Surprised by Grace (4): Moses and Jesus condone divorce?

“Moses let you do it . . . In the beginning it wasn’t like that.” (Mt 19:8)

Let’s not extrapolate if Jesus encouraged divorce.
Let’s not too question if Jesus upheld one man one woman marriage.

Let’s not lose focus on these obviously settled issues.

Instead, let’s just soak in the surprises.

Consider the rather earth shattering implications of Jesus admitting Moses altered God’s original intent!

Did Jesus say Moses made a mistake?
Perish the thought.
Instead, Jesus surprised his questioners by clearing Moses’ reputation!

Wonder what Moses has to say.

“I’m grateful to Jesus.
For millennia, people left and right attacked me.
They said I was weak, kowtowing to the male dominated society.
They despised me for giving men a way out by divorce paper.
They blasted me for aiding men to wreck the institution of marriage, even to the disintegration of family.
I took them all and only reported to Yahweh, as usual.
Finally now, Jesus comes and speaks for me.”

Moses took a sip of water. Then asked,
“You know why I did what I did?” He paused and answered his own question.
“Jesus knows: that I was dealing with a generation of hard hearted men!”
“Of course he has seen it all. The hardened Israelites walked thru the Red Sea, fed with Mana, drunk from the Rock. Still they never learned.”
He suddenly asked,
“Do u not remember they forsook Yahweh? Yes, they did. And wanted a king. Yahweh let them. And the messy history you all know.”

We couldn’t hold it any longer and had to ask Moses, “What have these got to do with you Moses?”

“Well,” Moses took out his pipe, lit it, puffed some.
“You see. People have been hard hearted all along, whatever commandments and punishment rendered them. The situation I faced was no different. 10 commandments? Ineffective. Lightening and thunder? Soon forgotten. You know what men were doing?”
Puffed.
“They insisted on forsaking their wives. But they wanted to keep their respectability—the kind of hypocrisy of those Jews putting the original question to Jesus. So the easiest way for them to achieve that was to accuse their wives of adultery, and got rid of them.”
He smirked a little in contempt, “They got out of marriage with respectability and heaped all blames on women’s inchastity!”

“I had to deal with this hardened attitude.”
Moses sat up and began to look very serious before picking it up.
“Don’t get Jesus wrong. When he exonerated me by saying ‘because of your hardened heart’ he wasn’t saying I went soft FOR MEN! Jesus saw it clearly, that because of the men’s hardened heart, I had to find a way to protect the women they were divorcing all the time, and falsely accusing wives of adultery. I have been with Yahweh alone for 40 days and some of His gracious nature rubbed off on me. So I made the men give their wives a certificate stating their grounds of divorce. Adultery of course needed no certificate but stoning. So these certificates weren’t there to condone divorce which was already waging, but to protect the integrity of the victimised women!”

That was indeed a surprise.

Moses’ softness wasn’t in fear of men’s hardness. Rather his soft spot was for the weak and victimised.

The picture gradually looks clearer.

If Moses couldn’t withstand the constant nagging of the hardened-hearted Israelites and relented to let them divorce their wives, Moses’ soft heart lost to Israelites hardened hearts.
Israelite men 1 Moses 0.
Alas that wasn’t what Jesus meant!

Yes, Moses’s heart had a soft spot: for the weak!
Never for nagging!
The piece of divorce paper gave the women innocent status. They no longer lived with the stigma of being adulterous.
Victimised women 1 Moses 0.

No wonder Moses thanks Jesus, who never told his questioners Moses was wrong.
Moses lost, if it can be put that way, because he felt for the women.
Moses and Jesus aligned.
Jesus once told an adulterous woman, “Neither do I condemn you.”
He didn’t condone or encouraged.
He surprised her with grace.

God remained God and was consistent.
His creation intent wasn’t wrong.
It didn’t change.
He kept His eyes on the weak and victimised.
He never wanted divorce to hurt women so He helped them.
His soft spot was for them.

His gracious nature never changed.

Yes, men were surprised that God let Moses modified the code.
But let them not misunderstand it a divine act to bend towards their hardenedness.

Yes, women were surprised that God didn’t force the husbands to stay thru the relationship. Jesus reiterated that their husbands were the guilty party.
But let them not forget that it was a divine act of grace that protected their name and shielded them from stigma.

Divorce shouldn’t stigmatise women.
It stood as proof of their husbands’ wrongs.
Women could go on with their lives even if their husbands decided that they would have no part in theirs.

Surprised that they could go freely not as an adulteress?
Yes.
But No!
Surprised by grace really.
Grace that empowers victims to live on.