Thursday of the Twentieth Week After Pentecost

Reflections

October 10, 2024

Today's Reading: Catechism - Table of duties: To wives

Daily Lectionary: Deuteronomy 9:1-22; Matthew 11:1-19

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. (Ephesians 5:22)

In the Name + of Jesus. Amen. We hear Paul’s text with modern ears and are, at best, surprised. We hear ‘submit’ and begin to wonder: “My goodness, if we were to return to this way of thinking, then all the progress we’ve made for women and little girls will be undone!” Submission is a dirty word… a word that sounds like something we’d say to a subject or slave of a King. It makes sense in our sin… in a world that we’ve been tempted to believe is run and ruled by power. So regardless… in our sinful minds, it’s not that we don’t like the word submit… we’re more concerned with who will submit to whom.

That’s where the second part of the text comes in… submission is to be ‘as to the Lord.’ So submission has less to do with power and everything to do with what Jesus has done for us. “Submit to your husband” is, of course, a directive, a command, but Paul also tells us why wives submit… they submit to husbands as to the Lord because the whole bride of Christ, the Christian church, submits– gives herself over to the care of Jesus. Jesus isn’t interested in ruling over us as a tyrant king… He’s not looking for us to do things for Him. He’s true God and true man. As God, He has need of nothing… and as a man willingly became sin for us, to carry sin, put it to death in order to buy back His precious bride from sin, death, and the Devil. He’s the perfect Husband, the Perfect Man, and willingly becomes the least, the weakest, the servant of all in order to redeem His bride.

Submission isn’t ceding power, and it isn’t a matter of who’ll be the boss… God alone is the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier– everything necessary for this body and life and the life to come is taken care of… submission is a deference… a deferring and a trust that the man will lay aside everything, bear the burdens and sins of his family, his wife, die unto himself, and perhaps even physically die for the sake of wife and children. It’s a trust that husbands will be the heads of households, take responsibility for the instruction of the family, take them to the house of God to receive what the Good Shepherd freely gives, and to give of himself as Christ gave Himself for His Bride the church. Submission isn’t about power or even losing power… it is about true trust that the Lord of us all takes care of us by the church: in families and in husbands and wives who by grace have children… who in turn become husbands and wives themselves… and so creation and the Church continues from generation to generation. Submit to, as you do to the Lord, who has died and risen FOR YOU. In the Name + of Jesus. Amen.

Most Gracious God, we give thanks for the joy and blessings that You grant to husbands and wives. Assist them always by Your grace that with true fidelity and steadfast love, they may honor and keep their marriage vows, grow in love toward You and for each other, and come at last to the eternal loys that You have promised; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen

-Rev. Adam DeGroot, pastor of Calvary Lutheran Church in Rio Rancho, NM.

Audio Reflections Speaker: Pastor Jonathan Lackey is the pastor at Grace Lutheran Church, Vine Grove, KY.

In Embracing Your Lutheran Identity, Author Gene Edward Veith Jr. will guide readers through that heritage, starting with the Early Church and moving through the Reformation to Lutheranism today. Readers will learn about key people in the history of Lutheranism, from two teenagers who were the first martyrs of the Reformation, through the Saxon immigrants who left everything behind so they could practice Lutheranism freely, to the Lutherans who have stood strong for the faith in our own day.