If you want to get married at Christ Lutheran Church you are required to sit down with pastor for multiple sessions of “pre-marriage counseling.” I call it “preventative marriage counseling” because we talk about issues that I know for sure will come up in married life and I want to deal with them now – in a safe environment. I want them to tell me how they would react and how they would answer, all be it without actually being there and knowing the situation first hand, if they were confronted with that situation as man and wife. The questions can be as simple as, “Which set of parents do you plan on spending your first Christmas together with,” to “have you talked about children, and, what if you discover that you can’t have children, what do you do?” I just want to know if they have talked about it.

We talk about three aspects of married life together in pre-marriage counseling. We talk about the social part of the marriage, the physical part, and then the spiritual part. Now, I didn’t come up with this on my own, Pastor Krueger used these three topics for the foundation of his talks long before I ever started “preventative marriage counseling” myself. But while discussing this “spiritual part” of the marriage, the couple and I start talking about what Ephesians chapter five, the sermon text for today, means.

St. Paul was writing to the Ephesians about relationships inside of marriage and for that reason we look carefully in “pre-marriage counseling” at these words. And Paul uses this one word that makes every woman in this room cringe – “submit.” Every time I emphasize this word I can see the female fiancé sitting across the desk from me tense up like she is going to explode. She gets ready to defend herself and prepare for a battle of words with the pastor. But before we get to this point, we move quickly toward what Paul is saying when he uses this word, “submit.”

There’s a difference, usually, from what people think that this word, “submit” means and what it actually means for the wife – and for that matter – for the husband. The reason is because we automatically get the idea that to be “submissive” to someone else means that we are, as a person, as an individual, as a partner inferior. This understanding is incorrect. However, this is what we have been led to believe.

To submit means to yield ones own rights. It has nothing to do with a person’s character or value. Rather it has everything to do with Christian life as a response to our God-given partner in mutual love. Submission to the spouse is submission to the Lord. The Husband is not put in the place of the Lord but shows rather that a woman ought to submit to her husband as an act of submission to the Lord.

That’s one part of it – but here’s the other. “Husbands, Love your wives just as Christ loved the church…” What did Jesus do for the church? He gave everything to the church. He lived for the church He served the church in every way imaginable. He loved the church to the point that He would give everything to the church – including His very own life. Husbands, that’s what God expects from you when it comes to your relationship with your wife. He expects you to treat your wife like Jesus treated the church. I will be the first to tell you – I have not lived up to God’s expectation, in this way like I should. None of us have.

All of us, husband or wife, are terrible at submission. We are horrible at “yielding our own rights” to each other and, in turn, to God, as He demands. We are horrible at this because we never want to loose our “I’m my own man” or “I’m my own woman” status. “I will never be defined by any another person” we are quick to think. “I will never be defined by my husband or by my wife”. And with this we are quick to forget that when we stepped up to that altar on that faithful day to exchange vows we made a commitment to unite in marriage and those words spoken by our Lord, “and the two shall become one,” and “what the Lord has brought together let not man separate” are real. In a very real way – two people become one in marriage. If that is true – submission, waving your own rights, MUST take affect for that union to take place in a very real way.

But I’m my own person – we will say. To an extent, that is true. You are your own person. God has made you the individual you are. But the issue is not “who” you are it’s “whose” you are. And you are God’s very own. So, when sin creeps into our lives and influence our decisions, we often conveniently forget about this word, “submit.” It’s my life, and I have to do what I got to do to get ahead, to cover my tracks, no matter whom it hurts or how it happens. It’s my life – I will submit to no other will or life and I wave my personal rights to no person and no thing. Sin causes us to react this way – and we become our own gods. We put ourselves before God and His will to protect us. This is the kind of damage to our faith – when God becomes second or third – that puts our eternal life in jeopardy. We play with fire when we don’t “wave our earthly rights” to God. Because lets face it – you have the right to unbelief. And you have the right to worship other gods which even includes yourself. You have the earthly right – but that will end up killing you.

Today is not only the 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany but it is also, “Life Sunday.” To submit – to yield ones own rights – is intricately connected to life. To truly know life is know the one who created life. To know life is also to know who gives life, who sustains life and who loves life. To know life is not to understand “who” you are, but rather to understand, “whose” you are. To be quite frank and simple – life is not yours – It’s the Lords. It’s His and He is the only one that makes life happen. We are God’s people made in His image. We are made to be His good stewards of the rest of the creation that is from Him. We are His foremost, life-given creatures that often times try to defy God and tell Him – “My life is not your life. It’s my life.” That’s wrong.

We are the Lord’s. Therefore, because we belong to the Lord, our LIFE belongs to the Lord. We are not our own. We do not have a life that can “do whatever it is that we want to do to our bodies” or anyone else for that matter. We belong to the Lord and we have an obligation to take care of ourselves and each other in the way that we would want God to treat us. God wants us to treat each other with respect. God’s creation – every form of life is to be treated with respect. We do not dispose of God’s property like it belongs to us. We don’t do this by being wasteful with resources nor would we ever consider the disposal of an unborn child in the same way. All of God’s creation – All of God’s children are special to Him. And more so – they BELONG to Him.

You see, life submits voluntarily. Life that includes love yields to others in order that the other can be built up. That’s what we do with a life that submits to Jesus. We submit to Jesus because He first submitted for us. He did His Father’s will by being our servant. That’s right, Jesus is our servant. He serves us with grace and the forgiveness of sins that can only come from Him. Jesus embodies submission. Jesus embodies life. All that His is ours when He gave His life into death so that we might have life. That’s the long and the short of it.

With that, please understand that submission has nothing to do with anything you lack nor does it speak of inferiority. It speaks of what we yield – give up – for each other – because Christ did it for us. That’s what life is – a gift from God that is granted because we have a Savior that loves us enough to “give up” everything for us. Amen

The peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.