“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”

This passage, found in Genesis 2:24 and echoed in Ephesians 5:31, provides for us the perfect definition of marriage.

The first important image we see is a man leaving both “his father and his mother”.  He is not leaving “his father and his father’s wife” as if to assume a different woman than his mother.  Likewise, he is not leaving “his mother and her husband”.  This implies a longevity of marriage, that a man and his wife remain married for the long haul.

The second important image we see is a man being united with his wife.  He is not being united with his girlfriend, his fiance, or his wives.  Neither is he being united with his husband.  He is being united with his one and only wife.

The final important image we see in this verse is the two becoming one flesh after the man being united with his wife.  This carries two important points of marriage simultaneously: that sexual relationships take place within the confines of marriage and that sexual union carries a great weight with it, such that the man and wife are considered to be one in the eyes of God.

We see in this passage a permanent union between one man and one woman with sexual abstinence until after the marital union.  Not only this, but we also see a pattern of this definition of marriage with the man’s father and mother.

This Biblical definition of marriage has been under attack for many years now.  In fact, we even see this issue under attack in the pentateuch.  Nothing that we face today is new, and the Biblical definition of marriage will remain if the church continues to fight for it.

The reason why we must fight for it is found in Ephesians 5:32, the very next verse after the one we have been looking at.  It says, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”  Christ is the man and the church is the woman mentioned in verse 31.  

Christ pursues the church as his one bride.  Christ pursues her in purity.  Christ pursues her for an eternal union.  This perfect metaphor loses its weight if we refuse to fight for marriage.  Christ loved the church so much that he died to make her pure.  Refusing to fight for marriage takes this sacrifice for granted.

I am not so naive to assume everyone here has a perfect marriage.  In fact, I do not assume anyone here has a perfect marriage, free of selfishness.  Christ's pursuit of His bride, though, gives us the grace we so dsperately need; and as we move forward, we fight with this grace in hand.

As we take communion, we remember Christ’s body which was broken and His blood which was spilled out.  He died to redeem the church, and while this act of Communion is done to remember His death in fellowship with our brothers and sisters, our marriages represent his ultimate love to the world around us.

Few narratives are recorded in all four Gospels (see comments for more information), so when we find an account in all four, we must note that it is significantly important to the Gospel narrative.  Similarly, if a passage found in two of the synoptics is affirmed in John, it carries a similar Gospel weight.

One story that is found in Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, and John 6 is the Feeding of the Five Thousand.  While there are other miraculous feedings recorded in the Gospels, this is the only one found in all four.  Knowing this, it can be easy to wonder what the Gospel significance in this particular story holds over any of the other feedings.

The significance is multiplied by the fact that the very next passage in Matthew, Mark, and John is Jesus Walking on the Water.  This is not the only account of Jesus calming a storm, but it is the only one told by more than one author.  Both passages carry import Gospel weight, and this weight is seen by their juxtaposition.

Jesus miraculously feeds a multitude in the wilderness, then he divinely protects his disciples as they cross a body of water.  It is essential that these two events happen back to back, because they reflect another account of a juxtaposed feeding in the wilderness and divine crossing of a body of water safely.

In Exodus 14, God leads His people through Moses to the edge of the Red Sea.  As the Egyptians are approaching, they cry out to God, and he guides them across the sea on dry ground to the other side.  After a time of rejoicing, God immediately provides water (Exo 15) and bread (Exo 16) in the wilderness.  

God led His people across the water safely, and God fed the multitude in the wilderness.  The accounts in the Gospels do more than just tell of two interesting miracles Jesus performed.  They affirm Jesus Christ is God.  

The reason why the order of events are switched is also important.  There is a poetic device where a pair of words, images, or ideas are repeated in reverse order; and the reverse is always to draw attention to the importance of the words, images, or ideas.  This device is called a chiasm.

“Chi” is the Greek letter “X”, so if you imagine the two thoughts written out, then reversed in the line underneath, you would need to draw an “X” to match the original ideas together.  I do not believe it is a coincidence that the word “Christ” in Greek begins with the letter “X”, and that the letter “X” resembles a Cross.

The God claim in the chiasm is further expanded in Mark’s narrative of the walking on the water.  In Mark 6:48, it says that Jesus “meant to pass them by.”  On the surface, this sounds like it meant that Jesus meant to cross the sea unnoticed; but this does not agree with God’s omnipotence.  If God is all powerful He would neither need to cross the sea (even on foot!) nor would He ever accidentally be seen crossing the sea if it was His intention to pass by unnoticed.

