The Cruciform Marriage
Before you are married, you have to be single. Before you figure out how to be a married person, you have to figure out how to be a single person. If you don’t figure this out, you will still move forward with an understanding and definition of what it means to be single (or, later, married): you just won’t have a very thoughtful understanding or definition. Consider this an invitation to think constructively about how to live in your present estate, and in whatever estate into which you may be called.
An example might help get at what I have in mind. A few years ago, my father emailed me a New York Times article on the difficulty single pastors have finding a call in evangelical circles, thinking, no doubt, of my own experiences when a recent seminary graduate so, so long ago. Back then, I not only experienced the soft discrimination discussed in the piece but actually lost a potential call due to being single. The elders of an Orthodox Presbyterian Church were inclined to recommend me to their congregation but decided not to because several members incorrectly thought 1 Timothy 3:2 (“Therefore an overseer must be …the husband of one wife”) barred me from ordained office and the session didn't want to start a new pastorate with a fight.
What struck me about the ministry candidates mentioned in the article was that they were all seeking the same sort of positions as their espoused and family-encumbered brethren. Paul, the patron saint of single pastors, wrote "I think that in view of the present distress it is good for a person to remain as he is" (1 Corinthians 7:26, emphasis added). Singleness provides the opportunity to live in view of, or to enter into, the present distress: that is, to take risks for the sake of the Gospel and Christ's Church.
To end your state of suspense, I did eventually receive another call. Because I was single, I was able to take a relatively risky call, one so risky that four married men before me had declined it. To my way of thinking, why would the Lord keep a man single unless he wanted him to take a chance for Jesus, a chance which a man who has to provide for a family really should not?
As I write this, I realize I am venturing forth onto relatively thin ice. In 1 Corinthians 7:7, Paul himself conditions much of his advice with “For I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.” I don’t want to add to the Law of God, and not every unmarried Christian has the ability, opportunity, or disposition to take risks in the service of the Church, especially if one hopes to find a spouse.
Nevertheless, my topic for these three essays—the first being “The Cruciform Single”—is “The Cruciform Life” (that is, the life which is formed after and upon the model of Christ’s Cross), and I’m persuaded that the choice to take up one’s cross is grounded in one’s expectations for one’s life. A single Christian woman my wife and I know comes to mind, who, like most single Christian women, would like to be married. Somewhere along the way, she decided to take in foster children, and, as so often happens to foster parents, ended up adopting two young girls. She herself is no longer as young as she once was, and it must be as obvious to her as it is to everyone else that children of a different race who are working through the traumas common to all children who end up in the custody of social services will likely reduce her marriage prospects. Plainly, she does not expect her life to be arranged around the fulfillment of her desires. Instead, she has found her own way to imitate Christ’s love, and in the bargain (whatever she may have expected) has had to die to self. Should she ever marry, the choice to take up her cross now will certainly shape any relationship with a future husband.
One’s attitude to the challenge of the Cross is grounded in a view of self which also comes out in one’s approach to marital status and the practice of marriage. In my pastorate, I’ve noticed what I think of as the “enhancement” view of marriage. The person who holds this view tends to see him or herself as a more or less complete package: they can do quite well on their own, thank you very much; they certainly don’t need much self-improvement. This Christian sees marriage as an opportunity to enhance his or life: the spouse is a positive addition who will bring emotional support, sexual adventure, better use of time and financial resources, and a general increase of one’s sense of well-being. In other words, a spouse is someone who makes my life “better” (the quotation marks indicate that I am the one who judges whether and how my life is better): a spouse who does not make my life “better” is not worth marrying or, by the same token, keeping. (Hence the rise in divorces amongst evangelical Christians.)
