Good Morning Friends,
In church today, on the coldest day of the year with a new interim pastor preaching, we will play a musical piece called Jubilee Concertante on English Handbells directed by the publisher and accompanied on the pipe organ by the composer. And for some strange reason it reminds me not only of the 50th anniversary of Disney World and the music I grew up on, and I cannot explain exactly why except for the Jubilee part, but more importantly it reminds me of the people I know who have celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. For those who have been wed for 50 years somehow reflect the nature of great marriages, somewhat like the marriage of different instruments and different people coming together to honor God. And now, even as I am typing faster than I am thinking, I can still say that as a blessed grandparent the song was right. Yes, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes kids and a baby carriage. I can hear the catchy background music going through my head now as a grandparent and in preparation for Valentine’s Day… Friends, Sooner or later love is gonna get you. Sooner or later love is gonna win... certainly this is a sign that it will not be long before many are caught up in the commercialism of February 14th. It is an unintended consequence of the day that has been set aside to honor the patron saint of lovers…the martyr who chose to marry couples in Christian ceremonies defying the orders of Emperor Claudius. Before St. Valentine pagans were picking names at random to match couples. That process has changed somewhat but at the cost of St. Valentine losing his head. I would imagine that St. Valentine would be surprised as to how the customs have changed and, in some ways, how they have remained the same. So today we look at the nature of love and particularly how we sing about it. So, What Song In Its Hearing Fulfills Your Image Of Love?
Scripture: See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Malachi 3:1-4 (NRSV)
Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.
Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13 (NRSV)
Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’ And you will say, ‘Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'” And he said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.
Luke 4:21-30 (NRSV)
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
Psalm 42:8 (NRSV)
How beautiful you are, my love, how very beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which bear twins, and not one among them is bereaved. Your lips are like a crimson thread, and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. Your neck is like the tower of David, built in courses; on it hang a thousand bucklers, all of them shields of warriors. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies. Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, I will hasten to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon. Depart from the peak of Amana, from the peak of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of lions, from the mountains of leopards.
Song of Solomon 4:1-8 (NRSV)
Message: I am dating myself but I grew up on some great love songs. Roberta Flack’s First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together. What hits a lyrical nerve with you? Is it Percy Sledge’s, When A Man Loves A Woman, or maybe You Are The Sunshine Of My Life by Stevie Wonder. Maybe it is My Girl by the Temptations. Ever since I first heard it, I liked Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s Ain’t No Mountain High Enough. But then some songs point to the problem of narcissism and the inability of people to love. Songs like Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain point to this growing epidemic of people loving to listen to themselves and never to others…so sure of their point of view that it is the only one they ever see. The Bible has its love songs too. The greatest would be the Song of Songs. You don’t hear too many messages on the Song of Solomon, and most people don’t know what to make of this earthy, poetic book. To add to the confusion, it goes by three names: you’ll see it as Song of Solomon, Song of Songs and Canticles. Some find it embarrassing and wonder how it ever got included in our Bible. Yet it is there because physical love is a great and Godly thing that can be spiritual. Unfortunately, theologians have flattened the Song of Songs into an allegory describing God and Israel or Christ and the church–treating the romantic text as some elaborate code. The Bible treats intimacy as a normal, positive, spiritual, and vital part of life. Like all gifts from God, physical love can be enjoyed or abused…it can be an act of forced will or a submission of one’s own will to the Lord’s. It can be celebrated in marriage or misused. Song of Songs shows us how mature, enduring love is expressed. The context of Song of Songs is marriage as a sacrament. The author describes love in ways we describe salvation. So married love is a covenantal relationship that follows the pattern of divine love–meaning that love is a foretaste of Heaven. Not much room for narcissism here…And that is something to sing about.
And So, when it comes to our hope of the church in its sanctified state and the ultimate marriage of the Lamb of God, my hope is that you will raise your voice to help people gather, celebrate, and unite in a way that lifts the human spirit and that the song inside you soars in a way that prompts the whole wide world to listen and hear the good news as a universal language of hope in music. And that even in darkness and silence we all would pause and contemplate the presence of God in all places and be led to carry with us the promise that is birthed new each day as a growing light in us through the gift of Christ experienced intimately resonating with a love in our earthly marriages that last into eternity.
Pray our lives become sacred stories of a love redeemed, of love that seeks the restoration of the image of God in us. Pray we have the courage to make lasting choices. Pray that our marriages are built on the rock of love and not the shifting sands of fleeting emotions. Pray we celebrate the idea of Christian love. Pray we appreciate the art of living with others. Pray we learn self-discipline, self-denial as we learn to love others. Pray we realize that the only remedy is to love God and others. Pray we realize that God has a plan for us to be transformed and will continue to work in our lives to accomplish the work of purifying us for a purpose. Pray we realize that mature spiritual love is indeed the better way. Pray our love sets the captives free and enlightens those who do not see the truth. Pray our love proclaims God’s love for us. Pray we are enlightened with the true light of love always as a forerunner of the Messiah and the hope to come in the greatest love story of all.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 