This is from a present manuscript intitled The Crown and the Cup which is part of a planned 5 book series. Click here to see Connie's published books on Amazon.

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OVERVIEW

~ WEEK 4: James I: A Gallery in Growth ~

Read: Mark 10:17-31 + Psalm 45

Focus: “Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people
and your father's house, and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord,
bow to him” (Ps. 45:10-11).

“But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' Therefore
a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall
become one flesh.' So they are no longer two but one flesh” (Mark 10:6-8).

“'You lack one thing; go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will
have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me' […] Peter began to say to him, 'See,
we have left everything and followed you.' Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no
one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or
lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in
this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands,
with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will
be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:21b., 29-31).

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever
loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not
take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:37-39).

Interact:
1—Why would the bride be commanded to “forget” her past in Psalm 45:10?
2—What connection is there between this “forgetting” and the king's “desiring”?
3—What connection is there between these acts and bowing to the king as lord?

It's an interesting experience to get married for the first time at fifty-one.
Not recommended for the faint of heart. (Except I am faint of heart. But it
was still the right choice for me.) One of the adjustments of marriage has
been not “feeling like myself” anymore, but I'll quickly remind myself, “I'm
not me! We are we.” “We before me!” must be the motto of a good marriage.

I no longer have parents, but I did leave behind the rest of my family and
home in Canada to get married. Now we're planning a move back to Canada
in the not-too-distant future, and it seems to be a God-orchestrated idea. Am
I still “leaving and cleaving”? Aren't those necessary acts in a marriage?

I didn't see any connections between the first part of Mark 10 and Jesus'
discussion with some Jewish scholars on marriage and divorce and the
verses that we're studying today until I was meditating every day this week
on Psalm 45 as part of a group study. It was Psalm 45:10-11 that caught and
held my attention this week. It started me down the trail of thought of the
“leaving and cleaving” of Genesis 2:24 as quoted by Jesus in Mark 10:6-8.

I began to see the “leaving and cleaving” of Genesis 2:24 and Mark 10:6-8
as being the theme of today's Mark 10 reading. (It's instructive to see the
happenings that are recorded immediately before the James-and-John
request for glory because I see thematic tie-ins all through the chapter.)

As we read through the Bible (culminating with the “marriage of the
Lamb”—aka: Jesus—in Revelation 19), we begin to understand that
marriage is a picture of God's relationship with His people; that He designed
marriage with this application in mind to help us better understand His heart
for us. The “leaving and cleaving” that a successful marriage requires is also
required in a relationship with God. That's what Mark 10:17-31 shows us.

Psalm 45, a psalm that fast-forwards prophetically to the “marriage
supper of the Lamb” of Revelation 19, instructs the bride to “forget [her]
people and [her] father's house.” What's the intention? What is she to do?

In any marriage, the bride (and groom) must “forget” the past; not that
we won't remember the old life, but we must leave it behind. “Forsaking all
others, keeping yourselves only unto each other…” Even if the couple has no
parents to leave or if the couple continues to live in the same vicinity as them
—perhaps next-door or even in the same house—there is unavoidably a
“leaving” that must take place in order for the “cleaving” to happen.

From Psalm 45:10-11, I wondered why it seemed that the bride's “leaving”
of her past was a condition of the king desiring her beauty. I started to think
about the reverse. I drew a picture in my mind of the queen-elect, on her
wedding day, standing in her chambers, surrounded by her attendants,
sobbing her eyes out for what she's leaving behind. Or perhaps just silent
and pale and visibly mourning without expressing it openly. What would be
more attractive to her groom? A joyful, radiant bride, delighting in the new
adventures ahead of her with her Prince Charming, the man of her dreams,
or the tearful, sorrowful, distraught bride? Prince Charming, such as
described by the rest of the psalm, would be devastated to force such a
match. He only wishes to woo and win. His bride's delight is his delight.

Then, I thought of the psalm in terms of my own marriage.
My poor husband! Because I was taking such a huge step at such a late
age, I would only venture it if I felt sure it was God's will for me. That was all
well and good. But I have to admit that it looked (at first) like such a sacrifice
that when I first told the man I would marry that I thought it was God's will
for us to be together, that telling was accompanied by tears and fears.

I'd had a few months for the shock to wear off before we said our, “I
do”s, so I was able to greet him on our wedding day with tears of joy instead
of tears of fear by that time. And God knew best! I have embraced His will for
me. Even though it did entail leaving home and family and immigrating.

This study is about the glory that can only come through suffering, and
sacrifice is a form of suffering. Becoming a Jesus-follower, like marriage, will
inevitably involve some sacrifice. Like marriage, the basic sacrifice that is

required of all will, in the end, also be the glory. It's the sacrifice that “I” am
no longer “me.” But we are we. (It sounds like a line from Dr. Seuss, but it's
really a profound truth.) Jesus describes it in Matthew 10:37-39 as taking up
the cross and losing one's life. The cross was an instrument of death.

In marriage, I die to “me.” I am no longer “me.” I am no longer a solo act.
I am no longer “the boss of me,” free to do whatever I want from minute to
minute without consideration for anyone else. I died to that old life. I am
now resurrected into a new life: the life of “we.” “We before me!”

And when it comes to marriage, many people resist or resent this aspect
of marriage. They may even fatally crash their marriage by refusing the state
of “one flesh” that is the “cleaving” because they refuse the “leaving.” But
that “leaving” which makes the “cleaving” possible is the only path to the
glory that marriage is meant to be. We get married because we find that the
alone-ness of being “just me” is undesirable. We crave “we”-ness.

The rich man who came to Jesus was hoping that eternal life involved no
“leaving” for him. He was in pretty good shape. After all, hadn't he kept nine
of the ten commandments? I love Jesus' tongue-in-cheek approach to him.
First, he lets the young man know that eternal life could be claimed if we
were already perfect—if any of us were capable of keeping God's commands
perfectly. Then, Jesus unerringly puts His finger on the main commandment
—the one that was standing in the way of perfection for the young man. The
one about having “no other gods before Me.” The first one of the ten.

It's the same requirement for all of us. We're not all called to give
everything we have to the poor. We're not all called to leave father and
mother and houses and lands. We are all called to “have no other gods.”

That's the “leaving” that is absolutely essential. There's no other path to
glory. There's no other way to become “we.” “I” must die to “me” in order

to live with God as “we.” Self-first is death to relationship. I must die to Self-
first if I am to resurrect into any true, lasting relationship. “We before me!”

Explore:
1—Why would the bride be commanded to “forget” her past in Psalm 45:10?
—What is the “bride” in Psalm 45 (and Mark 10) really being asked to do?

2—What connection is there between this “forgetting” and the king's “desiring”?
—Comment on the statement: “His bride's delight is his delight.”

3—What connection is there between these acts and bowing to the king as lord?
—Why must God come before anyone or anything else for us? Does the
picture of marriage help in understanding this reality?