March 8: Christ's Love for the Church Exemplified Through Christian Marriage
♫ Music:
Day 24 - Friday, March 08
Title: CHRIST’S LOVE FOR THE CHURCH EXEMPLIFIED THROUGH CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
Scriptures #1: Ephesians 5:20-30, Ephesians 5:32 (NKJV)
Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.
This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Scripture #2: 2 Corinthians 11:2 (NKJV)
For I am jealous for you with godly jealousy. For I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
Poetry & Poet:
“Marriage
by William Carlos Williams
So different, this man
And this woman:
A stream flowing
In a field.
CHRIST’S LOVE FOR THE CHURCH EXEMPLIFIED THROUGH CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
Perhaps today was your first time reading this passage without pausing at a common editorial “Wives and Husbands” heading break between verses 21 and 22—a break that divides the image of submission to one another as members of the body of the church from the image of our united submission as the church to Christ her husband and head. These two images are distinctive but not disconnected. At the beginning of Ephesians 5, Paul exhorted God’s beloved children to “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” The mutual submission of believers to one another flows naturally from that love and our reverence for Christ from whom it springs.
Paul’s description of familial love among the body of believers judiciously precedes his admonition for wives to “submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.” He presents a new image with new roles, but submission in reverential love remains constant. As sibling members of Christ’s body, it is in His love that brother submits to sister and sister to brother. In the marriage relationship, however, we find not merely submission in love but submission to the love of the bridegroom.
In Brian Gillette’s Beloved painting, the bride’s hand extends toward the Creator’s gift of a rose. Her head is gently bowed in submission to the overwhelming love emanating from the heart of the cross. Her submission does not appear as mere dutiful acceptance of a host of obligatory tasks, but rather like one humbly, joyfully, and fully accepting the golden-green interlocking links of her savior-husband’s love that surround, cover, and protect her.
We too are presented with the choice of accepting Jesus’ offer of love into our hearts, but Christ’s superior love is not dependent on our response. Echoing Ephesians 5:2, Paul’s command to husbands in 5:25 is to “love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” Imagine the absurdity of submission in the absence of love. A bride cannot accept what doesn’t exist. In order for human marriages to reflect the heavenly one, the husband must love his wife or the image will be shattered beyond recognition.
So, press play on today’s music. As the organ and bright brass strike majestic chords that announce a royal wedding processional, work your way up the painting from the poetic “stream flowing in a field” to the bare foot of the bride as it disappears into a translucent white wedding robe. Consider the opening lines of Williams’ poem and ponder the difference between this holy bride and her divine husband—Jesus Christ the King, “The Church’s One Foundation” who draws His beloved bride back to His side in unity and harmony.
Prayer:
Lord give us strength to preserve the beauty of your allegories of love. May each husband at every moment strive to love his wife as Christ loved the church no matter the response. May each wife be loved by her husband and wholeheartedly accept his love into her heart as the church submits to the love of Christ. May all of us, including those who are neither husbands nor wives, submit to each brother or sister in love as befitting the body of Christ.
Amen
Dr. Matthew Van Hook
Assistant Director of Recruitment and Marketing
Associate Professor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Art:
Beloved
Bryn Gillette
2020
Oil paint, pen, and sand on wood panel
48 x 29.5 in.
Truth Collective
Artist Bryn Gillette worked with Truth Collective’s founder Jami Staples and her team to create a capstone piece to summarize the vision of our identity in the eyes of our Creator. The Truth Collective’s mission is to minister to women in the areas where untruths have robbed them of their joy, freedom, and confidence in their true identity in Christ. This painting is a vision of the bride of Christ in a restored Eden, the new heaven and earth described in the book of Revelation.
https://www.bryngillette.com/blog/2020/10/10/beloved-capstone-image-of-the-truth-collective
https://www.thetruthcollective.org/
About the Artist:
Bryn Gillette is a painter and art teacher defined by his identity as an “ambassador of Jesus Christ, a husband, and a father.” He finished as a full-time art, photography, and Bible teacher at Trinity-Pawling School in 2017, and subsequently moved with family to North Carolina to become the high school art teacher at Charlotte Christian School. Gillette is particularly excited that his children will now attend the same school that he works at and that their tribe can adventure through life together each day. He is the co-founder of TeamOne:27, a nonprofit dedicated to serving the needs of Haitian orphans, and has spent much of his artistic time as an advocate and champion of the needs of Haiti. The unique blend of Bryn’s Spirit-filled posture, realistic and abstract painting style, articulate speaking, and remarkably fast live painting process have made his work highly sought out by church communities, private collectors, and organizations.
https://www.lausanne.org/about/blog/gospel-every-person-painting
https://www.bryngillette.com/
https://www.bryngillette.com/lausanne
About the Music:
“The Church’s One Foundation” from the album Choral Hymns
Lyrics:
The church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ, her Lord;
She is His new creation,
By water and the word.
From heav'n He came and sought her
To be His holy bride;
With His own blood He bought her,
And for her life He died.
Elect from every nation,
Yet one o'er all the earth,
Her charter of salvation:
One Lord, one faith, one birth.
One holy name she blesses,
Partakes one holy food,
And to one hope she presses,
With every grace endued.
Though with a scornful wonder,
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!
Yet she on earth hath union
With God the Three in One,
And mystic sweet communion
With those whose rest is won;
O happy ones and holy!
Lord give us grace that we,
Like them, the meek and lowly,
On high may dwell with Thee.