“Pass them by” must then mean something else.  

In Exodus 33, Moses is on Mount Sinai with God, and God offers Moses a chance to have anything.  Moses asks God to show him His glory.  This was not a little task, because a full on view would kill Moses.  Instead, God places Moses in a crack in the mountain; and as God “passed him by”, Moses was able to catch a glimpse of His glory out of his peripheral vision.

Jesus did not intend to walk passed His disciples unnoticed.  Just the opposite!  He meant to show His disciples that He was God.

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After the crossing of the Sea of Galilee, Matthew and Mark depict a narrative of Jesus’ healings, but John’s Gospel shares a narrative of Jesus being approached by many of the five thousand who had recently been fed by Jesus.  They asked him for more bread and Jesus told them that more bread would only lead to more empty stomachs.  What they really needed to be satisfied was to eat of His flesh and drink of His blood.

Today, we hear this language and we are familiar with it.  We eat his flesh and drink his blood every week, and we are about to do so again; but when Jesus said these words, there was no context of communio, and the multitude was perplexed to say the least.  But, to those close to Jesus, to those who truly did seek him and trust him, this eerie message made perfect sense.

In Luke’s Gospel, after the feeding of the five thousand, instead of Jesus walking on the water, Luke skips to another narrative that is recorded in all four Gospels -- Peter confessing the Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.  Peter witnessed the feeding, he even took home a basket of leftovers; he witnessed Jesus walking on the water and even joined Him momentarily; and when Jesus told the crowd to eat His flesh and drink His blood, he said “Yes.”  

Later, he would partake in the first communion, in full belief that Jesus was God.  Today, we join with him.

“Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad”

These words begin a prayer that every good Jew prays at least twice daily.  It means “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is One.”  This simple phrase, found in Deuteronomy 6:4, and even just the first word, “Shema”, represents the entirety of the prayer.  The prayer goes on to command Israel to write these words on their doors and gates, and to even wear this written word on their hands and on their foreheads.

Even I decided a few months ago to have it permanently written on my arm.  Now, my tattoo is a gross misrepresentation of a literal translation of this passage; but I still did it for reasons explained later in the passage.  This prayer begins with a call to worship, and the remainder of the prayer explains why for two broad reasons: for the work God has already done for us, and for the work He has yet to do.

Deuteronomy 6:5 states “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”  This should be easily recognized as Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees when they asked Him which command was the greatest.  The Pharisees were among the good Jews quoting this passage three times daily and wearing the scrolls on the foreheads and hands.  They had this passage written on their doors and gates.  Yet, they failed to understand it’s meaning, or they would have known just great it was.

Something you might notice is a difference to the passage in Mark 12:30, “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  This word wasn’t simply added out of the blue.  It was added while translating the Hebrew to the Greek (see comments for more information).  When we say “I love you with all of my heart”, we meant it “I love you with every fiber of my being.”  The Greeks used a similar translation to what we have now, but in the Hebrew language, heart meant more “I love you with everything I believe” working in both “fiber of my being” and “knowledge and understanding”.

With this understanding, we should take Deuteronomy 6:5 to mean “Love the LORD your God with every fiber of your being, with everything that you think, with everything that you do, and with everything that you feel.”  The prayer does not end there, though.  It gives examples of how we can love Him, by obeying the Scriptures with our hands and our heads, and by using the Scriptures to guard our homes and our families.  By using Scripture to faithfully equip the next generation to faithfully equip the next generation.

But the prayer does not end there either.  It goes on to explain why we should worship Him.  We worship Him because he saved us from the bonds of Egypt and the bonds of sin and death.  He sent His Son as our Passover lamb so that our sins would be fully atoned for.  Not only that, we worship Him for the land he is about to give to us, filled with houses we didn’t build and cisterns we didn’t dig; a life of fulfillment we do not deserve but have been given nonetheless.  So we worship Him, not just in private with our hearts and our minds, but we physically take the bread and cup with one another.

The prayer also says that we do these physical things so that one day when our children ask us why--when my daughters ask me why we take communion, why we get baptized, why I got this tattoo--we can share the Gospel with them, so that one day they might share in this worship with us.