The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason

Author:Mike Mason [Mason, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76953-4
Publisher: The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group
Published: 2010-11-02T16:00:00+00:00

LOVE WITH A FOCUS

This is not to say that marriage is a narrow, inward-looking clique, a mutual admiration society of two in which each member must expend all available energy in the love of just one person. On the contrary, any marriage that does not recognize its vows as not simply a commitment to one other person, but to all the rest of humanity, is not a marriage worthy of the name. At its most fundamental level, marriage is a union between self and other, and not just with one other, but with all others: with everything that is other, everything that is not self. One recognizes the impossibility of carrying out such a union in any practical terms on earth, yet nevertheless expresses a willingness to do just that, an openness to that ultimate aim, and makes a practical beginning in marriage. One does one’s utmost to be wholly united to just one other person and thereby admits one’s limitations, yet at the same time takes it on faith that a beginning has to be made somewhere, that such a wholehearted commitment has to and can be made somewhere, and that far from being purely symbolic, such an act will in fact render one better able, in practice, to be united in love to all others.

For love is not like a river, confined between two banks. Its very essence is to overflow. But a river that is only half-full cannot overflow, let alone one that is dried up. So the point is not that the exercise of love is so taxing and time-consuming that it must be limited to our homes. On the contrary, the vow of love to one special person is intended to fill us up to the brim with love, to train us in the very depths of love and so to free us to have much more love for others than ever before. For it is not really the love in a home that eats up time and energy but rather the lack of love. That is what really wreaks havoc in our married life, ensnaring us in never-ending self-analysis and robbing us of the energy to love others.

In taking marriage vows, we are doing what the Lord Himself did with Abraham: making a promise of love to one individual. In keeping this promise, we are actually mirroring the Lord’s own faithfulness to all His people, a faithfulness designed from the beginning to spill over to the whole of mankind. Why was it, in the great history of salvation, that the Lord Himself chose to concentrate His efforts on the special covenanted love of one chosen people, declaring to them that “you of all the nations shall be my very own” (Exodus 19:5)? Was it because God had only enough love to spare for one small group of people? Far from it! Rather, it was because love is only love when it is particular, and when the person receiving it is the object of special extremities of attention.

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