A Love that Brings New Life

You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;  you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.  (Song of Songs 4:9)

God demands little, but expects much.  One glance toward him is enough to bring him running to my side.  Sometimes I flatter myself in thinking it is my “beauty” that brings him, but it is really much more his love.  Yet, I also find that when I think of stealing his heart with one glance, there must be beauty in my soul that I am little aware of.

God’s humility amazes me.  He comes with so little invitation.  That is mercy.  His mercy is his willingness to come even though I may only offer “one jewel” from my necklace.  He is ever-ready to respond because of his great love.  Like a star-crossed lover he awaits and anticipates any move I might make toward him.

But he is not like one filled with infatuation, who is completely blind to my unfaithfulness.  He knows about all of my sins.  Yet he loves me.  He knows a truth about me that runs deeper than my sin.  He sees a beauty in me that outshines my filthy deeds.  His heart is stolen by his vision of what he has made me to be and the passion to bring that person alive with my cooperation by trust.  I am raised to life by his love.

Lord, I cannot see in myself what you find so irresistible.  When I look at myself, I often feel ashamed.  By your mercy, let me see what you see.  By your grace, let me become that person.  By your love I am reborn.  Amen.

How might I practice receiving this love that brings life?  In the Song of Songs, the Beloved seeks the Lover and accepts his love.   With Dawn, I rehearse the words and actions of her love in my mind and it draws out the best of me.  So I want to remember God’s words and actions of love in my life and allow it to draw out the person that he sees I can be with him and in him.  The Bible becomes to me his words of love and his actions to draw near to me so I might draw near to him.  Such love comes to the Bible with prayerful emptiness and reads it with humble expectation.  (The Fire of the Word, Chris Webb, Chapter 6)

The God Who Calls Me "Beautiful"

How beautiful you are, my darling!  Oh how beautiful!  (Song of Songs 1:15)

How easy to approach God as an object of study.  How easy to try to fit him into calculations made about a happy life.  How easy to make theories about him.  Perhaps all of these impersonal approaches come from my conception of God as a distant being, far-removed from me and my life.  He may be near in proximity, but not near in concern or love.

Perhaps I do not yearn enough for God because I do not see that he is yearning for me.  In the Song of Songs, the lover can be likened to God and the beloved an individual soul.  It is disturbing to see God humbling himself to the status of a “wooer.”  He sings over me songs of passion.  He yearns for me more than a lover for a beloved.

It’s not surprising that such an interpretation of the Song seems somehow “below” God.  I have read in a book that one man cannot sing worship songs about how “beautiful” God is because he feels that such love is somehow “beneath” God.  No doubt the usual state of love between lovers is beneath God as it is beneath people, but the fault lies not with romantic love, but with the misuse of it.

I think the reluctance to attribute such a “low” love to God comes from more than just its misuse.  I think that the yearning, longing God is not one that I typically imagine.  I want God to be aloof because I want to be aloof.  I want God to remain “above” such behavior because I want to be above it.  God accepts worship; he does not give it.  These feelings keep me from succumbing to the God who calls me “beautiful.”

Lord, I want your love to be a fragrance that rises from the deepest parts of me.  My understanding and acceptance of your love is what deepens and drives my worship and love for you.  Save me from remaining aloof to your yearning love.  Amen.

This misunderstanding of God as “too good” for this lowly romantic love influences how I worship, but also how I read the Bible.  As I worship God, as I read his word, I want to know him more than study him.  “Theorists  explain the offerings, but lovers become one.”  (The Fire of the Word, Chris Webb, 68)

Paradox Helps Us to See

 Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:43-45)

These paradoxes of Jesus come from the disparity between the kingdoms of this world and the kingdom of heaven.  “Greatness” as the world sees it is not really greatness at all.  Such greatness has these characteristics: “lording it over “ other people, exercising authority over  others, and being first.  Greatness in the kingdom of God comes with service and giving up one’s life.

Instead of being served by many, Jesus showed that greatness is shown by serving many.  Capacity to serve demonstrates greatness with God.  Greatness with God is not just a matter of some future reward, but to have the kind of influence that God has.  Jesus served not merely out of duty, but because it is the most effective way to love and change human hearts, human society, and creation as a whole.

As I remember how I was raised as a child, I believe the things that have remained with me the longest and seated themselves in my heart the deepest have been the ways in which my parents served.  My father’s work at home and his careful planning of our vacations as well as my mother’s deliberate affection and sharing her love of music and art were ways in which they taught me without being highly conscious of teaching me.  What they did had more effect than what they taught.  The depth of greatness is plumbed by how many hearts I affect rather than how many lives I direct.

So the moments of service become the times I choose not to hold over other people what authority I have.  I serve when I move away from exercising my authority as expert, supervisor, or father, but instead come alongside the people in my life as a resource to be used or ignored, a steward of what has been given to me, and a helper and encourager.  I serve when I choose to be last out of love.  Serving is, most notably, death to my self-life.

The paradox comes from the utter difference between God’s ways and the world’s ways.  Jesus’ contradiction and exaggeration come from his contrast between what I accept as “the way things are” and the truth of how things really are.  The heart of his teaching is “You have heard it was said” followed by “But I tell you.”

