The Pharisees approached Jesus and asked,
"Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?"
They were testing him.
It may already been known that Jesus taught something different from any of the points of view about divorce that were common among the Pharisees. They had different views about when divorce was permissible but not about whether it was. But they seemed to think Jesus might not believe divorce to ever be permissible. There were probably hoping to find in his teaching one more deviation from how they interpreted the law of Moses as additional grounds to criticize Jesus.
He said to them in reply, "What did Moses command you?"
They replied,
"Moses permitted a husband to write a bill of divorce
and dismiss her."
Knowing the thoughts of the Pharisees, Jesus immediately undercut the argument they might have made by referring to Moses before they could. For the Pharisees the law of Moses was the ultimate theological context for everything and the absolute point of reference. But not for Jesus.
But Jesus told them,
"Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
Jesus remembered a time before the endemic sin of idolatry made the many statutes and stipulations of the Mosaic law necessary. He even remembered the time before the fall of Adam and Eve when, for a time all too brief, creatures were able to live according to the purpose for which they were made. He saw that the provisions of the Mosaic law were adapted to fallen creatures, in order to mitigate the potential destruction their hardened hearts might otherwise cause. But he saw that this was not God's original intention for humanity. And he understood that in virtue of his own mission God had chosen not to leave humanity in that state.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
So they are no longer two but one flesh.
Therefore what God has joined together,
no human being must separate.
By his command, referencing what was written in Genesis, Jesus restored marriage to it's original intention. But this must also have meant that there was now some new possibility for creatures to have their hardened hearts transformed. This day had indeed been promised by the prophets.
And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (see Ezekiel 36:26).
No longer would we need to determine how to live by looking around at the circumstances of the fallen world and reason from that what was prudent or possible. With the grace Jesus made available we would become free to live in accord with God's original design. We would become "a new creation" in Christ (see Second Corinthians 5:17), with the fall no longer setting the limits of our horizons, or our maximum potential to grow. The fall would still exert a gravity, trying to pull us back into old and broken ways of thinking and acting. But this gravity would no longer be absolute, and our fallenness would no longer have the final say over our lives.
When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them,
"Let the children come to me;
do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to
such as these.
The Pharisees thought divorce was at least useful if not good. But although having children was associated with blessing from God, the actual living specimens themselves were not so highly regarded. When they were still too small to provide value they seemed more like a hassle and than assets. But again, Jesus saw things differently from others. Indeed, he did see any person only as a means to provide value for someone else. He recognized the unique intrinsic value that everyone possessed simply because they were made in the image and likeness of God. It was on this basis that he desired to establish marriage, where the value of each would be recognized by the other, in a way that could not be finally limited to their mistakes, or only defined by their successes. And this was the way that marriage was meant to be the natural and ideal environment for children to be received and valued long before they had any opportunity to prove their worth or earn their keep.
For it was fitting that he,
for whom and through whom all things exist,
in bringing many children to glory,
should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering.
The prelapsarian standard to which Jesus called humanity might seem like a pipe dream or an unreachable ideal. We might even be tempted to suggest that he, having never been married, could not understand. We might think that it was all well and good for him to welcome children when he didn't have to bring any home with him. But we should remember that Jesus did confront that within human nature that makes such things seem difficult to us. He did so head on, at great cost to himself. And be doing so he defeated it, and made a new and graced way of life possible for us.
He who consecrates and those who are being consecrated
all have one origin.
Therefore, he is not ashamed to call them “brothers.”
Whatever our vocation, we are now called to live it not in terms of the apparent limitations of our human weakness, but in virtue of what is possible by the grace Jesus never ceases to give us. He has made us a new creation in himself. Now he invites us to live that reality.
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