Another Christmas theme. This time a look at the fragile institution into which God was willing to entrust His one and only Son.
Jesus was born into a family
Luke 1:26-33
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.”
Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favour with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
This is a good time to mention the special place of the family.
Various groups within our society now have various ideas and claims about what marriage is and what constitutes a family.
What would have happened if that particularly family had not been one that would continue. Joseph does disappear from the account, though at least not until after the incident in the Temple with Jesus talking with the teachers.
Luke 2:40-48
And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they travelled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.
Jesus was born into a family
A lesbian couple who was the first same-sex couple to marry in the United States in 2004 divorced only two years later in 2006.
Hillary and Julie, 52 and 51 respectively, led the fight to legalize gay marriage in Massachusetts. They were among seven gay couples who filed a lawsuit in 2001 challenging the state’s gay marriage ban. The case led to a state Supreme Judicial Court ruling that made Massachusetts the first state to recognize same-sex marriage.
The lesbian couple wed on the first day same-sex marriage was legalized in the state, May 17, 2004.
Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute, a Judeo-Christian-based public policy group that fought to repeal gay marriage, said,
“Divorce is a very painful issue, but I also can’t help but reflect on the pain this couple has caused on the commonwealth and the nation to redefine marriage. And now they’re getting divorced? It doesn’t make a lot of sense, Obviously, they don’t hold the institution in very high esteem.”
I noticed that the former couple went on to share custody of their 12-year-old daughter, Annie.
Meanwhile, a custody battle between another lesbian couple that ended their Vermont civil union is to me, even more interesting to me
After Lisa Miller split from her civil union with Janet Jenkins, Janet sought full custody of Isabella, Miller’s biological daughter.
Vermont courts ruled that Jenkins had parental rights because she was joined in a civil union with the girl’s mother at the time she was impregnated through artificial insemination. Janet Jenkins was not given custody but was given liberal unsupervised visitation rights to the six year old girl.
Lisa Miller left the homosexual lifestyle and became an evangelical Christian when Isabella was 17 months old.
It is not yet known why lesbian and homosexual relationships last less long than heterosexual ones.
Heterosexual relationships break up too of course, and marriage is a factor.
Earlier this year (2009) a new study found that choosing to cohabit rather than marry can more than double a woman’s risk of becoming a single mother by the time her child reaches five years of age. The study was based in Bristol on 15,000 mothers and featured in a collection of studies co-edited by Harry Benson of the Bristol Community Family Trust.
Not that marriage is a magic formula…
Headline in Daily Mail Online, 26th December 2009:
‘We never restrict each other’: Angelina Jolie speaks about her relationship with Brad Pitt and says fidelity is not essential.
The article went on to say fidelity is still not high on Angelina Jolie’s list of priorities. The actress has revealed that the couple do not restrict each other and says she doubts fidelity is essential.
Speaking to German magazine Das Neue, the 34 year-old said: ‘I doubt that fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship. Neither Brad nor I have ever claimed that living together means to be chained together. We make sure that we never restrict each other.’
The revelation will shock fans of the couple, who have have a family of six children, three of whom are adopted.
In June a leading family judge, Mr Justice Coleridge, warned that marriage urgently needed to be reaffirmed as the “gold standard” of relationships. He said an “epidemic” of family breakdown was damaging children.
Mail online 17th June 2009:
Only marriage can mend broken Britain, says top judge in attack on ‘pass the partner’ society
Marriage should be promoted by the Government to end the ’social anarchy’ of family breakdown, a senior judge said last night.
Mr Justice Coleridge accused mothers and fathers who fail to commit to each other of engaging in a game of ‘pass the partner’ that has left millions of children ’scarred for life’.
In a hard-hitting speech in Parliament, he called for a change of attitude that would attach a ’stigma’ to those who destroy family life and said a National Commission should be established to devise solutions for the ‘epidemic’ of broken homes.
He said: ‘The reaffirmation of marriage as the gold standard would be a start.’
Currently, one in three marriages ends in divorce. One in ten children lives with cohabiting parents and a quarter live with a single parent.
Children from single-parent families are far more likely to do badly at school, suffer poor health, fall into crime, drug abuse, binge drinking and teenage pregnancy.
Condemning the ‘endless and futile quest for a perfect relationship’, he said many parents were in ‘a complete and uncontrolled free-for-all where being true to oneself and one’s needs is the only yardstick for controlling behaviour’.
He added: ‘The children are caught up in the conflict of their parents’ unresolved relationship issues and it can leave them scarred, sometimes severely scarred, for life.’
The judge also said government should support ‘those who chose not to marry but live a committed life with a partner’, since they provide stability for children.
Calling for ‘a fundamental change in individual attitude and behaviour’, he said: ‘What is a matter of private concern when it is on a small scale becomes a matter of public concern when it reaches epidemic proportions.
‘I am not suggesting that all relationship breakdown and termination can be avoided in all cases. Of course it cannot.’
But he concluded: ‘The time has come for a major examination of all the issues surrounding family life, its support and maintenance, and especially the mechanisms and laws for its termination.’
Tory MPs to tell Cameron: ’shut up about marriage’
December 17th, 2009, The Christian Institute’
Conservative Party leader David Cameron has been told to “shut up about marriage” by some Conservative MPs who say he risks alienating single parents and cohabiting couples.
The Conservatives have pledged to recognise marriage in the tax systems and abolish the couple penalty in the benefits system if they win the General Election next year.
But some in the party are concerned that such a move would stigmatise unmarried couples.
Earlier this month Mr Cameron spoke about the benefits of marriage.
He said that “evidence shows marriage is a good institution which helps people stay together, and commit to each other. A society that values marriage is a good and strong society.”
However, his critics say he may be seen as moralising about people’s personal lives and called for alternative relationships to be recognised.
What a lot depended upon the quality of the marriage into which the Christ was placed.
God entrusted the Messiah to
- a human marriage. What if they had failed to commit? What if they had turned out to be selfish?
- a very young couple
- to people empowered by God
God still entrusts His treasure to human beings
- to human marriages the upbringing of children
- to human beings the message of his love and life
- to human lives the display of His glory
- to people empowered by God
2 Corinthians 4:1-8
Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all- surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair
