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06/28/2009 - Jesus on Divorce, Mark 10:1-12

We're in the midst of wedding season right now. June, July and August is when a lot of couples tie the knot. How many of you were married in June, July or August?

Yesterday Jennifer and I attended the wedding of Erika Aikins, Erika is the daughter of our good friends, Greg & Betsy Aikins. And it was a wonderful celebration filled with love and joy and lots of hope for the future. And our prayer for Erika and her husband, David, is that their marriage will flourish and last a lifetime.

At one point in the ceremony Greg quoted Jesus in the passage that we're going to look at today when he said, "What God has joined together, let no one separate." He went on to charge Erika and David to guard their unity as a couple. But then he charged all of us to help promote their unity as couple. He asked us all to respect their new relationship as husband and wife and to encourage them to work at their marriage and to never pit one of them against the other. That's good counsel.

This week I'll be officiating a wedding on Saturday, July 4! And I'll hope and pray the same things for the couple I'll be marrying. I'll pray that their relationship will be a model of Christ's love for the church that the apostle Paul talks about in Ephesians 5. I'll pray that their two lives, together with Jesus, will be woven together as a chord of three strands that will reflect the love that's shared within the three persons of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And I'll pray that their marriage will thrive and last a lifetime too because that's what marriage was meant to be. Nobody walks down the aisle on their wedding day hoping and praying that one day they'll be divorced. No one.

But divorce happens and it happens a lot. Not all marriages end up thriving and lasting a lifetime, do they? They don't because we live in a broken, fallen, less than perfect world. And all of us bring that brokenness into our marriages. Many of you have experienced the pain of divorce on some level. You've either been through a divorce or are going through a divorce or have a sibling who's been divorced or maybe you've grown up in home where your parents were divorced. Whatever the circumstances you know how much it hurts.

This week I read some statistics on the divorce rate in this country. In 1920, there was one divorce for every seven marriages in the United States. In 1940, there was one for every six marriages. In 1960, there was a divorce for every four marriages. And today there's almost one divorce for every two marriages in America. That's a sad commentary on how far we've strayed from God's ideal.

And unfortunately, it's no different within the Christian community. In fact according to well-known researcher George Barna people who call themselves born again Christians have a higher chance of getting divorced than those who claim to be non-Christians. And get this pastors have the highest divorce rate among any profession except police officers.

This morning we continue our series through the gospel of Mark with a look at what Jesus had to say on the hot topic of divorce. If you have a Bible meet me at Mark 10:1-12.

But before we even look at Jesus' words on this subject I just want to assure you that I'm well aware of the pain that many of you have experienced either in your own marriage or in your family. This isn't theory we're talking about today. This is reality, painful reality for many in the Valley View community. And I want to assure you right up front that no matter what you've been through God loves you and Jesus will forgive you and there is hope for life after divorce because we serve the God of all hope and I've seen that over and over and over again.

Now, let's look at Mark 10:1, Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.

Now if you remember, last week we left Jesus holding a little child in his arms teaching in a house in Capernaum up in the region called Galilee. And Galilee was where Jesus had spent most of his ministry. But now he's headed south into the region of Judea because his mission demands that he be arrested and denied, tried and crucified. He has a destiny with death in Jerusalem. And so he's on his final journey there.

Most likely he comes down along the east bank of the Jordan River and then just above the Dead Sea he crosses over into Judea. And there, as was his custom, Jesus teaches the crowds that gather. But he also steps right into a trap that's been carefully set by the Pharisees who are still out to get him.

Look at verse 2, Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?"

Now you have to understand this is the region where John the Baptist had had his ministry and where he had baptized Jesus a few years earlier. But John's dead now. He had gotten himself killed because he spoke out on divorce and publicly criticized Herod Antipas for marrying his brother's divorced wife. And the fortress where John was beheaded was right down the road and Herod had his eyes and ears everywhere. This is a very delicate subject to talk about publicly in a very dangerous area. And now the Pharisees want to draw Jesus into the same controversy. Maybe he'll get killed too. We'll let Herod do the dirty work!

And so Jesus does what he so often does when confronted with a tough question. He answers the question with a question.

Look at verse 3,"What did Moses command you?" he replied. ⁴They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away."