Lord, as much as I agree with you that service makes greatness, I inwardly rebel at the thought of service so often.  I feel imposed upon and inconvenienced in so many ways and my heart is often unresponsive to the needs of other people, my mind indifferent to what they ask for.  Please let your truth not remain paradox but come to be truth that I believe.  Amen.

I see how paradox can open my eyes if I open my ears to it.  Jesus is not merely saying, “Serve.”  He shows the try nature and purpose to service and how the very struggle to faith in him is the struggle to serve instead of lording it over others, exercising my authority, and determining to be first.  Without faith service does not make sense.  Without truly hearing the paradox, I think I hear his words when I do not really.  “He who has ears let him hear.”

“But as we took longer [to look at the Byzantine paintings,] we are struck by the sudden realization that the angles and postures are all perfectly natural and correct – or, at least, they would be if we were all dwelling in the world of the icon.  We are outsiders, looking in on the kingdom of heaven: it is our viewpoint that is distorted. . . .  [The Bible] is a thin place through which the presence of God breaks into this world and bursts with unpredictable consequences into our lives.”  (Chris Webb, The Fire of the Word, 31)

The Word: Consumed and Not Burned Up

Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight – why the bush does not burn up.”  (Exodus 3:3)

“Do not come any closer, “God said.  “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5)

Moses’ experience of God tells me two things: how God’s word will affect me and how I should approach God in order to hear him.  The bush that does not burn up stands as a picture of what God intended for Moses and what he intends for me.  The voice of God with warning and instruction shows me how Moses could come to God and not be burned up.

One of the things that captured my imagination when I was growing up was a scene in the movie Krull.  The hero,  Colwyn,  has been fighting the monstrous villain with a special weapon called the Glaive.  The Glaive gets stuck in the enemy’s side during the battle and Colwyn is left defenseless.  However, he and the princess he came to rescue realize that their love gives them a greater weapon, a magic flame.  Colwyn then lights his hand in the fire and does not burn, but rather burns up “The Beast” he has been fighting.

Maybe, it’s not a great movie, but the impression of a fire that does not burn and is wielded as a weapon stuck with me.  Fire shows power.  Fire brings light.  Fire dances and swirls in the air.  I still have a fascination with fire.  I build one at our house most mornings in the winter.  I never tire of watching its light show as I enjoy its warmth.

The bush that does not burn seems to me to be more than just a miracle to get Moses attention.  It is a picture of God’s purpose for him and for all people.  What is the Holy Spirit, but the true fire that consumes each person while not destroying them?  He is the baptism of fire spoken of by John the Baptist and Jesus.  He is the fire of Pentecost, settling on and in each believer.

The ignition for this fire is God’s word, his voice on the heart of each person.  God word is described as a fire (Jeremiah 23:29) as well as his very being (Hebrews 12:29).  When God’s word comes to me, I find I am like the disciples walking to Emmaus, who said after they recognized Jesus, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?"  (Luke 24:32)  The Lord speaks and within me, his Spirit burns.

Yet the fire of God can destroy those who do not approach him rightly.  When I enter the house of a family that asks me to remove my shoes before I enter, I feel some resistance.  I have a sense of vulnerability when I leave my shoes behind.  My ability to come and go as I please has been hampered.

Also, I have a sense of humiliation.  I have been judged to be a bringer of filth into this clean and pure place.  (I have only experienced this taking off of shoes for the sake of keeping a house clean of dirt.)  Again, there is resistance to being seen as dirty.  Isn’t it okay just to wipe my feet?

These two things accompany the worship system of that Moses received.  In order to approach God, each person had to deal with their “dirtiness” (uncleanliness) and shed what was common (everyday) for something special (holy).  The system was designed to bring about a heart that was clean, that is, contrite and humble, as well as a heart that was holy, that is, focused on what is eternal and spiritual as opposed to what is temporary and external.

For my own approach to God, I am to take off my old self and put on Christ.  Like Moses sandals, my old self is dirty with pride and lust.  Also like those sandals, my old self is preoccupied with self-life and self-love and cannot be vulnerable and receptive to God and his word and his Spirit.  Of course, I cannot, by my own determination take off that old self.  However, God will not remove those clothes  until I come and spread my arms in humility and let him unclothe me.  There is a nakedness, a vulnerability I must have to receive God’s fiery word and not be destroyed by it.

Lord, I light my soul with your word.  Let my heart burn with your Spirit.  Teach me how to approach your holy ground without pride, without lust, naked and vulnerable before you.  Let me be consumed but not burnt up.  Amen.

The warning “Do not come any closer” reminds me that approaching God is at his request and at his discretion.  I may long for his word, so that I can argue better or so I can experience the joy, peace, or power that accompanies such words.  I may long to come “Just As I Am,” not in humility, but with pride and a sense of entitlement.  Chris Web reminds me, “Here is the work of today – which is the work the whole life.  I’m called daily to open my heart afresh to the living Word of God. . . .  So it’s with caution that, in my prayers, I approach the reading of Scripture itself.”  (The Fire of the Word, p. 14)  Preparation ends up being the first and one of the most important parts of receiving God’s word.  I would like to practice such preparation better.