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(Jos.24:1-2a,15-17,18b;\xa0\xa0 Ps.34:2-3,9,16-21;\xa0\xa0 Eph.5:21-32;\xa0\xa0 Jn.6:60-69)\xa0 \u201cDo you also want to leave?\u201d How like the questions pertaining to the marriage vows is our Lord\u2019s inquiry of the Twelve, and Joshua\u2019s statement to the Israelites he has just brought out of the wilderness into the Promised Land.\xa0 \u201cIf it does not please you to serve the Lord, decide today whom you will serve,\u201d Joshua says, \u201cas for me and my household we will serve the Lord.\u201d\xa0 And Jesus seeks to find from His apostles if they will be like \u201cmany of His disciples [who] returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied Him\u201d after His teaching on the Bread of Life. Do you take Jesus to be your husband?\xa0 To honor and obey, to love\u2026 to \u201cbecome one flesh\u201d with Him who is \u201cthe Holy One of God\u201d?\xa0 You are free to leave, or you are free to come unto Him.\xa0 Though He knows your heart and your choice, yet you are free to make it as you please.\xa0 How shall you answer the Lord? Paul renders a beautiful account of the love of husband and wife, relating it well \u201cto Christ and the Church.\u201d\xa0 \u201cHusbands should love their wives as their own bodies\u2026 no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church.\u201d\xa0 And what can the good wife do when loved \u201cas Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her,\u201d bleeding and dying on the cross to wash away all our sins \u2013 what can she do when confronted with such utter sacrifice for her sake alone but revere her husband and respect his every wish?\xa0 In loving such a man she finds her joy.\xa0 (How the wife of Joshua must have beamed to hear her husband\u2019s public declaration that he and his household would follow the Lord!\xa0 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?\xa0 Do we \u201cbless the Lord at all times\u201d?\xa0 Does our \u201csoul glory in the Lord\u201d as King David\u2019s today?\xa0 Do we realize how He \u201cwatches over all [our] bones\u201d and makes them pure as His own?\xa0 Or will we be fool enough to leave His loving embrace?\xa0 The words must come from your mouths as well, and mean them: \u201cWe also will serve the Lord, for He is our God.\u201d 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\u2026 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.\xa0 O let His Spirit be upon us to bring us to eternal life!\xa0 What need we do but be obedient to Him and serve one another in His love?\xa0 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.\xa0 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.\xa0 And so, let us praise you all our days, never turning from worship of you, the one true God.\xa0 Let all your children serve you alone.