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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this morning comes from the Old Testament reading. You may be seated. What a glorious morning to have children’s voices lift up our hearts to our Creator, the Father, to our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Sanctifier, the Holy Spirit.
With that being the case… Living in the present land in which we live and in the present culture that we live, in the present era in which we live, it is very confusing for adults, let alone children, to know about their beginning and to know about their end without the Word of God. They know not in whose image they were created without the Word of God. They know not about their maleness or their femaleness without the Word of God. They know nothing about what God has redeemed us from, the sins of our life through Jesus Christ, and the great glory of heaven that awaits us without the Word of God.
Hence this morning’s Old Testament reading, for in it it is God who describes for us humanity and everything about marriage. He begins the text by saying, and this is the creator of heaven and earth, says, “…it’s not good for the man to be alone. God created male to have female.” God created female to have male. It is not good to be alone, he said. Not only did he not want them to be an island unto themselves, completely separate from one another, but to be in a relationship, and more importantly, to have that relationship with the Creator, our Lord Jesus Christ.
This aloneness was not to be found solved by anything that God had created thus far. Hence why, before Adam, did God bring all of the animals in this creation. Every time God brought an animal pair by Adam, he could see male and female, though he may not have called them as such, he could tell. No different than a little boy, a little girl, looking out in the pasture, can tell the difference between a bull and a heifer. It doesn’t take deep thinking. So it was with Adam. But the purpose was that Adam would see there is no other creature that I have made that’s like you. You are distinct. Only you bear my image. Only you have a soul. Only you are like unto me. And yet, it’s not good for you to be alone.
So God says to us and to Adam, I will make a helper fit for him. In saying such a short sentence, I will make a helper fit for him, our creator defines humanity. He defines humanity. Humanity is male and female. He defines marriage. It doesn’t take a deep thinker long to look at our bodies and realize physiologically male is made for female and female is made for male. And that without male and female, you cannot have family. Children come from male and female.
God describes this relationship clearly in this text. And then he describes this unique relationship between male and female when he says, I will make a woman from man. It is the creator who does the creation of this opposite sex. Equal to? But distinct from male. And it is the creator who does this before Adam ever has his will exercised in this manner. It is not Adam’s idea. It is the creator’s idea.
And he binds male and female together on five different profound levels. Yes. The most obvious is physiologically. We already mentioned that. Physically, there is this comparison between male and female, how we are made physically for one another. Intellectually, what a great gift that men view things a certain way and women view things a certain way. And when they’re together, what a broad and full picture is given to both. For man cannot see it all without woman, and woman cannot see it all without man. It is a beautiful, fuller scope that God gives.
Psychologically, women are knit together differently. Men are knit together differently. How broad. We are enhanced by one another. Male enhances female and female enhances male’s ability to understand one another at an emotional level. The most profound of all is spiritually. God created male and female as the completeness to become one flesh, and as one flesh, they worship their creator and redeemer and sanctifier. This is the most profound of all.
For the mystery of two becoming one surpasses our intellect and reason to figure out. It’s not as if a nickel and a nickel make a dime. It is a nickel and a nickel makes a quarter. Something totally different and far more profound than individually. This is why God gave this gift of marriage and this gift to women as femaleness and this gift to man as maleness.
After having created woman, God does not just leave her there and say, they’ll figure it out. God brings woman to man so that it is not man’s will to take woman. It is God’s will to give woman to man. That way man sees woman not as an object, which there’s enough of that in this culture to go around, but to see woman as a gift to him, as God intended it to be.
And then God gives Adam this gift of proclaiming this profound truth to himself and to the only other human being around, woman. He says to God and to woman, this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man.
Isn’t it interesting that God did not take another scoop of dirt, breathe into it the breath of life and make a woman totally separate from man? He could have done that, you know. He chose not to, for he chose to make male and female to be completely connected together, to become one. So from man did God create woman.
And ponder this mystery. Of all the parts of the body that God could have taken woman, that he chose to take woman from Adam’s side. He did not take woman from Adam’s foot. That’s pretty profound. He did not take woman from Adam’s hand. That is profound. But try this one on for size. He did not take woman from Adam’s head. No puns, ladies. He took Adam’s rib and created woman.
Thousands of years later, the bridegroom of the church hung upon a tree for the bride. And out of his side flowed blood and water from which you were made the bride of Christ, from which we all were made the bride of Christ, both male and female, made the bride of Christ from the side of the Savior, the second Adam.
When Adam says, this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, he’s making a very profound statement. For he is saying, if she is from me, then if I love her and adore her, I really love and adore whom? Myself. If I despise her and belittle her, I really despise and belittle myself. If I serve her and care for her as the gift she is, then I serve myself and love myself.
Woman is not inferior to man, for man was perfect, was he not? And was not woman made from a perfect man? Then she is a perfect woman. Separate, distinct, but yet equal. And God never said, Adam, you’re to rule over this world. Eve, you’re just second fiddle. He said, this is for you both to rule over this world and subdue it, to be fruitful and multiply, not independent of one another, but as a unity of one. That’s what God gave, his gift.
The last text in this section is when Jesus, God reminds us as husbands to hold fast to our wife. Remember the old King James, it said, he shall cleave unto his wife. That is the connotation of being glued together, gorilla glue type glue together. Joined at the hip, unwaveringly loyal, glued together. For becoming one flesh is that, Siamese twins without ever realizing it. Hence the great, a profound joy in growing older with that gift that was given to you by your God. Because you’re growing older really with yourself fulfilled.
This becoming one flesh that he speaks of defines and creates for us the concept of our sexuality. It’s his gift to marriage. It is supposed to be exercised for the glory of the creator in marriage. Not apart from the marriage bond. Not before the marriage bond, obviously not after the marriage bond with someone other than, but with the one whom God has given you as a gift. And there was no shame, it says, because sin had not entered into the world.
So what kind of bride are you? What kind of a bride are you, whether you are female or male, as the bride of Christ? What kind of a bride are you to the bridegroom who was unwaveringly faithful, who from his side gave birth to you in the baptism that was given you, just as it was given to Landy this morning? And who gives you the very body and blood that was sacrificed for you, that you may eat of it and be consummated with your husband, the Lord Jesus.
And lest we think, well, I still have my original wedding band on. I’m not like some who have had multiple wedding bands. It matters not. Do you really think that simply because we hold the same wedding band in our hand… For whether 10, 20, 30, or 40 years that we have not been unfaithful to our spouse in mind or word.
And forget the marriage with whom we have this earthly bond, the marriage with the Lord Jesus that began at your baptism. Have we been found faithful? And the answer is no. Has he? For every one of you, has he been found faithful that he may redeem your maleness and that he may redeem your femaleness? That he may bless and sanctify your marriage or your life after marriage. That he may strengthen you with this forgiveness that only he can give. And that really only is the balm that truly brings comfort, assurance, and peace.
Human beings do not know their beginning or their end without the word of God. Adults, let alone children, do not know their beginning or their end without the Word of God. This is the gift that these faithful teachers proclaim to our children. And not only them, but our faithful Sunday school teachers proclaim to our children in Sunday school, and you as parents proclaim to your babies.
It does not stop sin in this world, but it does pay for it in Christ. There will always be pain affiliated with this gift that God gave us because Satan despises it. God strengthens us in this forgiveness that we may find peace in his wounds which flow from his side incessantly for you as female, and for you as male, and for you as husbands, and you as wives, and you as mothers, and you as fathers, and you as children of the Heavenly Father.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.