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Ephesians 5:21-31
I invite you to open your folders or your Bibles to our second reading for today, Ephesians 5, as we consider what God is saying to us in these words.
This is a hard teaching. Who can listen to it? That’s what the people said when Jesus finished teaching that he is the Bread of Life. What the people considered hard was what Jesus said about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. They wanted being a follower of Jesus to be easy. They didn’t want to have to think too hard or work at understanding what he meant. They just wanted to sit back and have Jesus provide for them and solve all their problems. As a result, many stopped following Jesus.
This morning we are faced with what many today say is a hard teaching. They don’t want to listen to it. Because of this teaching many have turned away from Jesus. Others have pretended that these words aren’t part of the Bible and don’t apply to us today. Like the people who heard Jesus preach about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, people today, including ourselves, want being a follower of Jesus to be easy. We don’t want to spend a lot of time probing the meaning of what God’s word says. We don’t want to be identified with a teaching that is unpopular. And the bottom line is that what God says here about husbands and wives goes against our sinful nature.
Maybe you noticed that the first verse of this lesson seems to start in the middle of something, by submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Some translations make this phrase the start of a new sentence, but it’s really a continuation of the previous thought. It’s one of the ways Paul says that we show we are being filled with the Spirit. As we are filled with the Spirit of God through the word and sacrament, we learn submission, first to God, and then to one another. In view of what God has done for us in Christ, we don’t just look out for our own interests, but the interests of others. We put others before ourselves as Jesus did when he came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom to free us from the punishment we deserve.
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Maybe the best way to illustrate what it means to do something out of reverence for, or in honor of what someone has done for you, comes from Jesus’ parable of the ungrateful servant. Jesus told how a servant owed his master more than he could ever possibly repay. When the master called his debt, he begged for mercy, and the master forgave him, not just a little, he didn’t just reduce the debt to something it was possible for this man to repay; he forgave the whole debt! How wonderful! But remember what the one who had been shown such great mercy did? He immediately went and demanded the repayment of a small debt someone owed him. And when that person begged for mercy he received none. The one who had been shown such great mercy refused to show any mercy to another. He had no reverence for the one who had shown him mercy and forgiven his debt.
Out of reverence for Christ, in honor of all that he has done for you, in honor of the fact that he humbled himself to the point of death on the cross for you, submit to one another. Humbly serve one another in love.
Now, Paul says, if you are submitting yourself to God because you know that he loves you so much that he sent Jesus to take your punishment so that he could forgive your debt that you could never repay, you will also submit to one another. This is what submitting to God and one another looks like within marriage. If you keep reading he also speaks about what submitting to God and one another looks like in a parent/child relationship, and in an employer/employee relationship. But the focus for today is on marriage.
God’s first hard saying through Paul is to wives. Wives submit to your husbands. It’s a hard saying because, as a woman, your sinful nature immediately objects and says, “What? No Way! I’m not submitting to anyone, especially a man. And my husband sure hasn’t done anything to deserve my submission.” And the Devil and the sinful world cheers you on and says, “You go girl!”
The question is, did you listen to what God says all the way through? Did you listen with the ears of faith, out of reverence for Christ? If you did, you understood that God is not saying “submit period.” He explains submission in the context of your relationship to Christ. Do you submit to Christ? If you are a Christian you do, and so does your husband, and your pastor, and the most powerful person you can think of who is a Christian. God isn’t singling you out. Every Christian submits to Christ, and there is not a single negative thing about doing that. Christ is our savior. He willingly sacrificed himself to save us. He would never do anything to hurt us. It’s a beautiful thing to submit to someone who loves us that much and only wants what is best for us. Submitting to Christ gives us peace and joy. Hear God’s command to submit to your husbands in connection with the words as to the Lord, as the church submits to Christ. This is not something God intends to be harmful to you, but to be a beautiful blessing.
Husbands, I’ll ask you the same question. Did you listen to what God says all the way through? Did you listen with the ears of faith, out of reverence for Christ? If you did, you realize that God is not giving you the right to make your wife submit, to rule with an iron fist. In fact, he gives you a hard saying too. Husbands, love your wives, in the same way as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. Now your sinful nature immediately objects. Is says, “Not fair! Impossible! I’m supposed to be the head so I should get to do what I want when I want! Why should I be the one to sacrifice?” And the Devil and the sinful world cheers you on and says, “If women don’t think they need you, fine, go do you own thing. Let them on their own and see how they do. Abdicate your role as head. It’s just too hard, too much responsibility.”
That’s a really hard saying God gives to husbands. If you are a husband it’s your responsibility to love your wife the way Jesus loves you. He put you first. He gave up everything to serve you. He is the head of everything yet he didn’t demand to be served. He was the one who served. He wrapped a towel around his waist and did the servant’s work of washing his disciple’s feet. He said to the Father, I know they deserve the punishment of hell for their sins, but give it to me instead. That’s what it means to be the head of the house and to love your wife the way Jesus loves you. It means you show by your words and your actions that you love her more than anyone or anything except God, more than work, more than golf, more than the big game, more than the Huskers. You are willing to give all that up to spend time with her and listen to her share her feelings, or take a walk holding her hand. It means you are willing to be like a leader like Joshua and say with love, because you know that it’s what is best, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Love as Christ loved the church. That’s a hard saying, so hard that no husband lives up to it. But, the worst thing we could do is walk away from Jesus because of it.
As we hear this hard saying that God gives for husbands and wives we all admit that we don’t measure up. Wives give in to their sinful nature and to the pressure of the sinful world and fail to give their husbands respect. They might excuse themselves by claiming that their husbands haven’t earned it. But God didn’t say, “if they have earned it.”
Husbands give in to their sinful nature and to the pressure of the sinful world and fail to love their wives. They try to demand respect without showing love. They excuse themselves by claiming they their wives haven’t earned their love. But God didn’t say love your wives if they have earned it. None of us have earned Jesus’ love, but he still loved us and sacrificed himself to save us.
How we need the gospel encouragement that Paul so wonderfully provides! When we see how miserably we have failed to reverence Christ and submit to one another, how we have failed to model our marriage after the relationship of Christ and the church, we need to hear the Gospel! Christ loved you and gave himself up for you. He has made you holy, by cleansing you with the washing of water in connection with the word. (your baptism) He did this even though you not only didn’t do anything to deserve it, but did everything to deserve just the opposite. He now sees you as beautiful, glorious, without any stain or wrinkle of sin, but holy and blameless.
Remember this, next time you are tempted to think that submitting to your husband is too hard a thing. Remember this, next time you are tempted to think that loving your wife as much as Jesus loves you is too hard a thing. It is, if you try to do it on your own. It is, if you listen to these words with worldly ears. It is, if you want following Jesus to be easy and never want him to set a difficult task before you. But as you are filled with the Spirit through the word and sacrament, as you are reminded over and over again of what Jesus did for you to make you his holy bride, you will be moved more and more to submit to each other out of reverence for Christ. You will be moved to joyfully submit to God, to put him and the interests of others first, and model your marriage after the relationship between Christ and his church.
