Sabotaging Marriage

Words matter.  

In the Affordable Care Act Supreme Court decision of last week, Justice Scalia bemoaned that “words no longer have meaning” -  a declaration that could just as well be ascribed to their June 26th landmark decision to federally mandate the legal validity of same-sex “marriage” across all fifty states.  

Maybe the meaninglessness of words all began with the redefinition of "is."  President Clinton adeptly dissected this seemingly insignificant two-letter word enough to manipulate the truth, which by his skillful dance, proved true without being truthful. Remember that infamous quote:  

“It depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. If the ? if he ?if "is" means is and never has been, that is not--- that is one thing.If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.”  [1]

Or perhaps it began with the hijacking of the rainbow.  You know the one that God set in the sky to signify his covenant between Himself and every living creature upon the earth that the waters shall no more destroy all flesh, the colors of which now mockingly fly in the face of God in a pseudo-victory dance for two more hijacked words: gay liberty?  The same colors which ironically danced across the waters of Niagara Falls, excited little children at the Disney World castle and flagrantly bathed the United States White House?  Those who ascribe America’s liberty to the Judeo-Christian God might think this prismatic flag upon our nation’s house akin to Antiochus Epiphanes' erection of Zeus' statue in the Jewish Temple. 

This redefinition of marriage didn't happen overnight, as it never does in matters of social change. Why Hitler knew how:  "He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”  The LGBT and now Q movement - Q added to include those ‘questioning’ or ‘queer’ which I guess is no longer a demeaning term -  found an influential friend in the media - a way to "own the youth," a convenient vehicle of change in the desensitization (or indoctrination) of a generation. And it has worked. Confuse the meaning of words, then affirm them through images. Intimidate the opposition as judgmental, intolerant, haters…who are out of step with the majority. One could determine from media lingo several seasons prior to cultural acceptance the way the political wind was blowing - a lesson for those of us who thought Disney safe viewing.  

And don’t think the Supreme Court’s decision is really about granting marriage equality to same-sex couples.  This decision redefines a sacred covenant.  Marriage across time and cultures has been recognized as the union of a man and a woman.  Our country’s interpretation of marriage stemmed from its foundation in Judeo-Christian values, whose foundation has been called into question by the media for some time. We might say God himself officiated at the first legitimate marriage, when Adam recited his vow that the woman was now “bone of his bones, and flesh of my flesh,” and God authorized “…man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.”  Affected by sin but never condoned by God, marital relationships degraded to the many stories and tremendous consequences we read of in the scriptures: Abraham and his concubine, David and adultery, Solomon and his many wives.  Desensitized to sin while justifying themselves, Jesus’s generation asked, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause…[because if not,] why did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?”  Jesus straight away equates all sinful acts with a hardness of heart and reinforces the marriage covenant of Genesis 3:24, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  Marriage is thus defined in the Old Testament as an act of God joining a man and a woman, and was upheld by Jesus in the New - not expanded to include society's new mores on love and commitment or the resultant acquisition of government benefits - making this legislation not about equality at all but about hijacking a sacred covenant and its intent.

New York's Governor Cuomo aptly spelled it out in his remarks while officiating at a same-sex wedding the day of the Supreme Court decision.  

“Today we treat people, equally. And that really is the fundamental promise of this country.  And that’s what this issue is all about.  ‘Marriage equality’ we called it.  I used to say it was more about the second word - ‘equality’ - than the first word.  It was less about marriage, more about equality. Marriage is an individual choice.  I’m not married.  Equality, equality is not a choice. Equality is a promise.  And this was about equality.  And this was the rallying point - and really, the crucible where the LGBT community said to this nation, ‘I want to be treated equally in every way.’  Marriage became the proxy for that.  Then we started to talk about civil unions if you remember.  Civil unions actually advanced the entire dialogue because what civil union actually said was, ‘we will give LGBT couples all the legal rights, but we won’t call it ‘marriage.’  That actually sharpened the debate and inflamed the debate because then the gay community said, ‘no that’s not what I want.  I want it to be ‘CALLED MARRIAGE.’” [2]

Marriage itself is not about equality. If it were about equality, then homo-sexual relationships - not marriage - would be more “equal” than hetero- by its true definition:  likeness, evenness, uniformity, sameness (Webster’s first dictionary of 1806).  I think we might all agree there is no uniformity in the true physical union of a man and woman - were it so, there would be no need for government for there would be no society to govern. Therefore, if equality were what the homosexual community truly wanted, they’d be overjoyed with equality in the eyes of the law, in the form of Cuomo’s proffered “civil” unions which could remedy all inequities through the Constitutional legislative process.  But it is not equality they want, it is a redefinition of, a coup on, the sacred definition of marriage. Marriage is a term of no value unless we understand its context.  As Scalia also remarked in the Affordable Care Act decision, “Context [of isolated words and sections of a law] always matters. Let us not forget, however, why context matters: It is a tool for understanding the terms of the law, not an excuse for rewriting them.” [3] 

Marriage’s context comes from the original lawgiver - God himself, not man’s interpretation thereof and thus to define it any other way than its intent is to violate the term, or if I might borrow a new word I learned from Scalia’s dissent to Justice Roberts’ majority opinion, “interpretive jiggery-pockery.”  

