"The Four Loves: Eros"

Eros is the chapter in which C.S. Lewis focuses on sexual love in his work "The Four Loves". At one point, Lewis compares a husband and wife's relationship to the relationship of Christ and His church. This is in the context that the wife "receives most and gives least, is most unworthy of him, is in her own mere nature least lovable. For the Church has no beauty but what the Bridegroom gives her; he does not find, but makes her, lovely." I thought that this was a beautiful analogy of what Christ does for us. When I first read this, I wondered why on earth this man would choose to marry such an uncaring and selfish women? The same is for why Christ chose to die for our sins of selfishness, hatred, greed etc. We never deserved it, yet Christ chose to make us His bridegroom and, therefore, made us beautiful. We are a broken mirror reflecting a bit of His beauty to others. In Ephesians 5:25-27, Paul was giving commands of how each couple should treat each other specifically to the Ephesian Church. "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by 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." During this time period, men were the head of the house and the wives had to listen to everything they said. The fact that Paul told husbands to love their wives as they love themselves is something that these men had never been told to do before. Paul also goes on to explain that wives must also respect their husbands.

After reading this passage from Ephesians 5, I realized that it is not just a one way street in marriage and love. Although Paul puts emphasis on the husbands' role in marriage to make a point, he also mentions that wives need to respect their husbands. Christ loves His church and makes her beautiful but it cannot stop there. The church needs to take that love and bring it to the broken world around it. It takes a lot of work to maintain any relationship (whether here on earth or spiritually). Lewis states that "falling in love is something that happens to us; being /staying in love is something that we do". Falling in love with Christ puts us on a spiritual high were we think we are untouchable but, eventually, we will slowly fall down from our highpoint and back to distrust, confusion, and hurt. To avoid falling too far, it is so important for us to maintain our relationship with Christ through His word, through our actions, and through our relationships in His world. It will not always be easy, just as marriage takes a lot of work, but there will be moments when we look back and see the beauty in our relationship with Christ that makes everything worth it.