Genesis 2:21-22: So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man.

Let us Pray.
Blessed are You, Almighty God, our Father, for You created the world so that You could form us as the bride of Your Son, loved and selected before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. Blessed are you, Almighty Son, for in the fullness of time You came to win Your bride and to give her a share in Your everlasting glory. Blessed are You, Almighty Spirit, for You have come to prepare the bride for the consummation yet to come. Blessed are You, Almighty Trinity, for in our marriages, You have given a living portrait of Your love for us. Blessed be God for ever and ever. Amen.

From the very beginning, the way to glory in marriage has been the way of the cross.

When God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone, He paraded animals before Adam, but Adam didn’t find a suitable companion. It would have been easier if he had, because the Lord’s next step was to put Adam into deep sleep and rip him in two. Only after he had been torn to pieces did Adam receive the glorious bride the Lord built for him.

For the Last Adam, the path to glory in marriage is much the same. Like the first Adam, Jesus is torn on the cross, and goes into the sleep of death, before He receives the bride who is His crown of glory, the helper suitable to Him. From the blood and water that flow from His side, mingled with the Spirit breathed out in Jesus’ final moments, He forms a bride, who will be presented glorious and spotless at the last day.

From Adam to the Last Adam, the way of glory in marriage is the way of the cross. For Adam and the Last Adam, and for every marriage in between – glory comes through the cross.

Your marriage is no different. It seems paradoxical, but it’s true: If you want a marriage filled with happiness and joy; if you want your marriage to be satisfying; if you want your marriage to be productive and fruitful – if you want all this glory for your marriage, you’re going to have to travel the path of the cross. It may seem worse than paradoxical; it may seem depressing. But it’s not. For the way of the cross is the way of glory, the way of joy, the way to Sabbath delight. The way of death is the way of life; humiliation is the path of glory; the way up is the way down.

That’s easy enough to say, but what does it mean? What does cruciform marriage look like?

Christian marriages, like all marriages since Eden, unite a sinful man to a sinful woman in intimate proximity. There are bound to be conflicts – difficulties in communication, anger and irritation, conflicts over money and children and sex and work, disagreements about the house and the yard and church and purchases and plans for the future. The conflicts may be petty – which side of the bed you’ll sleep on or how the dishes in the dishwasher should be arranged. The conflicts may be monumental – how many children shall we have, and how shall we educate them? Every Christian marriage includes conflicts, but this is not what makes them cruciform.

Christian marriages, like all marriages since Eden, take place in a world of crisis and death. In such a world, there are bound to be moments of disappointment and loss. The disappointments may be petty – your wife is not so good a cook as you thought or your husband is not the lover you expected. You may suffer monumental, even tragic, loss. Christians suffer hardship in marriage, but this is not what makes marriage cruciform.

All marriages, Christian and non-Christian, unite sinners. All involve conflict and disagreement. All are subject to the hardships of life in a fallen world. But Christian marriages are different because in Christian marriage these moments are transformed by participation in the cross. It is not simply the fact of suffering that makes a marriage cruciform. It’s the way we suffer.

Let me make three points about that.

First, Christian marriage is cruciform because it recognizes that the hardships and challenges, disappointments and losses that occur in every marriage come from the hand of an Almighty and Kind Father who intends everything for our good. It’s a slogan of Reformed Christians that “God causes all things to work together for good for them that love Him and are called according to His purpose.” But it’s more than a slogan. It’s a truth that enables us to live in a world of difficulty and pain without despair. It’s the way of the cross: In submitting to the cross, Jesus submitted Himself to the God who judges justly. He committed Himself to His heavenly Father. He knew that His Father intended it for good.

If you want your marriage to flourish and be fruitful, remember this: Our God is good. He’s all good, thoroughly good. Everything He does is good. The good that He does sometimes causes pain for those who oppose Him, but even in those cases what He does is good. For you who belong to Him, He has never done evil, and never will do evil. Whatever He brings is for your good, however painful and sorrowful it may be at the time. A cruciform marriage is one in which both husband and wife accept the challenges and pains of life as good gifts of a heavenly Father.

Second, a cruciform marriage is one in which husband and wife voluntarily take up the cross to follow Jesus. This is wholly unnatural. We dislike pain, and avoid it. We don’t want to plunge into things that are going to cause difficulty. We don’t want to give ourselves away. Our way is the easy way. When Peter tried to convince Jesus to go the easy way, though, Jesus called Peter a “satan.” The easy way is Satan’s way. According to Jesus, the easy way is not the way of life but the way of death.

Christian husbands and Christian wives take up the cross willingly. In the power of the Spirit, husbands with fragile egos, fearful husbands, weak husbands become willing to endure the humiliation of offering themselves for the sake of their wives. By the power of the Spirit, wives who want to rule learn to submit to and obey their husbands. A cruciform marriage is one in which both husband and wife are willing to die to themselves for the sake of the other.

Third, all marriages include hardship and struggle, disappointment and loss. But not every marriage receives this with joy and thanksgiving. But a Christian marriage, a cruciform marriage, is a joyful marriage. It’s not joyful because it escapes sorrow. It’s not joyful because it’s free from challenges or pain. It is joyful because the husband and wife recognize that the challenges and pains of life are from God.

And it’s joyful because Christian husbands and wives know that the cross is never the end of the story. Jesus went to the cross because of the joy that was placed before Him. He knew that excruciating pain, including estrangement from His Father, lay ahead of Him. But He also knew that beyond death was new life, a life of glory. He knew that the cross lasted only a time, and knew that the way of the cross was the way of new life, the only way. He knew that the way up is the way down, and the way down is the only way up.

We have difficulty with this truth because we don’t know God as we should. In one of the most quoted passages of the New Testament, Paul reminds us that Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to death in order to receive a glorious name above every name. We often think this humiliation contradicts the Son’s essential character: “Although He existed in the form of God, He emptied Himself and took the f orm of a servant.” That’s incorrect. Paul says Jesus took the form of a servant and humbled Himself to death because He existed in the form of God. The cross doesn’t contradict God’s character; the cross reveals the Son, who reveals the Father. We’re called to the way of the cross because this is the way of God Himself. Our lives should be cruciform; but that’s because God’s life is cruciform. And this means that glory is not only found at the end of the path of the cross. It is. But glory is also manifest at every step along the way.

This is the hope of every Christian marriage, including yours. Not that your marriage will be free of the trouble, but that the trouble and challenge of your marriage will be transformed into glory by the transforming power of the cross of Jesus. This is the hope of your marriage: That your marriage will manifest the glory of the Triune God, the glory that is humility. This is the hope of your marriage: That the way of the cross is not only the way to glory, but the way of glory.

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