God Himself Violated the Law

I am re-posting the following, which I wrote last week on the Marriage Revolution blog. I'm hoping for some discussion! Please comment.

While reading through some of the laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy recently I came across the passage below:

Deut 22:23 If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, 24 you shall bring them both out to the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst.

I wasn't hunting for marriage related laws, this one just happened to jump out at me. Why did it grab my attention? Because according to this passage, God Himself violated the law.

Luke chapter 1 describes the occurrence.

Mary the mother of Jesus was in a city; the town of Nazareth. She was betrothed to Joseph. The Holy Spirit came upon her, overshadowed her, and planted a child in her womb. She did not cry out for help because she didn't want or need it. Joseph initially believed himself to have been wronged and planned to divorce her.

All of these facts line up to show a clear violation of the law laid out in Deuteronomy 22.

At the very moment the New Covenant was initiated, God Himself broke an Old Covenant law related to marriage. Perhaps it was a sign of it's passing, a shattering of a clay tablet inscribed by a Pharisee.

The Spirit must have whispered to Mary "Don't think about what you've been taught. Simply love Me with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." Mary responded by opening to His request, despite knowing that she could be stoned.

I'm still pondering what this could mean. I don't have an answer. But since God Himself begins the very life of Christ through a violation of marital law, it certainly points out that the Biblical "view" of marriage is far from straight forward.

A Marriage Revolution

Marriages are imploding all around me. In some cases I could see it coming for years ahead of time. In a few cases, it has been a surprise.

Simultaneously, the airways are filled with chatter and clamor about gay marriage. As a result, I've come to a conclusion.

I want to start a marriage revolution.

The revolution would focus on three essential tenets:

1. Choosing the right person.
2. For the right reason.
3. At the right time.

How much better off would our nation be as a whole, and each of our families individually, if we truly focused on these three things?

What if we started training our children from toddlerhood right up until they are launched?

What if our high schools offered classes in relationship preparedness instead of "sex education"?

What if our churches helped people understand God's plan for spousal union from the pulpit and through formation classes, rather than in a few counseling sessions before the marriage service takes place?

It seems so simple.

Tell me; am I missing something?

Beauty for another

From That Hideous Strength:

At the very moment when her mind was most filled with another man there arose, clouded with some undefined emotion, a resolution to give Mark much more than she had ever given him before, and a feeling that in doing so she would be really giving it to the Director. And this produced in her such a confusion of sensations that the whole inner debate became indistinct and flowed over into the larger experience... she was in the sphere of Jove, amid light and music and festal pomp, brimmed with life and radiant in health, jocund and clothed in shining garments. ... And she rejoiced also in the consciousness of her own beauty; for she had the sensation--it may have been false in fact, but it had nothing to do with vanity--that it was growing and expanding like a magic flower with every minute that passed. In such a mood it was only natural, after the old countryman had got out at Cure Hardy, to stand up and look at herself in the mirror which confronted her on the wall of the compartment. Certainly she was looking well: she was looking unusually well. And once more, there was little vanity in this. For beauty was made for others. Her beauty belonged to the Director. It belonged to him so completely that he could even decide not to keep it for himself but to order that it be given to another, by an act of obedience lower, and therefore higher, more unconditional and therefore more delighting, than if he had demanded it for himself."

Pale, diluted earthly metaphor

From The Night is Far Spent:

What if we don't marry in heaven because we will have won through, via the kindergarten lessons of marital fidelity, or of consecrated chastity, here in this realm, to that unimaginably blissful state of affairs where we will know all other selves with an ecstasy far, far outstripping the pale, diluted earthly metaphor of sex? What if sex is the hint--the metaphor--and its fulfillment in paradise, far from being an attenuation, is a great raising of the stakes, so that our elementary experiences down here in marital union will turn out to be just that: elementary?

--Thomas Howard

The imprinting of intimacy

I've been thinking about desire.

I know, I know, what's new? It is, after all, in the title of this place. It is it's raison d'etre.

So there I was, once again thinking about desire. This time about how disordered my understanding and experience of it has been for so long. All my life really.

The problem came from getting the whole sex thing out of order. I was a product of my era; sex came into relationships early.

Very early.

Here's the way it -should- go:

First comes love.

Out of love comes desire; a desire for union that builds over time.

As the relationship grows and deepens, the desire for union grows and deepens until it becomes a burning gulf between you.

A raging fire.

Remaining in the desire becomes a delicious torture. An exquisite torment.

I think this time of waiting, this season of restraint and control, imprints on the man and woman, and changes them forever. I think that their bodies and minds and spirits are changed by the waiting, the denial, the anticipation. They are marked by it for ever, for eachother.

And once the time of waiting is fulfilled and they finally come together, the union must be sweet beyond words, and must pierce the eternal.

And the mark that the waiting made on their hearts, minds, and souls, can never be forgotten, or removed.

It is no wonder that marriages so often struggle. So few couples receive this profound gift and grace.

The feet of the master

He whispered more to me about Mary's act of love and my yearning to stand in her place.

He whispered that I could give this gift to Him through my husband.

Lord make me obedient.

Intimacy with Christ

I was thinking about Eucharist as consummation (again) and made another connection between it and lovemaking within a marriage. It is needed regularly to establish and maintain the particular intimacy that develops no other way.

My heart is heavy for all Christians who do not experience it.

The church's teaching on BC

I've been feeling like a frayed chord over the past few days, and my husband commented that one thing he missed about my not using birth control pharmaceuticals was the leveling off of moods. That made me realize another reason they aren't a good idea; using them removes an opportunity for men to grow in mercy, patience, and generosity.