Wives, be
subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. From these words of Paul you sense how
open-hearted should be your wife’s subjection.
But now listen to what Paul requires of you. Follow the same example, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church. You see how much obedience is asked of
you. Now hear how much love is required.
You want your wife to obey you as the Church obeys Christ? Then you
must care for her as much as Christ cares for the Church. Should it be necessary to die for her, to be
cut into a thousand pieces, to bear any sort of suffering, you should not say
no; and if you have indeed suffered like that, you still have done nothing
compared with what Christ has done. In
point of fact, you would be doing these things for one to whom you are already
united, while he has done them for one who opposed him and hated him, despised
him, spat on him, rejected. him. With
all the tenderness of his soul he prevailed upon her to kneel at his feet
without insulting her, without humiliating her, without making her afraid.
You, too, must behave in the same way with your wife. Even if you see that she despises you, even
if she rejects and humiliates you, you can bring her back to you if you take
trouble over her, if you care for her, if you are fond of her, if you love her.
Nothing is stronger than these bonds, particularly between
husband and wife. By resorting to
intimidation you might be able to keep a domestic servant attached to you—but not
even him, for probably the servant will leave you and escape. The companion of your life, the mother of
your children, the basis of all your joy, ought not to be tied to you by
threats and fear, rather by love and the warmth of emotion. What sort of union would that be in which the
wife is afraid of her husband? And what
pleasure could her husband find in staying with her as if she were a servant?
Whatever kind of woman you have chosen, you cannot have chosen
anyone like the spouse Christ has chosen in marrying the Church. And if she is different from you, it is not
so different as the Church is from Christ.
Even so, he has not hated her, or loathed her for her terrible
deformity. You want to know the extent
of her deformity? Then listen to Paul, You were one time darkness. (Ephesians
5:8) Do you see how obscure she
was? What is more obscure than darkness?
See too how brazen faced she was. We were
passing our days in malice and iniquity.
(Titus 3:3) and how unclean, We
were foolish and disobedient. What I
mean to say is, she was a fool and a blasphemer, and yet, despite that, he
sacrificed himself for that deformed spouse as if she had been beautiful, most
deserving of love, marvelous. Full of
admiration, Paul exclaims, One will
hardly die for a righteous man, yet Christ died for us while we were still
sinners. (Romans 5:7-8)
After taking a spouse like that, he made her beautiful and he
washed her. He did not shrink even from
that. He did it that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water
with the word, that he might present her to himself in splendour. With water he washed her uncleanliness away,
water accompanied with a word. What word
was it, In the name of the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit. He not
only adorned her, he made her resplendent without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
We too in our spouse seek this beauty. It could be that we are in a position to
create this beauty ourselves. Do not ask
of your wife what is not in her power.
Note carefully that the Church received everything from the Lord. It was he who made her resplendent without
spot or wrinkle.