Amen
About the Composers:
Samuel John Stone (lyricist), Samuel S. Wesley (music), and arranged by Dan Forrest
Samuel John Stone (1839–1900) was an English poet, hymnodist, and a priest in the Church of England. His father was a Hebrew scholar and a botanist alongside his clerical work, and had published various works, including a six-volume religious epic and various compilations of hymns. Samuel attended Pembroke College, Oxford, graduating with a B.A. (1862) and an M.A. (1872). He served a curacy in New Windsor from 1862 and while there wrote for his congregation the hymns of Lyra Fidelium, in which his most famous hymn, “The Church's One Foundation,” appears.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_John_Stone
Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810–1876) was an English organist and composer. He is often referred to as S. S. Wesley to avoid confusion with his father Samuel Wesley. He was the grandson of Charles Wesley. Samuel Sebastian embarked on a career as a musician, and was appointed organist at Hereford Cathedral in 1832. In 1839 he received both his B.M. and doctor of music degrees from Oxford. Famous in his lifetime as one of his country's leading organists and choirmasters, he composed almost exclusively for the Church of England, which continues to cherish his memory. His better-known anthems include “Thou Wilt Keep Him in Perfect Peace” and “Wash Me Thoroughly.“ Of his hymn tunes, the best known are "Aurelia" and "Hereford." "Aurelia" has been widely adopted in the United States and is usually now sung with the words of "The Church's One Foundation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Sebastian_Wesley
Dan Forrest (b. 1978) is an American composer, pianist, educator, and music editor. He majored in piano at Bob Jones University, earning a B.Mus. and an M.Mus. in piano performance, as well as studying advanced theory and composition. Forrest's compositions include choral, instrumental, orchestral, and wind band works. His published works have sold millions of copies worldwide. Perhaps Forrest's best-known work is Requiem for the Living (2013), which has seen several hundred performances worldwide. His other major works, Jubilate Deo (2016) and LUX: The Dawn from On High (2018), have also been widely performed. Forrest taught music theory and composition at the University of Kansas as a graduate assistant from 2004 to 2007, and then at Bob Jones University from 2007 to 2012, where he served as chairman of the department of music theory and composition. He now serves as co-editor at Beckenhorst Press; regularly teaches composition lessons and master classes; and speaks about composing, music-making, aesthetics, music publishing, and the music business in guest-artist residencies with universities and choirs in the United States and abroad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Forrest
https://danforrest.com/
About the Performers:
Duke Chapel Choir, the Duke Vespers Ensemble, and the Evensong Singers at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
In this recording, Dr. Rodney Wynkoop conducts the Duke Chapel Choir, the Duke Vespers Ensemble, and the Evensong Singers in the September 2016 premiere of Dan Forrest's setting of “The Church's One Foundation,” commissioned by Duke Chapel for the Celebration of Music honoring the reopening of Duke Chapel.
Dr. Rodney Wynkoop is the founding director of the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Durham (VAE) and has served as the artistic director of the Choral Society of Durham since 1986. He recently retired from Duke University, where he directed the Duke University Chorale for over thirty-five years, conducted the Duke Chapel Choir for almost thirty years, and served as the director of university choral music. He also taught choral conducting and served as director of performance in the Duke University music department.
https://www.vocalartsensemble.org/conductor/
The Duke Chapel Choir is the largest and most visible ensemble in the Duke Chapel. The choir is a regular part of worship on Sunday mornings during the academic year, singing anthems and leading the congregation in hymns and liturgical music. The Duke Chapel Choir has toured extensively throughout the United States, Austria, China, the Czech Republic, England, Greece, Poland, Spain, and Turkey. Performance venues have included Carnegie Hall, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Washington National Cathedral, and St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London.
https://chapel.duke.edu/sacred-music-arts/music-worship/chapel-choir
The Duke Chapel Vespers Ensemble was formed in 1986. The Vespers Ensemble leads evening liturgies and performs concerts at the Duke Chapel, focusing on music of the Renaissance and early baroque eras. The Vespers Ensemble is directed by Dr. Philip Cave.
https://chapel.duke.edu/sacred-music-arts/music-worship/vespers-ensemble
The Duke Chapel Evensong Singers was formed in 2015. During many Sunday afternoons during the academic year, the Evensong Singers lead the service of choral evensong, focusing on the choral and organ repertoire of the English cathedral tradition. The Evensong Singers are directed by the Duke Chapel music staff.
https://chapel.duke.edu/sacred-music-arts/music-worship/evensong-singers
About the Poetry and Poet:
William Carlos Williams (1883–1963) was an American poet closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician, practicing both pediatrics and general medicine. He was affiliated with what was then known as Passaic General Hospital in Passaic, New Jersey, where he served as the hospital's chief of pediatrics from 1924 until his death in 1963. Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, and a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than forty years, he relied on his patients, the America around him, and his own ebullient imagination to create a distinctively American verse. Often domestic in focus and "remarkable for its empathy, sympathy, its muscular and emotional identification with its subjects," Williams' poetry is characterized by honesty and candor.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-carlos-williams
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carlos_Williams
About the Devotion Writer:
Dr. Matthew Van Hook
Assistant Director of Recruitment and Marketing
Associate Professor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Matt Van Hook teaches in Torrey Honors College at Biola University. He received his doctoral degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame. His research and teaching cross boundaries between philosophy, politics, literature, and history but often land somewhere close to the realm of statesmanship and American political thought. He is a retired officer who previously served as a US Air Force pilot and a professor at the US Air Force Academy.