I remember at one time one of the brides who had asked me to officiate at her wedding struggling with the idea of the text in Ephesians in regard to the woman. She was a woman who fit well into Western European society and the idea of a woman being submissive in anything just stuck in the craw. Why in the world should a modern woman even have to consider being submissive? But this was also a sister in Christ, so she didn’t feel like she could very well just toss that bit of scripture out.
In recent years I have been working on song workshops, encouraging members of the church to allow scripture and their creative abilities to combine to write new songs for the churches. During the past corona year I have been putting these songs into video’s and placing them online so that churches can use them in their services or so that members can simply be encouraged. Sometimes the songs were recorded before COVID came along. Some of the songs I sang in myself. Still others were put together as a virtual choir.
The video’s are put together with pictures or video fragments from the internet. I look for pictures that fit well with the words being sung. And as I looked to complete this song, I was struck by what for me was an amazing lesson. You probably figured this one out a long time ago. Thank you for allowing me to share my joy at learning it now.
What kind of picture do you look for to show submission? The song comes from the text in Ephesians 5:21. This is the text that precedes the bit to the wives telling them to submit to their husbands in all things. The verse says: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” But how do you show this? I had pictures in my mind of a strong hand, strength in an arm, bowing down. But all of these seemed quite negative. It hit me that this is what the bride had been hearing and feeling. She couldn’t get any other picture in her head than this.
But this was not the picture I had from the verse and was certainly not what I have in my mind about how Jesus loves us. It is not how I see Him asking us as the church to submit to him. And the more I looked around, the more I ended up with pictures of people helping each other. People grabbing one another’s arms to help them up from a fall. People helping others climb a mountain. People praying with and talking to one another. The “one another” passages kept popping up in my head.
That’s when the 2 year-old showed up. Not literally. My boys are long past 2. But I remembered the 2 year-old who would say, “I can do it.” Shoving the helping hand away so that he could do it HIMSELF! Sometimes a 2 year-old can be pretty forceful. But other images flooded my memory as well. The outstretched arms asking to be picked up. The hand reaching up to be held as we crossed the street. And yes, the little boy allowing me to tie the shoe or put on a skeeler.
A 2 year-old knows very well how to submit. Submission is essential if we are to be helped in any way at any time. It is even only when I submit that I can be loved. That blushing bride had already submitted by opening up her heart to that young man to be loved. Submission is not at all a strange thing to us. We have all learned it growing up and in the most beautiful of ways.
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ” means that we understand how thankful we are that Jesus was able and willing to save us. It is that thankfulness and joy that is part and parcel of our submission to one another so that we can assist each other in life. And that is how, later in life, we learn again and again through difficult times and times of great joy how wonderful submission truly is. I already knew this, but I discovered it once again. I had always heard it in the word "love". But there it was, standing firm in that strange word: "submission".
I am so thankful for my sister, Nita Blaakmeer, who is struggling now with cancer and her own fears, but who has long taught me about submission and helping one another. This is her song (and her voice as well), recorded in 2019 with other brothers and sisters - as such a song should be.