Christians do not hate homosexuals.  Let me make that very clear.  Christians absolutely believe in the dignity of man - all men - for man was created in the very image of God.  Because man has a Creator, our Constitution - our rights - have a context set forth in the Declaration of Independence.  These self-evident God-given rights (among these, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) enacted into our constitution transcend man’s law in the confines of the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” recognizing, as the signers did in the last paragraph of the Declaration, that there is indeed a “Supreme Judge of the world,” who knows the intents of our hearts and to which we all must give an account. This God-given tension of freedom and responsibility makes America exceptional and threatens the hungry giant of an overreaching government by making it accountable both to the people and ultimately to God, who no doubt remembers his definition of marriage.  


Yes, the context of words matter and all the manipulation of words to dance around issues; to indoctrinate a culture; to confuse the masses; to call evil, good and good, evil; didn’t begin with President Clinton, or even the hijacking of the rainbow - it began in a garden when the great deceiver of old questioned, “did God really say?”  

[1] http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/762240.html

[2] https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/video-transcript-governor-cuomo-celebrates-pride2015

[3] King vs. Burwell, Justice Scalia, dissenting, II, p 3. 

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf 

Scriptures referenced: Genesis 9:11-16; 2:23-24; 3:24

  

The Eternal Weight of Glory

"We do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."  2 Corinthians 4:16-18.

Sitting on my desk is this aptly framed treasure written by my mom almost 40 years ago.  

Take an Oak of some 100 years growth. 

How was that Oak born?  IN A GRAVE.

The acorn was planted in the ground; a grave was made for it that the acorn might die.  It died and disappeared, casting its roots downward and shoots upward, and now that tree has been standing a hundred years.   

Where is it standing?  IN ITS OWN GRAVE. 

All the time, in the very grave where the acorn died, it has stood there stretching its roots deeper and deeper into that earth in which its grave was made, and yet, all the time, though it stood in the very grave where it had died, it had been growing higher, and stronger, and broader, and more beautiful.  All the fruit it ever bore, all the foliage that adorned it year by year, it owed to that grave in which its roots are cast and kept. 

Even so, Christ owed everything to his death and his grave.  And we, too, owe everything to that grave of Jesus. 

Oh, let us live every day rooted in the death of Jesus.  To my own will, will I die; to human wisdom and strength and to the world, will I die.  For it is in the grave of my Lord that his life has its beginning, its strength, and its glory. 

CHRIST IS THE ACORN THAT WENT DOWN INTO THE GRAVE. 

And waited for his father, trusting in him to give him new life.  His roots bore fruitful branches and, in death, was his true life...to go back to the Father so that we could copy him and do the same.  God gave him life back 10,000 times more glorious than his life or ours on earth.  Jesus was born twice, the first time in Bethlehem, a life born into weakness, and the second time, from the Grave.  He is the "firstborn" from the Grave. 

Copyright Mary Blanchette 1977

Death is Swallowed Up in Victory

Jesus wept as I now weep.

My witty and winsome mom, my sister-in-Christ, my spiritual mentor whose biblical insight prompted this blog for purposes of online study with my sister, is now ever-present with the Lord who called her home on June 5th in the year of our Lord 2015. My life will never be the same.  And certainly would not have been the same had she not known the giver of life himself and thus made him known to me and so many, including the one last soul the Lord placed in her path. Could this have been you?

Through my tears,

I rejoice that she has passed from death to life, cloudy vision to clear, mourning to joy; that her body no longer bears the ravages of mortality, but has put on immortality; that she now beholds the lover of her soul - her true beloved - face to face. 

I trust that I shall see her once again, for I know that my Redeemer lives!

Yet Jesus wept as I now weep.

Though imminently he would raise his friend Lazarus from the dead, Jesus - moved with compassion - wept.  The Lion of the Tribe of Judah roared at the enemy.  The Faithful Shepherd rescued his sheep.  The Lamb of God sacrificed himself and the earth shook in its grief.  Death...is always painful.  Sometimes in the very act itself, but always in the separation from the living, death is painful.  Death is the very sting of sin - like the pungent sting of the onion for which this blog was named, so is the heart-wrenching sting of sin upon our mortal beings, upon our relationships to God, man, and our world. It is, and we would all do well to consider, the ever present reminder of the end-result of sin, the ever-present truth that death awaits us all as Solomon notes, "No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death" Ecclesiastes 8:8.

However, there is one who has power over death, there is one who is a life-giving spirit.  That same Jesus who wept,  who raised Lazarus from the grave,  conquered death by his own death, giving victory to all who are in him by his own resurrection.  Philippians 2:7-10 states that Christ, "though in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men [Adam].  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Paul makes clear that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" and that "Christ (the last Adam) became a quickening spirit." (2 Cor. 5:19, 1 Cor. 15:45).

Like Paul, we can proclaim then, "O Death, where is your victory?"

"For if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.  Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.  If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.  But NOW IS Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 1 Cor. 15:17-22.

"Death is swallowed up in victory," and *we can stop weeping,  for the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome....and I saw between throne and the elders...a Lamb standing, as if slain. 

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servant. Ps. 116:15

*paraphrased from Revelation 5:5-6.