At four months into marriage, we’re standing on the edge of our first Valentine’s Day together. It’s not that we haven’t spent Valentine’s Day as a couple, but our first, “Official” holiday took place while we were 5,000 miles apart. With our first married Hallmark holiday looming, we’ve taken some time to reflect on the past. We are not so far removed from our singleness to have forgotten how days like this one felt when we weren’t in a relationship.
In the previous blog post, our friend Bobby called attention to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. In it, the apostle tells us that marriage gives us a profound and mysterious picture of Christ and his church. Rightfully so, even in our first few months of marriage, we’ve found our capacity to understand the gospel deepened in ways we never expected. Marriage is a good gift and a sign of God’s care for us.
In this blog, however, we would like to call attention to some of the other ways we can embody and enact the relationships between Christ and his church. If we're honest, we have to admit that the Church at large has often celebrated marriage in such a way that it marginalizes singles, making them feel like second class Christians. It's as if we have forgotten that the Lord of all history, and the author of over half our New Testament were both single men.
Our single days are still fresh in our minds, as is the memory of all the ways that the evangelical culture made us feel like our usefulness for the kingdom would only begin when we put a ring on it or said yes to the dress. At the very least, many singles feel as though they’re in some sort of holding cell until life, “Really starts.”
Reflecting on all of this, perhaps the strongest emotion that captured our seasons of singleness was longing.
During the many years that we celebrated February 14th alone, there was a desire that the next year things would be different. It is this longing that offers something unique to the body of Christ. In the book of Revelation, the church is depicted as experiencing such a longing. John tells us in Revelation that, “The spirit and the bride say, come!” We see in the final pages of scripture a bride who is eager for all of the waiting to end, for next year to be different.
In the present age, the church has just as much in common with those who are single as those who are married. It is true that at this very moment we experience the fruit of union with Christ: The gifts of the spirit, assurance of salvation, and the peace of his presence. He has already demonstrated his love for us on the cross. In that way, marriage makes visible an invisible reality. But every Christian also finds themselves desiring that next year, things would be different, that Jesus would return and bring an end to centuries of waiting. This is why Christians who are single and desire to be married have so much to teach.
Far too often, the church can emphasize the dignity, goodness, and beauty of the marital relationship. This is a noble task, but in the fabric of the body, single people have a vocation as well. They have the opportunity to show us how to wait well. In a unique way, they embody the church as she presently exists, longing for her wedding day.
At their best, single Christians who eagerly wait for marriage can show us how the church should eagerly anticipate Christ’s return.
So, if you find yourself passing through this Friday whispering to yourself, “Next year things will be different” know that you also have a holy vocation. There is an important place for you in the body, not as second class citizens, but as beloved members of the family of God. You too are demonstrating to the world something important about Christ’s relationship with his church. That is not something that begins when you’re married, it is happening at this very moment.
We married Christians need you, as you walk in holiness, in patience, and even with longing, you are showing us how to wait well for our soon coming king.