01.02 | Back to the Garden
Matthew 19:1-15
“He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”
Matthew 19:8
Around a year ago, a judge wrote a letter letter that went viral. He had written to two boys, brothers of divorcing parents, to explain to them the decision that he had made about where they would now live and go to school.
The letter went viral because it caught something that moved people. Most of us know—either from personal experience or proximity to it—the complexity of divorce. But this story caught something in the heart, being described online as ‘heart-breaking’, ‘moving’, and ‘heart-rending’. Rather than going into the reasons for the divorce, or any kind of arguments about divorce, it touched on the simple experience of two boys, disoriented in the radical changes that were happening around them. The judge’s words brought clarity and compassion, and that in itself moved us.
Divorce in the First Century was highly accessible. In many ways, it was far easier than it is today—at least if you were a man. A man could dismiss his wife if he simply decided that he wanted to. While this left the woman extremely vulnerable, the ease of divorce meant that there was always an easy get-out for men who married, and then changed their minds.
Maybe the surprising thing for us reading this is that the Old Testament Law allowed this.
The Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus out (again). They know that Jesus both has a high moral ethic (remembering, for example, His teaching on adultery in the Sermon on the Mount), and they also know what the Law says. They want Jesus to say something controversial.
He does. But in now way how they expected.
Look at His response closely. He knows the Scriptures, and agrees that Moses permitted divorce.
But then He goes on:
Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.
On the one hand: Moses allowed.
On the other: From the beginning.
Two very different things.
And Jesus’ point is maybe one of the most formative insights into how we approach the Old Testament Law today.
The Law was good. But incomplete.
The Law was holy. But only partially.
The Law was true. But something truer was to come.
Jesus argues that humanity was so broken (or hard hearted), that Moses permitted a compromise on the created ideal, allowing divorce because that was the best ends possible amidst the complexity and brokenness of a wounded humanity.
The ideal? No. But permitted.
But He doesn’t settle here. He also points further back—to the Garden and the first marriage. To what marriage was always meant to be. And therein we catch a glimpse of the vision of Jesus.
His vision for us wasnt a rulebook that accommodated our basic brokenness. Rather it of the gradual healing of our deepest brokenness that our lives may surpass the Law and return to the beauty of whole love for which we were made. He pointed the broken heart of every human right back into the Garden itself, before we became narcissistic and manipulative and abusive and forgot how to live in the awesome generosity and trust of self-giving love.
Jesus is holding these two beautiful truths together.
The Law wasn’t bad. It was good. But it was a vision that crafted societal norms around assumed human brokenness. God doesn’t fear such pain. He knows it, feels it, and is willing to walk into the midst of our greatest complexities with both clarity and compassion.
And yet, He also invites us to lift our eyes beyond the limited rights and wrongs of our understanding, away from legalistic rulekeeping and into the glory of Eden behind and Eternity before, that He holds as His unswerving aim before each and every one of us.
This question sits before us every day. What is the Father inviting us into?
Where do we need His message of grace within our complex and broken lives?
Where do we need to lift our eyes beyond our compromised minimum standards, to reimagine the inbreaking wholeness that He eternally intends for us?
Reflect:
How do we see our challenges today?
What is the minimum we can get away with without breaking the rules? Or;
What might it look like for this situation return to the glory for which it was intended?
Pray:
Father in Heaven,
My vision for my life is often so small
And when I hear your vision for me,
I can easily run into worrying about how disappointing I must be.
But when you look upon my life,
You do not see failure and cause for disappointment;
You see what I could be and what I was created to be.
You see the potential for glory.
Today, I give you permission to raise my gaze,
Above the narratives of failure and shame,
And into the kind of wide open, healed, expansive life that you call me to.
May I radiate with hope,
And may your Spirit work this miracle in me.
That my relationships and my heart would be governed by Eden realities,
And the restoration of glory.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen.
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Exodus 16-18 | Psalm 18:20-36