Audio of the sermon is here:

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What God has joined together, let no one separate. Let no one separate what God has joined together. And yet, that’s what we love to do! We love to separate and pull apart what God has joined together. It started, of course, in the Garden. God had joined together the man and the woman. This, at last, Adam says, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. This is the reason, Genesis says, why a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. And the two will become one flesh. God brings the woman, whom He had created from the side of the man, and joins these two together again. There was perfect communion, not only between the man and the woman, but between them and God, their Creator.

But they tore apart that union. They listened to words other than God’s, words contrary to God’s words. And they were pulled apart from each other. They had been naked and unashamed. Now they hide behind their own leafy clothing. And they had torn themselves apart from God, trying to be something other than dependent creatures. So they hide from Him as well. Broken, torn apart, divided, separated.

And we haven’t done any better since. We love to pull apart what God joins together. So husbands pull apart from their wives; wives pull apart from their husbands. We tear apart into two what God joined as one flesh. We separate male and female from our versions of so-called “marriage.” We separate the sexual, marital act from marriage. We engage in virtual versions of the marital action, separating real, human bodies from our sexual pleasure. Then, when we have separated sex from marriage, we separate children from both. We don’t see any reason why children ought to have the security of their own mother and father; or when our bodies rebel, we create children apart from the marital act. What God has joined together, we separate. The disciples do it in the next verses, when they try to keep children separate from Jesus. They try to keep apart what God wants together.

It is in the light of this situation of human separation that the Pharisees ask Jesus about whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. This is one of the ways we separate what God joins together: we ask whether it is lawful. Ok, God, Your law says this, but what about in this situation? What if this happens? What about this horrible situation, or what if the other person does this? We like to talk about the extreme cases, the exceptions, and we try to find a loophole in God’s law. But Jesus will have nothing to do with that. He doesn’t go through a list of possible situations and say, “well, it’s ok here, but not here. This is fine; this is not. You’re allowed to do this, but not that.” He will have nothing to do with exceptions and loopholes and extreme cases. In Deuteronomy 24, it’s true, Moses assumes that divorce will happen. But just because something happens, just because people do things, that has literally zero to do with God’s creation or will.

All of this, without any exception, is because people’s hearts are hard. They are hardened against God and against each other, and so they tear apart what God has joined together. It’s what we do, because it’s what our hearts are like. From the beginning, God made them male and female, and it is for this reason that a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. So they are no longer two, independent individuals trying to live their own lives; they are one flesh. And what God joins together, let no person separate. What God has made one flesh, people should not make into two. But hard hearts do as hard hearts are. Sinners are constantly separating what God has joined together.

But God is in the business of joining together what people separate. So the eternal Son joins Himself to time, to creaturely flesh and blood. He takes on the flesh of those who had run from Him, who are still hiding from Him. Just as God made Eve from Adam’s side, so He makes a body for the Son from the flesh of Mary. Here, in this Man, God and people are joined back together. And so the One who is God and Man goes to the cross. And when He dies, His side is opened, and by His death He makes peace between those who had been separated: between God and people, and between people. From His side blood and water pour, and this is how He makes a new bride out of all of us adulterous people, who were friends with the world, and so enemies of God. We had gone our own way, trying to find our own happiness, trying to fulfill our own desires and live on our own terms. But along that way is only death. He took on your flesh and blood, and He gives you Himself so that you will be flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone; one flesh with Jesus. He washes you clean, joins you to Himself, and presents you before Himself holy and blameless, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. This is the great mystery! Human marriage is not the standard for everything; that’s only the image. Christ and the Church are the reality. So whether you are single or married, you are part of His holy bride, chaste and blameless, washed clean in the water and the blood. As the perfect Bridegroom, He sacrificed Himself for your sake, gives you everything that is His, and takes all that is yours as if it were His own. He takes your sin and death (which is all you have to give Him), and He gives you His life and righteousness. You give Him your sin, and He gives you His life-giving body and blood, so that you will be forever joined to Him.

And because He has joined you back to your God and Creator, from whom you were separated, He has also joined you back to your neighbor, from whom also you were separated. Only in Jesus is there any hope of reconciliation, true forgiveness, and real happiness. In this joining together with Jesus is our joy and hope. If you are married, you have a particular, specific opportunity to bear witness to the marriage of Christ with His Church, as Paul describes in Ephesians 5. God has joined you together to be an image in this world of what marriage really is. If you are not married, or not married yet, you are no less a member of the holy bride of Christ, and in your love, forgiveness, and service of one another, you bear witness to the Jesus who has made you His own in baptism. Our lives depend on Christ, not on our marital status. And this witness will exist in this torn-apart world of separation and division until we see Him face to face. It exists here in this place, as we gather around Jesus to receive from Him His perfect words and gifts, rejoicing in His mercy to us. And He will bring us, finally, to the New Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven like a bride adorned for her husband, and we will celebrate with the whole Bride of Christ, in the wedding feast that has no end.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, ESV). Amen.

– Pr. Timothy Winterstein, 10/4/24