The Pharisees dodge the question. Jesus doesn't want to know what Moses permitted. He wants to know what Moses commanded. Jesus wants to take them back to God's original command about the permanency of marriage recorded by Moses in Genesis 2. But they don't want to go there. Instead, they want to go back to Deuteronomy 24 because that passage permitted divorce for all kinds of reasons that were stacked against women.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 says, If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, ²and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, ³and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, ⁴then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled.

Now I know all that sounds very complicated, like a lot of legalize. And it is. But the phrase that was ground zero for the divorce controversy in Jesus' day was the phrase if the husband "finds something indecent about her." So what was considered indecent? That was the big debate.

And you had two schools of thought on that phrase. You had the liberals and the conservatives. The conservatives were led by Rabbi Shammai who said that indecency referred only to adultery. So a man could not legally divorce his wife unless he had hard evidence that she had been sexually unfaithful to him. Indecency was infidelity.

The liberals, on the other hand, led by Rabbi Hillel had a very broad interpretation of the word "indecency." If the wife burned dinner that was considered indecent. If she talked to a strange man, disrespected her husband, ridiculed her in-laws, was seen in public with her hair down, was loud enough to be heard in the next house, broke a dish in the kitchen and on and on she could be divorced and sent away. If her husband found another woman more attractive he could divorce her or even if he just grew to dislike her. Indecency meant almost anything could be grounds for divorce.

And in that male-dominated culture a woman didn't stand a chance. She had no recourse. She couldn't do anything to stop it. The husband didn't have to get her consent. But if she wanted to divorce her husband she could only do it with his consent. And the only grounds she had for divorce were if her husband became a leper, or had a disgusting trade as a tanner who skinned animals, or raped a virgin, or falsely accused her of some pre-marital sexual sin. It was not a level playing field at all!

So the Pharisees want to draw Jesus into this controversy. They think they have him on the horns of a dilemma. If he sides with Rabbi Hillel and takes the liberal view he's going to be criticized by the conservatives in the crowd. But if he takes the conservative view of divorce championed by Rabbi Shammai he runs the risk of upsetting King Herod and losing his head like John the Baptist.

So there's a hush in the crowd. And all eyes are on Jesus. What's he going to say? Is liberal or conservative when it comes to divorce?

Look at verse 5,"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. ⁶"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' ⁷'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, ⁸and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Jesus doesn't align himself with either of them. Instead, he goes back beyond the permission slip of Deuteronomy 24 to the original command of God recorded by Moses in Genesis 2. Jesus knows that we live in a broken, sin filled world where our hearts are hard. It's our hard heartedness that causes divorce, but that doesn't cause Jesus to diminish the original intent of marriage as a permanent, life long union between a man and a woman. That's God's ideal. It was then and it is today.

In Ephesians 5, the apostle Paul quotes this same passage to illustrate the commitment that Christ has to his church.

In Ephesians 5:31-32 he writes, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." ³²This is a profound mystery - but I am talking about Christ and the church.

Christ is committed to his followers for life. No matter how we behave he's never going to walk out on the relationship. He's never going to divorce his bride, the church, for indecency. That's why I'm convinced that believers in Jesus can be confident that they are in the kingdom even though at times our behavior disappoints the King. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus with whom we are one flesh. We are members of his body in some mysterious way.

So after Jesus gives his take on divorce he moves away from the crowd and steps into a house. Look at verse 10,When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this.¹¹He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. ¹²And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."

That sounds pretty cut and dry doesn't it? If you divorce your husband or your wife and get remarried you commit adultery, Jesus says. Why? Because God has always intended marriage to be permanent. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

There's a passage in Malachi 2:15-16 where God says,So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth. ¹⁶"I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel.

God hates divorce because it breaks his heart. He doesn't hate divorced people. He loves divorced people. But he hates what divorce does to couples and how it rips apart relationships and separates children and divides families and causes such pain and hurt and anger and bitterness. God hates it! It was never part of his original plan. That's what Jesus is saying here. God's original plan was for permanent life long unions between a man and a woman.

Over the years Jennifer and I have counseled lots of people going through all kinds of grief - the loss of a job, the loss of their health, the loss of a loved one, but there is no pain like the pain of divorce. Divorce is so painful because it rips apart the one flesh relationship, the most intimate community that God ever created for two people to enjoy.

