God performed the very first wedding. He even gave the bride away. And he used that first relationship to establish a pattern for marriage that has been proven ever since. This pattern works. When a marriage doesn’t work, the failure can be traced back to a violation of this pattern in one or more ways. The addition of cultural distinctives and traditional customs may cloud the issues, but the basic pattern remains the same. God gave the gift of marriage to his human creation as part of his original plan.
The marriage pattern includes three basic actions: leaving, joining, and uniting. These are given in a specific order. In experience, they usually involve both specific actions and on-going aspects. When we participate in a wedding, we are witnessing a form of all three of these actions occurring almost simultaneously. That’s part of the reason that weddings are so important. They picture something large and wonderful.
The
leaving often occurs as the families publicly give their children to one another. In many traditions the bride is “given” to the husband, but the passage in Genesis indicates that the man also “leaves” or is allowed to leave his parents to begin his own family. This moment represents the parents giving their approval and blessing to the marriage. It includes both the pain of “losing a child” and the joy of “gaining a child.”
Joining occurs in the public declaration by both the man and the woman that they are committing themselves to their relationship, to each other. The marriage vows are joining vows. The witnesses to those vows act as an accountability sounding board to the couple—yes, we heard you say those vows, and we expect you to keep them.
The original term for
uniting includes a sense of organic oneness, meaning that a couple is one sexually. But the uniting has a broader sense of sharing everything. The new life becomes an inseparable bond between two people. They don’t lose their individuality, but each contributes his or her whole being to a new entity.
Interestingly and sadly, this verse is not quoted again until we reach the New Testament. Jesus was fond of these phrases. He was a great supporter of marriage. He wanted people to preserve the pattern. He called himself the bridegroom, though he was never married during his life here.
Ephesians 5:22-33 shows us that the mystery of marriage actually pictures the even greater mystery of Christ and his church. Revelation 21 shows us that ultimate wedding taking place, with God officiating once again.
