus. At Communion time, we express how much we do want the wedded life to God as the bride, the Church. We want to be led to the Glorious Love of God in Jesus Christ, and keep loving Jesus today, very much so. We say Yes all over again to the Groom in every Eucharist. Come up humbly but in real love to have a Eucharistic kiss from Jesus. God gives you love and grace in His Wedding Supper sacrament. God gives you His body. Again. “The Body of Christ” is said. We say: “Amen,” as in: Yes. I take Your body, and as You enter me, so take mine, and all of me. Again. This resounds to that quote from Revelations 19 the priest said: “Blessed are those called to the Supper of The Lamb.”
Take in this heavenly image today of Christ as Husband at a wedding banquet table, and He is dressed for the fulfillment of wedded love.
What has Christ the Husband done for His bride? As Ephesians 5 says: “Everything.” The sacrifices of this Man (and His ultimate laying down of His life at the Last Supper onto Calvary) will be what baptizes her into a long, steadfast relationship with Him. He has brought a covenant act to the world. He offers us to be loved by God unhindered now, via a reconciling meeting with Him and His body and blood. It is so much of what He the Groom does for her—the woman, the bride, the one He proposes to——
Her response is to humbly accept and receive it. What a blessing it is to wed such a man! Then she is to live out this new relationship, as a Christian and as a member of the Church, with a daily walk of love, a re-oriented life that revolves around her amazing Husband, Jesus.
I know that this image might work easier for woman believers. Yet for men, it is for you too, and for husbands, it tells you that you have a high model to imitate in your part in Holy Matrimony. “Love your wives as Christ loves the Church.” says Ephesians 5:25. “Love her in one flesh-ment. Says the text again in verse 32. But then do realize, men, how there is such a Groom in Jesus. We’ll all wed into Him, our Lord. He first loved us, too. He took the lead. From 1st John 4, verse 10 is says: “This is what love is: not that we have loved God, but that He loved us first, and sent His Son as expiation for our sins.”
Nothing has to be in the way of this eternal love, but of our own stubborn non-agreeable spirit to it. Give in to Jesus’ proposal, once again today. Say with your whole heart: I love You, too, Jesus. Forever. ###
Footnotes
And the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery. Christ and the church bound together. As one. Ephesians 5:32
For more on this subject: go to
https://csjohn.org/2018/08/jesus-the-bridegroom/
It is a website from the Monastery of Jesus the Bride-Groom
Or, better yet, listen to the Talk or Read the Book by Brant Pitre: “Jesus the BrideGroom.” Or see the video link for an ND talk of his.
https://youtu.be/olsXrkWAEa8