Mark 10:1-12 NRSVue
1He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him, and, as was his custom, he again taught them.
2Some, testing him, asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 3He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” 4They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,, 8and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, 12and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
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Reflection on Mark 10:1-12
Inspiration from 2025-02-28 Daily Prayer
Jesus knows that his authority is greater even than that of Moses and so he is free to change the commandments of Moses, which were written for people at a different stage of human development. His teaching here on divorce is clear and direct. In Christian marriage, God has joined a man and a woman to become one. We pray to try to live God’s way.
Sometimes, when we fail to follow the teachings of Jesus, we are tempted to excuse ourselves by saying, ‘If Jesus were here today, he would change his teaching.’ But Jesus is still here, and he makes his teachings clear through the authorised voice of his Church. Let us pray to be faithful to the teaching of our Church.
Further reflection
Jesus stuns the Pharisees and his disciples by forbidding divorce. On what grounds? In words repeated in the marriage rite he insists, ‘What God has joined together, let no one separate.’ God who ‘from the beginning’ in his love created these two individuals now calls them together to commit without reserve to a lifelong union of hearts, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.
The solution to marriage difficulties is not desertion, but forgiveness and a rekindling of love.