Article May 21, 2018 Issue

Wedded to Love

Susan A. Williams

The following passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy represents what I call “wedding thinking.” It reads “… ‘Come hither! Arise from your false consciousness into the true sense of Love, and behold the Lamb’s wife,—Love wedded to its own spiritual idea.’ Then cometh the marriage feast, for this revelation will destroy forever the physical plagues imposed by material sense” (p. 575).

The Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings have much to say to those spiritually considering the “wedding” concept. For example, Christ Jesus used wedding imagery to describe the kingdom of heaven in his parable of the ten virgins, five of whom were “wise,” being prepared with their lamps burning when “the bridegroom came” (see Matthew 25:1–13). And in the Old Testament, in the book of Hosea, there is this promise from God: “I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord” (2:19, 20). As I’ve thought about this, I find that it makes sense that using marriage terminology helps teach concepts such as the spiritual preparedness needed in order to receive Christ, Truth, and the truth of man’s inseparable and covenanted relationship to God, divine Love. In truth, we are each wedded to Love—no one is left out! This is spiritual reality.

The third chapter of Science and Health, titled “Marriage,” includes within its fourteen pages the basic premise that man—a term including both men and women—has a wholly spiritual, not material, origin. Science and Health explains how we can prove man’s spirituality and oneness with God right now. And this chapter turns us in that direction with this counsel: “May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal altar to turn the water into wine and to give to human life an inspiration by which man’s spiritual and eternal existence may be discerned” (p. 65).