Matthew 19:1-6: a reflection

1When Jesus had finished these words, he departed from Galilee and came into the borders of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2Great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there. 3Pharisees came to him, testing him and saying, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason?” 4He answered, “Haven’t you read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said, ‘For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh’? 6So that they are no more two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, don’t let man tear apart.”

When the Pharisees test Jesus with a question about divorce, asking whether it is lawful for any reason, Jesus takes them back to the beginning, to God's design. He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, Jesus concludes, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no one separate.

Notice how Jesus grounds marriage: not in human custom or convenience, but in God's own act of joining. Marriage, in his teaching, is not merely a human arrangement to be dissolved when it suits us; it is a one-flesh union that God himself joins together, meant to be lasting. What God has joined, Jesus says, no one should separate. He points past the legal question of when divorce is permitted to the deeper reality of what marriage is: a sacred, God-joined bond.

That is a high and serious vision of marriage, and it speaks to a culture that often treats it lightly. Marriage, Jesus teaches, is not a disposable contract but a sacred union that God himself establishes and joins. That does not ignore the real brokenness and pain that can enter marriages, and Jesus is always tender toward the broken. But it does call us to hold marriage as the serious, sacred thing God made it to be: a one-flesh bond joined by God, to be honored, guarded, and not lightly torn apart. Honor the marriage bond, your own or others', as the sacred, God-joined thing Jesus says it is.

Lord Jesus, you pointed back to God's design and taught that marriage is a one-flesh union that God himself joins together, and that what God has joined, no one should separate. In a culture that often treats marriage lightly, help me hold it as the serious, sacred thing you say it is. Where marriages are broken and hurting, give your tenderness and healing. And help me honor the marriage bond, my own or others', as a sacred union established by you, to be guarded and not lightly torn apart. Teach me to treasure what you have joined.