On the other hand, one can be a reasonably competent adult person and still see oneself as very much a work in progress, a work still in need of much work that can’t be done on one’s own. Said person may recognize his or her problem isn’t a lack of help around the house: his or her problem is his or her self. That is, he or she needs to change: to change radically or even to die (so to speak). For this Christian, marriage is less an opportunity for an enhanced and better life than an opportunity for another life that can be found only by crucifying him or herself. The spouse is not someone who will serve me, but someone whom I can serve: an opportunity to decrease that Christ might increase (John 3:30). The measure of such a marriage is not how much better one’s life seems to be: it is how much better a Christian I am becoming (or not); it is how much I am becoming like Jesus.
“Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’” (Matthew 16:24-25)
The disciple’s path is the path of self-denial and of the Cross, and marriage is as much a part of that path as the rest of the Christian’s life is. As Paul says:
“The married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.” (1 Corinthians 7:33-34)
I think most tend to read those verses from 1 Corinthians 7 as pointing out a tension between service to one’s spouse and service to one’s Lord. In a marriage, that certainly can happen, but it need not. Elsewhere, in Ephesians 5:22-33, Paul would have us understand that Christian marriage is an arena for some very particular Christian service: wives die to their own agendas by submitting to their husbands, and husbands sacrifice their agendas by ordering their lives around their wives’ spiritual growth. This kind of “anxiety,” or preoccupation with one’s spouse, is not in competition with a dedication to Christ, but a particular form that dedication can take.
The shape of the Ephesians 5 marriage, I must point out, is cruciform. The cruciform marriage is not a model for Christian marriage: it is the Biblical description of a Christian marriage. Not to put too fine a point on it, but a marriage which is not cruciform is not Biblical.
So far, so good. But how does the challenge to take up a cruciform marriage address those who are not yet married? My favorite commandment (if “favorite” is the right word in this context), is the Tenth, of which the Apostle Paul famously wrote “I would not have known sin except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, ‘You shall not covet’” (Romans 7:7). In my case, the Law spoke through the Westminster Shorter Catechism #81:
“The Tenth Commandment forbiddeth all discontentment with our own estate, envying or grieving at the good of our neighbour, and all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his.”
At the time, a former girlfriend (I was decidedly the dumpee, not the dumper) had just been happily engaged to another man, and I was indulging in the melancholy which has inspired countless pop songs. The Tenth Commandment caught me up short: I was grieving at my neighbor’s good. Literally, grieving at my neighbor’s good. Ever since, I have struggled to rejoice with those who rejoice (note my judicious use of the qualifying verb “struggle to”), especially when their joy exposes discontentment I have with my own estate.
How to prepare for marriage? Rejoice with those who rejoice. Marriage often seems a zero-sum game: I get what I want at the expense of your giving up something you want. This fuels discontentment, which is a close cousin to the bitterness which poisons and kills so many marriages. If you view relationships as zero-sum games, in which giving to another is made worthwhile only if met with reciprocal giving, then you’re an unlikely candidate for marital contentment. At the same time, you shouldn’t think the solution is constantly giving up what you want while pasting on a happy face: that’s not contentment, but bitterness deferred.
The secret to contentment is not getting what you want; rather, it is wanting others to get what they need. What we all need, of course, is to grow in Christlikeness. This sets the agenda for the Christian marriage in particular and the Christian life in general. I don’t give in to you, because you getting what you want is likely to be as problematic as my getting what I want. Instead, I give up for you; I give up so I can do or be for you what you need so you can die to sin and increasingly imitate Christ. A Christian should find it rather easy to rejoice when another imitates Christ.
The Tenth Commandment pushes us away from self and toward others. It doesn’t ask for self-denial, but it does require other-centeredness. In that way, it teaches us to count all suffering joy because trials increase and perfect faith (James 1:2-4). The Tenth Commandment teaches us to die to self and to love fellow believers. That kind of love is patient and long-suffering and is willing to do the hard work when the relationship becomes difficult. That kind of love may include a strong emotional attachment, but its foundation is a commitment to follow Jesus when it is hard to do so, and also when it brings joy to do so.
How does the Christian single prepare for a Christian marriage? How does the married Christian repent? Take up your cross and follow Christ.
