Marriage is a weighty proposition. It has a tremendous amount of gravity to it. And Ephesians 5 not only helps us understand the gravity of marriage; it helps us understand why it is so weighty:

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church (Eph. 5:22-33).

As a whole, the book of Ephesians is about many things. It’s about the nature of salvation. It’s about the fact that in the body of Christ, people of different and many times opposing backgrounds come together. It’s about how those realities are lived out in real life, down to earth situations. But consistently, the book of Ephesians is about the fact that something is happening here that is not immediately apparent. Something bigger. Something cosmic and universal. Let me give you a few examples:

• The very beginning of the book, chapter 1 verse 3, says this: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” Keep in mind Paul was writing these words from a jail cell, and yet he claimed that the Christian has been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. These are not material blessings, and they might not be visible to the naked eye. But they are real. Cosmic. Universal.
• Later on in that chapter, verse 10, Paul says that God is bringing all things together in heaven and on earth under Christ. That’s certainly not visible, not in our time of division and hostility and chaos, but it is real. It’s happening. It’s bigger than any one nation or political group. It is cosmic. Universal.
• Then in chapter 3 he writes about the church: “God’s intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So what we are doing here is not just singing songs and listening to the Bible. What is happening here is a declaration to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms of God’s manifold wisdom. Again, something bigger is happening here. Something cosmic. Universal.

The book of Ephesians pulls the curtain back and shows us that God is working at a cosmic and universal level, and the every day things we experience are a part of that cosmic work. Such is the case with marriage. A helpful way to think of it might be this:

When our kids were younger, we had a rule in the house that they had to make their beds every morning. It took a while for them to embrace the act, but it eventually became a regular part of their routine along with brushing their teeth (most mornings) and combing their hair (most of the other mornings). That’s not to say they were good at it; they were not. You never got a traditional Army tuck and tighten with these kids. You got a bedspread pulled up to the pillows and then awkwardly smoothed out as best they can.

Our daughter even found a loophole in the bedmaking process. For a couple of years, she chose to sleep on top of her sheets and quilt, only under a small decorative blanket. She would put on a hat, gloves, and socks when it got cold, all because she knew that it’s much easier to fold that 3 by 3 foot square than all the rest of her covers. So why make this rule if we aren’t going to strictly enforce it?

It’s because bedmaking is not just about bedmaking. It is about bedmaking; that’s a good thing in and of itself. But it’s also about responsibility, stewardship, and ownership. So what we were trying to do was to, in a sense, teach about larger concepts through something much more tangible and practical.

Marriage functions in a similar way in the book of Ephesians. Is marriage about a husband and wife? Is it about being happy together? Is it about companionship and friendship and romance? Yes, and much more. It’s about all those things. But at the same time, there is something bigger going on. Something more cosmic in nature. This is how Paul closes his commentary on the roles of marriage: “This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.”

It’s as if Paul pulls the church aside and says, “Now I’ve told you about how a wife is meant to be in a marriage. And I’ve told you about how husbands are meant to be in marriage. But now I’m going to let you in on the big secret – your marriage is meant to be a walking, talking, living, breathing picture of the relationship between Christ and the church.”

Does your marriage matter, Christian? It absolutely does. And it matters for bigger reasons than you might think.