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If you love his early films The Karate Kid as well as The Outsiders, or any of the other works he’s done, chances are you’ll be familiar with Ralph Macchio as an actor. Recently, he has been in the show Cobra Kai, which follows the adventures of the characters from The Karate Kid as well as those of their children. The show has a lot of great things to say about Forgiveness and the long process of forgiving, and as such I highly recommend it.
While he was promoting the show, I saw Ralph Macchio recently on a late night program where the host congratulated Macchio for celebrating his 34th wedding anniversary. The host then asked how he had kept he and his wife had kept their marriage going for so long. It seems almost miraculous when so many celebrities out there have such short lived marriages.
Macchio’s comment was having a firm foundation, the kind that doesn’t just give up when something difficult happens, but instead takes the time to work things out. That foundation, as Macchio seemed to put it, is that desire to have that lifelong relationship.
Put another way, a marriage works out when you want to stay in it for life, and that desire helps to work through differences because you have to if you want to stay together. This isn’t to say there aren’t corrupting influences like abuse or infidelity, actions that are obvious violations of the marriage vows, that we need to be wary of. Yet on the whole for many of us, if we see marriage as a lifelong commitment, we’ll do the work to stay in it.
The relationship of God with us as a people is often compared to marriage in Scripture. In fact, we see that throughout our readings from Scripture today. Isaiah specifically refers to God’s rejoicing over us as spouses rejoice over one another. That sense of rejoicing continues in Psalm 36. Jesus’ first miracle in John is performed at a wedding, and it is this miracle that is one of the three manifestations Epiphany originally celebrated along with the Star to the Magi and the Baptism of our Lord. Even 1 Corinthians has a relationship to marriage because just as we, though different and individual, come together with our individual gifts to help forge a community, we also come together in marriage as different individuals bringing our own special gifts to be stronger together.
The real reason God uses the imagery of marriage for our relationship not just with the ancient Israelites, but with us as well, is because of this word: commitment. God is showing us that no matter what, God will be there for us. God is committed to making things work for us, even when we are not always committed to doing the same.
That is really the assurance that we need. When we struggle to make our relationship with God work, we need to know that God won’t just give up on us. Even through we wail and moan against God, we need to know that God will still be there for us. We need to know there is a way back for us, a way for restoration and wholeness.
Even when we seem like a hopeless cause, God is there for us. God is still there, ready to let us back in. God is ready to forgive us. God is ready to make our relationship with God work, even when we are not always equally ready to do so.
Marriage, at it’s ideal and best, is about commitment. That is what God offers to us, as an unearned gift in our lives. All we have to do is reach out and accept God’s presence with us so that we, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, can actually be able to declare “Jesus is Lord.” For God’s undying commitment to us, for God’s willingness to always let us back in, and for God’s never-ending gift of Grace, we can truly say, “Thanks be to God!”