Essay on Marriage

Kieran Klukas
Carrie Klukas
Writing

Marriage; It’s a concept almost everyone is familiar with, but that is understood wildly differently by different people. How do you find the one to marry, what does it mean to be married, and what is marriage for? God’s word gives us an excellent scaffold for marriage that lets us answer those questions. He has created the sacrament of marriage to provide comfort and support to the married couple but also to procreate and raise up children in a stable, godly, loving, home.

It might not be immediately clear from a cursory glance at Scripture, how we are to find a life partner, but when we look closer we can see in his word, Proverbs 3:5–6, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (ESV) Also in Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells us to, “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (ESV) God might not explicitly say how he draws us to the one we will marry in Scripture, but we can trust that (if it is right for us) he will open an opportunity in his time.

As for what it means to be married, in Genesis 2:24, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Pope John Paul II describes it quite beautifully in this way, “The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine. It has been created to transfer into the visible reality of the world, the mystery hidden from eternity in God, and thus to be a sign of it.” (Theology of the Body, General Audience, January 2, 1980) To paraphrase, the love of a man and a woman when joined in marriage, though seen through a glass dimly, is a mirror of the love of the Trinity.

The purpose of marriage therefore is to reflect the unity of Christ and His Church, and in reflecting that love to participate in the weaving of God’s glorious tapestry of creation. We get to raise up new humans into the world. Stop and think about that for a second, we get to work with God to make a new life where there was none before! That is the closest thing to magic there is. Because the sacrament of marriage is a reflection of the union between Christ and His Church, severing a marriage through divorce takes on a new meaning; to break apart the sacrament of marriage is like severing the connection between the Church and Christ. The Scripture do still allow for it in extreme circumstances, but it is not God’s design.

In summary, marriage is a mystical and holy union between one man and one woman as a reflection of Christ through their love. God has designed it as a giving partnership where both sides lay down their lives for each other and, more importantly, to God, which draws them closer together.