(Jos.24:1-2a,15-17,18b; Ps.34:2-3,9,16-21; Eph.5:21-32; Jn.6:60-69) "Do you also want to leave?" How like the questions pertaining to the marriage vows is our Lord's inquiry of the Twelve, and Joshua's statement to the Israelites he has just brought out of the wilderness into the Promised Land. "If it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve," Joshua says, "as for me and my household we will serve the Lord." And Jesus seeks to find from His apostles if they will be like "many of His disciples [who] returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him" after His teaching on the Bread of Life. Do you take Jesus to be your husband? To honor and obey, to love… to "become one flesh" with Him who is "the Holy One of God"? You are free to leave, or you are free to come unto Him. Though He knows your heart and your choice, yet you are free to make it as you please. How shall you answer the Lord? Paul renders a beautiful account of the love of husband and wife, relating it well "to Christ and the Church." "Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies… no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church." And what can the good wife do when loved "as Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her," bleeding and dying on the cross to wash away all our sins – what can she do when confronted with such utter sacrifice for her sake alone but revere her husband and respect his every wish? In loving such a man she finds her joy. (How the wife of Joshua must have beamed to hear her husband's public declaration that he and his household would follow the Lord! Who could argue with such blessed authority?) And now, what of you and I, brothers and sisters, we who have the most faithful husband of all? Do we "bless the Lord at all times"? Does our "soul glory in the Lord" as King David's today? Do we realize how He "watches over all [our] bones" and makes them pure as His own? Or will we be fool enough to leave His loving embrace? The words must come from your mouths as well, and mean them: "We also will serve the Lord, for He is our God." Written, read & chanted, and produced by James Kurt. Music: "Marriage" from The Innocent Heart, first album of Songs for Children of Light, by James Kurt. ******* O LORD, to whom else shall we go, to whom else shall we be wed… for you alone are God? YHWH, let us never leave you but be wed to your Son and become as His Body in this world. O let His Spirit be upon us to bring us to eternal life! What need we do but be obedient to Him and serve one another in His love? You will certainly watch over and guide us safely in all things if we are united to Jesus. He left you, O Father in Heaven, to be joined to us, to save us, to pour out His blood as a cleansing shower to purify us from all sin, that we might be able to join you in Heaven with Him. In splendor may He present us to you; let us be faithful until the coming of His Day. Flesh of His flesh and blood of His blood, you cannot but look upon us with favor, dear LORD. And so, let us praise you all our days, never turning from worship of you, the one true God. Let all your children serve you alone.