Without a doubt, one of the most complex and powerful forces in our lives is love. Well, we call it love – whatever it is. It is universal yet specific, comforting yet frightening, longed-for yet feared. Perhaps, it is the result of God declaring it is not good that man should be alone. So, He created love. Of course, there is the love of God, the love of family, romantic love, and the love found in friendship. Some loves end in worship, some in accomplishing great tasks, and some in passion and desire. We chase it, fear it, long for it, and need it. Love is not simple or easy, but it is a constant companion that we never really get to the bottom of. Artists of every type have attempted to tackle this subject. Poets, musicians, painters, photographers, and cinematographers have all tried to get a handle on love, but none of them have fully succeeded, not entirely, and not for more than a moment in time. We consume their art in hopes that it might answer the questions of love, yet it never seems satisfactory.

Still, love endures. It saturates our lives. Each of you has had your entanglements with love, and each of you will continue to have them throughout your days. There is the love which comes when you first become a parent, the insane moment in time when you look at this tiny little creature and know, without a doubt, you would destroy anything that might hurt or corrupt such a precious thing. Now, the reality is this love is not simply left to multiply and deepen through the years. No, it is tested and tried, so much so that you will find yourself looking at this same creature in their teenage years wondering how you are going to love them through their anger, spite, and opposition to all you hold dear. What I am saying is love is felt profoundly in your lives. It is felt in its joy and happiness as well as in its absence and destruction.

The weight, wonder, and perplexity of love are mixed into our relationships. The exchange between parents and children, the tight bond between friends, the loyalty to family, this is the territory of love. But perhaps it is nowhere more pronounced, confusing, and captivating than the love expressed between husband and wife. Here, love operates at the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. In this relationship, love can cause a person to do reckless and surprising things. Oh man, if you are blessed to be in love with someone or, even better, to be the recipient of another’s undying love for you, why the world, with all its obstacles and terrors, seems to fade into the background. Nothing seems impossible, for your love will carry you through together. Of course, the flip side of this is just as powerful, only in the opposite direction. To have such love betrayed, to have it unravel is to taste despair unlike anything you have ever experienced, to no longer even see the point of living another day in pain and heartache.

In this morning’s text from Mark, our Lord’s distracters seek to play their game in this broken and torn thing called “love.” Testing Jesus, they ask, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” In the midst of shattered and hurting people, in the reality of love which is betrayed and heartache that is real, is it lawful for divorce? Divorce, the calling card of the failure of love. It is a reality we all know too well. Nobody expects it will happen to them, but it happens, and it happens all too frequently. So, is it lawful? Jesus responds by asking them to check Moses’ commands: What did Moses say? They respond, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” So, yes, it is lawful. In a world where love can be broken and lives are torn apart, there is a way forward, a way through the Law to proceed in life.

Yet, we know the Scripture speaks of a much more permanent form of love, one we all hear about again at every wedding we attend. As Jesus reminds us today, “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 they shall become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two but one flesh. What, therefore, God has joined together, let man not separate.” They are one flesh, joined together in such a way that to tear them apart is to do damage to each one individually. And we know this, don’t we? We know that divorce, no matter how amicable it is, will leave its mark. It leaves gaping wounds. As we have said, love is powerful, and it will do great damage when it goes awry.

Therefore, God does not desire divorce. He never intended divorce. So, why do we have it? Well, what does our Lord say to the Pharisees? He says, “Because of your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment.” It is because of your sin that God allowed this, because of our ability to tear each other apart and to abandon our love. Divorce, in this sense, is almost a gracious allowance so our lives might not completely unravel. There have been countless times when I have had discussions with members who are either contemplating a divorce, going through a divorce, or reflecting on one, and what I remind them of is how there is no righteousness in it. There may be a way through the Law forward, but it is never without sin.

This truth goes for all our attempts and failures in love; not just divorce, but also your inability to love one another, your broken relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ. We may become estranged from our parents or our children, we may find ourselves at odds with those we once trusted as friends. Instead of building up and strengthening the body of Christ, we seek our own glory, our own justification for our own dreams and desires, and with great regularity, we deeply wound those we are called to love. We can use the Law to our advantage to make us feel better about our case, but deep down, we realize there is no righteousness in it, no action that has been free from sin. We have sinned through our selfishness, our pride, and our arrogance. As our Lord goes on to tell the disciples, just because there is a certificate of divorce, it does not remove the adultery that occurs. The sins of our failures in love are not removed by the Law. They are not taken from us.

Now, it is curious that immediately after this exchange with the Pharisees and this whole discussion about divorce, the very next scene shows the disciples preventing children from coming to be blessed by Jesus. Jesus gets upset with them and says, “Let the children come to Me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” It might seem like these two things have nothing to do with each other, but maybe they fit perfectly. Perhaps, those who have failed in their duties of love, possibly all of you who have torn and wounded those you are called to love, are to be viewed here as little children. Children have nothing to barter with, nothing to better their situation with. They depend on others and only receive. So, to you Jesus says, “Come.”

He reaches out to you like little children and scoops up your torn and tattered lives. He embraces you in His love, His unfailing and perfect love. He has seen it through to the end. He has lived the perfect life and loved the Father without fail, and He clothes you with His own righteous garments in His love for you. All the wounds of your failed love are bound up in His healing love. Receive the Kingdom, my friends, and receive the love of Christ, for you are the children of God.