Second Sunday in Epiphany

Second Sunday in Epiphany
1/16/11
Ephesians 5:22-33
Bror Erickson


[22] Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. [23] For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. [24] Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.
[25] Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, [26] that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, [27] so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. [28] In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. [29] For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, [30] because we are members of his body. [31] "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." [32] This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. [33] However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. Ephes. 5:22-33 (ESV)

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish.

It is an incredible chapter in Ephesians. Paul spends the first few chapters of Ephesians talking about salvation, those strictly Christian doctrines about sin, death, Grace and the love of God, Salvation. And building on the foundation of gospel he moves into advice for everyday living, the moral behavior becoming of a Christian. It seems then as now husbands and wives were prone to get into arguments, to begin to resent each other, to let the burdens of life get in the way of their love for one another. And Paul tries to address the problem with law. Wives submit to your husbands… Husbands love your wives. There is just one problem he can’t stop talking about Christ! He can’t stop talking about salvation! He can’t divorce the gospel from the life of the believer, from the life of the church, he can’t stop talking about baptism and the identity Christ gives us in it. For it is in baptism that Christ sanctifies each and everyone of us with the washing of water with the word, and so sanctifies the whole church with this washing.

Sanctify her. Paul tells you what is meant by this word here. Today this word is too often used as an excuse to let legalism through the back door of the church to corrupt her, to enslave her members to the law, to tarnish and blemish her with the filthy rags of her own works. Pastor after pastor blindly repeat the mantra of Wesley, the founder of Methodism, that you are justified by grace through faith, but sanctification is up to you. No one wants to argue with Luther when it comes to Justification. So they talk about sanctification instead. It becomes the same works righteousness Luther railed against in speaking of justification. Justification is the doctrine of how one is justified, declared innocent before our Father in Heaven. Sanctification is about how we become holy. Both fall into the category of salvation. Just as you can’t be saved without being justified, so you can’t be saved without being sanctified, and you can’t be sanctified without being justified, or justified without being sanctified. They are all talking about the same thing. And though here Paul links sanctification with baptism, in other places he links justification and regeneration (being born again) with baptism, try 1 Corinthians 6, and Titus 3. But here he talks of sanctification and outlines what it means. It means to be cleansed, so he cleans you, it means to be given splendor, wrinkles and spots removed, to be presented holy without blemish. And this is how Jesus sees his baptized church cleansed in the waters of baptism, water with the word, tied to his death and resurrection.
Husband love your wives, as Christ loved the church that he gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her. Only after giving himself up for her, only after dying on the cross for her, atoning for her sins with his blood, atoning for your sins and mine. And the message is clear, Christ forgives you, you can forgive your wives, you can give up yourself, give up your pride, give up your selfishness, give yourself up for your wife, as Christ gave himself up for you and for her. Let the love Christ has for you, become the love you have for her. Sure, you can play the macho card, and the laws in Paul’s day allowed for it more than they do today, that men had the final say. And there is a certain amount of that just built into the DNA of Man and Woman. But Christ turns it all on its head, when as the bridegroom of the church, he gives himself up, and he does so that he might sanctify the church, sanctify you and I. He washes us in a way that prepares us for this wedding. In a very real sense he washes us with his blood that gives life to the waters of baptism. It removes our wrinkles, it removes our spots and blemishes, the unsightly pimples. You can just see it can’t you? All the work a woman goes through on her wedding day to make herself as beautiful and splendant as she can to her husband, washing with special soaps, using special cremes even a week or month ahead of time trying to remove wrinkes, and clear up her skin? And Jesus takes our soul and washes it with the waters of baptism, and in these waters of rebirth gives us a babies complexion in the washing of regeneration, renews our innocence. He sanctifies us, makes us holy with the life he poured into those waters, his very own life that he gave up for you and I that we might be holy for him.
And notice that it isn’t up to you. Who sanctifies the church? The same one that justifies you, Jesus Christ. It is he who washes you and cleans you and sanctifies you. And then he keeps you, cares for you and nourishes you, as every husband knows he should his wife. I mean husbands know this stuff. It is why we get married in the first place, because we want someone to love, someone to care for, as much as we want to be loved and cared for. We become one with her, so united that her cares become our cares, her happiness our happiness. And so it is with Jesus, with Christ who gave himself up for you and I. Now the peace of God that surpassses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.