The oneness of marriage is not only a picture of the relationship of Christ and his church, it's also a picture of the wonderful community that God himself enjoys within the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And when that community was ripped apart at the cross because of our sin it was so painful that Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Which is often the way people feel who have experienced divorce, they feel forsaken and betrayed.

Someone well acquainted with the pain of divorce has written these words, "Each divorce is the death of a small civilization. Two people declare war on each other and their screams and tears infect their entire world with the bacilli of their pain. The greatest fury comes from the wound where love once issued forth ... When I went through my divorce I saw it as a country, and it was treeless and it was airless. There were no vacations and no holidays. I entered without a passport, without directions and absolutely alone. Insanity and hopelessness grew in that land like vast orchards of malignant fruit ... I wandered in that dark country of divorce, and for a year was one of its ruined citizens. I suffered. But I survived. I studied myself on the edge, and introduced myself to the stranger who lived within."

Divorce is painful, even divorce that the Scripture allows for. Jesus makes an exception for sexual immorality in both Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9 where he says, I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.

The Greek word for sexual immorality in this passage is the word "porneia." It's the word from which we get our English word pornography. It's a broad term for all kinds of sexual behavior that's clearly outside the foul lines of the marriage covenant and that threatens the intimacy of the marriage relationship. Porneia is grounds for divorce Jesus says. But divorce is not commanded when porneia occurs. A couple can choose to stay in the marriage and with God's help work through it and restore the trust that's been broken. I've seen that happen too.

In 1 Corinthians 7:15 the apostle Paul gives another exception for divorce and that's the abandonment of a believer by an unbelieving spouse. There he writes, But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or sister is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace.

So there are some exceptions given in Scripture and there are more than these in my mind. Situations such as physical and sexual abuse that put someone's life at risk are certainly causes for separation and even divorce.

But that's not what Jesus is addressing in this passage. He's holding up the ideal that every married couple should be shooting for and that is a permanent, life long union that illustrates Christ's love for his church. And how did Christ love the church? He entered our world and died here. Husbands love your wives by entering into their world and dying there too.

But as I said at the beginning there is life after divorce because God is a gracious and forgiving God. He is the God of second chances, the God of all hope. I don't believe that divorce needs to be the end of the world for anybody.

There are many couples I know inside and outside the Valley View community who are enjoying a second chance at marriage and they're determined with God's help not to make the same mistakes they did the first time around. But before anyone even considers a second marriage Jennifer and I urge them to follow these four steps.

First, reflect on what part you played in the marriage breakdown. Like the man wrote, "I studied myself on the edge, and introduced myself to the stranger who lived within." Divorce is painful, but sometimes it's the only way that God can get some of us to see ourselves for who we really are. And often that reflection is best done with a trained counselor.

Second, repent of the sin that you contributed to the marital breakdown. You need to own what you brought to the table. It may have been 80% or it may have been 8%. But if you're going to get healthy again you can't go through life blaming the other person. You need to own your part, confess it to God, and grieve over it or else you run the risk of staying hard hearted. God wants to use the divorce in your life to turn your heart towards him and towards others.

Third, reconcile the relationship. You need to give it your best shot. And if the marriage can't be saved, you need to let the hatred go. Your spouse may not be able to, but the Bible says as much as it is within us, we need to live at peace with everyone, even with an ex-spouse. You don't have to be friends, but you don't need to be enemies either. Get the toxins out of your soul.

And fourth, I believe you need to remain single until the whole equilibrium of your life gets back into balance, which for most people takes at least a year. The divorce rate for rebound marriages is higher than for first marriages especially for those who don't follow these four steps.

In closing let me say that in many ways our church needs to be like a hospital. Valley View Community Church needs to be a safe place for hurting people, a haven for healing, a place where both grace and truth are applied. Like a hospital, grace means we accept everyone who comes into our midst, whatever condition they're in. But truth means we don't want anyone to stay wounded and hurting. Instead, we gently pour the truth of God's love, grace, and forgiveness into the wounds so they can be healed.

There's no room around here to judge people who are going through marital stress or divorce. There's no room for quick fix solutions to hard problems. But there's plenty of room in this church to love and accept and pray and encourage and to make this an environment that seeks to strengthen existing marriages and that stands by those going through marital breakdown. That's the church we believe that Jesus died for. And I believe that's the church we all want to be a part of.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Valley View Community Church, feel free to contact us at info@valleyviewseek.org or call 610.631.2707.