The Husband is Called to Serve His Wife

The Last is First

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave–just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt 20:25-28, NIV).

Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords “did not come to be served, but to serve.” This is an incredible revelation of the character of our God. He had the power to make men fall prostrate before him, but instead He got down on his hands and knees and washed His disciples feet. Jesus had the power to do anything that He wanted–to command men to do whatever He chose. However, instead of exercising His divine right in such a way as to get things for Himself, He used His divine right of authority to serve His own creation. When you think about it, this seems like madness, but it is why we love God…”because He first loved us” (1 Jn 4:19 NIV).

So, what does this have to do with being a husband? Everything! The Church is the Bride of Christ, and as Christ served the church, so also husbands are commanded to serve their wives:

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 his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, 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. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband (Eph 5:25-33, NIV).

This means that while, yes, the husband has been given “authority” over his wife, he is commanded to use that authority in the way that Christ would, by laying down his own desires for the sake of his wife. This is not such an easy thing, but it is a powerful concept. The husband has been commanded to be Christ-like in his marriage, to represent Christ in the way that he treats his wife. For husbands, this should be a bit terrifying, for this means that anytime we do not treat our wives in a way that is Christ-like, we are sinning against our wives and against God, for “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins” (James 4:17, NIV).

Love is a Verb

In the typical marriage, the wife is in charge of monitoring the relationships (Taylor, 2001). She is the one that keeps track of how often they’ve been connecting, how the kids are doing in school, etc., and she lets her husband know when they “need to talk.” As a likely result of this, we have what was called in my Psychology class, the “Paradox of Marriage” (Taylor, 2001). The “Paradox of Marriage” is that married men are healthier than single men, but married women are less healthy than single women (Taylor, 2001). A theory on this is that when men get married, they have less things to worry about, essentially because the wife worries about those things for him (Taylor, 2001). This fits into what I’ve observed in most marriages. The wife takes care of and worries for everything, and the husband sits on the recliner watching the television. Is this loving your wife as your own body?

Most men, at the slightest hint of hunger, feed their bodies. We do not wait until our body is screaming in agony telling us that if we don’t eat we’re going to die before we eat. We also do not wait until our clothes are tattered and filled with holes before we buy new clothes. We do not wait until we are starving on the street side before we seek out a job to provide for our needs. However, we so often wait until our marriages are in shambles before we give an ounce of effort to repair them. This should not be.

Love is not a passive word. To love someone is proactive. When the husband gets home from work, he should be seeking out his wife’s needs so that he can proactively fulfill them: “Can I wash your feet?” “Can I take the kids off of your hands for awhile?” “What can I do to make your day turn into a great day?” “You didn’t have time to make dinner, how about I make dinner tonight, it sounds like you’ve had a rough day.”

Women will typically give and give and give and give until they are so worn out that they realize that they can’t give anymore. Women try to intuitively figure out what their partner needs, and then they seek to fulfill that need. This could be why the Bible doesn’t command women to do this, because it seems that they do it almost naturally, whereas for men, to get them to do this can be like pulling teeth. However, this is what the Bible commands. Love is a verb, and it is proactive.

Therefore, husbands, lay down your lives. Lay down your own desires. Be selfless with your time. Listen to your wives, and don’t just listen, ask questions about how they feel. Listen to them when they are having a bad day, and don’t assume that they are asking for advice. Seek out ways to serve your wife, and “wash her feet.” Do not settle on waiting for her to bring problems up, but rather keep actively involved so that problems never have a chance to fester.

As of yet, I have not seen a marriage where the husband served his wife that ended in divorce. Rather, when the husband serves, I have found these to be the most fruitful and content. So, it may be a difficult thing to try to lay down your life for your wife, and you may not get to relax quite as much, but it’s worth it.


FootNotes

Taylor, Dr. H. (lecture) Psychology of Sex Differences. Bellevue Community College. Fall 2001