A letter from Jacob Goad in Peru
June 5, 2008
Dear Friends,
It has been a while since I last wrote to you. Well, I’ve got good reasons. Get ready for it: I’m getting married!
You may have already read the article about our engagement. Janeth and I are both grateful for your prayers and are excited about taking this next step in our lives.
Jacob and Janeth.
In our premarital counseling, the couple counseling us drew a triangle with God at the top and said that the triangle was a useful metaphor for marriage. God is the top point and each partner makes up the two bottom points. As we serve God and seek to be close to God, we naturally are close to one another too, and the distance that separates us is less.
Around the same time, we were reading Ephesians together where the theme of unity in Christ is a central theme of Paul’s letter. He says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ ...”
“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.”
Paul talks about Jews and Gentiles in this passage, but the implications are deep and valid for an intercultural marriage. Janeth and I are from two very different cultural backgrounds, but we believe that God has plans for us as a couple to keep us in love and to share unity to others who would have never understood it.
I think about our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel who have a literal “dividing wall of hostility” and exclusion. No such wall is welcome in God’s kingdom.
Of greater concern, perhaps, are the invisible walls that are built all of the time all over the world. In my experience in Peru, I have seen a couple of large companies team up with the government to make sure that the poor stay poor and that the rich stay rich. Walls of paperwork, public discourse, accusations, and false data meet those who wish to be free and healthy.
The common theme of this passage in Ephesians is love. Love breaks down walls that divide us from them. Love for humanity, love for the poor, love and patience for the rich, love across party lines, love for people of other religions, political and ideological persuasions, love for our planet, and love for ourselves.
As our marriage comes closer, we trust that God’s love will prevail in us. We want to dedicate our lives to loving one another and tearing down walls of oppression and exclusion that we will come across together.
Peace,
Jacob Goad
The 2008 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 275
