THE ART OF MARRIAGE

Touching and inspiring. These are two words to express my comments about the message on “The Art of Marriage” delivered by Rev. Dr. Paulus Kurnia from Amanat Agung Theological Seminary. He started sharing with this sentence “To get married is easy, but to run a family is not that easy”. We can get married in at least one day and one night preparation when we invite our friends, relatives to come to our wedding party. But running a family is longer than that. And, as Christians, we should put our marriage in the Christian context.According to him, a Christian marriage is the union of two forgivers, two listeners, and two servants. How should the three categories work? Rev. Paulus said “because of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven before God. As spouses in a Christian family, we should be forgivers to one another. How many times? Jesus Christ said in Matthew 18:22, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (NIV).How about two listeners in the context? Listening skill needs a process of learning. When we listen to others, we can send empathy to them. And, listening skill needs a sense of body language. In the context of a Christian family, husbands and wives should develop the sense to detect his/her spouse’s body language. His/her body language will tell deeper feelings than words.What about servanthood in the Christian family? We should serve our spouses as servants as we serve our God. Though it is tough work to do in nowadays world, we should be humble to serve our spouses. God has served us the first model through the life of Jesus Christ. Therefore, we should make it as our model too, to serve our spouses.After all, Christian marriage seems an ideal marriage to achieve; however we know that in a Christian family, there are not just two parties, but three parties; husbands, wives, and the Grand Admiral. (The sermon was delivered on February 20, 2008 at English Service-GKKK Solo)