I am
quite comfortable without marriage. What do I need a husband for? I can still
have children with my partner.
am quite comfortable,
you say. So now listen to what you are really saying
unconsciously.
When the gang of thugs came to
arrest Jesus in the garden, he declared to them, I AM, and they
fell to the ground in reverence (John 18:56). This concise statement
defines Jesus as divine, according to the name God gave for himself to Moses
(Exodus 3:14). But Judas didnt bring the soldiers to Christ in order
to worship him; he brought them to betray him and have him arrested. Thus
in his act of betrayal Judas essentially refused the name of Christs
divinity by reducing its I AM to a descriptive statement: You
are. You are a body to be seized and bound. And so Jesus responds
again, this time descriptively: I told you that I AM (John
18:8)that is, I am the one you seek, the one pointed out to you
by my betrayer.
In accepting the betrayal, Jesus
raises its descriptive element to the level of divine description, as he
does throughout Johns Gospel: I am the one you seek because I am
the way, I am the truth, I am the light. . . . All the
implicit meanings of the I AM from Exodus are made explicit in
Christ.
Notice that our proper response
to the I AM is worship, for in worship we accept and adore divinity.
Thats why in our baptismal vows we answer I
DO to the questions about rejecting Satan and
sin. And its also why, in the ceremony of Holy
Matrimony, we answer I DO as our acceptance of the sacrament.
With each I DO we turn away from the sins of the flesh and the
world. With each I DO we turn toward the spirit. With each I
DO we cease treating each other as mere
bodies. With each I DO we sacrifice the comforts of the body
in order to revere the spirit.
Which brings us to your I
am. I am comfortable, you say. Thus you refuse the I
DO of Holy Matrimonyand divinity with itto make yourself
into nothing but a descriptive statement. A body for recreational stimulation.
A body to produce a baby. A body to be seized and bound by sin. A body to
defile the Body of Christ. And sadly, in all of this, you betray Christ as
much as Judas did.
No
advertisingno sponsorjust the simple truth . . .
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