Mark 10:1-9: a reflection

1He arose from there and came into the borders of Judea and beyond the Jordan. Multitudes came together to him again. As he usually did, he was again teaching them. 2Pharisees came to him testing him, and asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3He answered, “What did Moses command you?” 4They said, “Moses allowed a certificate of divorce to be written, and to divorce her.” 5But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment. 6But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. 7For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife, 8and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

When the Pharisees test Jesus with a question about divorce, he takes them back past the concessions of the law to God's original design for marriage. From the beginning of creation, he says, God made them male and female; a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. And he draws the conclusion: What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate. Marriage, Jesus teaches, is a profound union, one flesh, joined by God himself, and meant to be permanent.

Notice how Jesus grounds marriage: in God's design from the beginning, as a joining by God himself. Marriage is not merely a human contract to be made and broken at will; it is a union God himself joins, making two into one flesh, and it is meant to last. The concession for divorce, Jesus says, was given because of human hardness of heart, not because it was God's original design. God's intention was, and is, a lasting union.

That gives us a high view of marriage, held with compassion. Marriage, in God's design, is a profound, God-joined union meant to be permanent, not lightly entered or lightly broken. This calls those who are married to honor and hold fast to that union, to cherish and protect it as something God has joined. And while the reality of a broken world means marriages do fail, and God's grace and compassion meet those who have known that pain, God's design remains beautiful and worth honoring: a lasting, one-flesh union that God himself has joined. Honor the marriage bond as something God joins, hold fast to it, and cherish it as the profound and lasting union God designed it to be.

Lord Jesus, you took the Pharisees back to God's design from the beginning: that a man and woman become one flesh, joined by God himself, so that what God has joined, let no one separate. Give me a high and honoring view of marriage. Help me see it not as a mere human contract to be made and broken at will, but as a profound union that you yourself join, meant to be lasting. For those who are married, help us honor and hold fast to that union, cherishing and protecting it as something you have joined. And where marriages have known brokenness and pain, meet the hurting with your grace and compassion. Let me honor your beautiful design for marriage, hold fast to the bonds you have joined, and cherish the lasting union you intended. What you have joined, help us not to separate.