From Part II…
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their Message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You Are in Me and I AM in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We Are One: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I AM, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them."—John 17:20-26
And now, Part III…
As mysterious as it might seem, God not only worships within the Loving Oneness of His Triuneness, but He expresses elements of worship (love and devotion) in a seemingly unlikely context: And that is, in creation; and, more specifically, in His relationship with mankind. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, likens a man’s love for and devotion to his wife to that of Jesus toward the Church (see Ephesians 5:25-33). In the Old Testament book, Song of Songs, The Lover (Jesus) feels a love and expresses a devotion toward His Beloved (The Church) in a manner that is nearly impossible to miss. Provided below are some excerpts from this surprisingly erotic work:
The Lover/Jesus (1:10): Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels (NIV). You remind me of Pharaoh's well-groomed and satiny mares. Pendant earrings line the elegance of your cheeks; strands of jewels illumine the curve of your throat. I'm making jewelry for you, gold and silver jewelry that will mark and accent your beauty (The Message).
Lover (1:15): How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves (NIV). Oh, my dear friend! You're so beautiful! And your eyes so beautiful—like doves (The Message)!
Lover (2:14): My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely (NIV). Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Come, my shy and modest dove—leave your seclusion, come out in the open. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is soothing, and your face is ravishing (The Message).
Lover (6:4): You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners (NIV). Dear, dear friend and lover, you're as beautiful as Tirzah, city of delights, lovely as Jerusalem, city of dreams, the ravishing visions of my ecstasy (The Message).
Lover (6:5): Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me (NIV). Your beauty is too much for me—I'm in over my head. I'm not used to this! I can't take it in (The Message).
Lover (6:9): My dove, my perfect one, is unique (NIV). There's no one like her on earth, never has been, never will be. She's a woman beyond compare. My dove is perfection, pure and innocent as the day she was born, and cradled in joy by her mother (The Message).
Lover (6:11): I went down to the grove of nut trees to look at the new growth in the valley, to see if the vines had budded or the pomegranates were in bloom (NIV). One day I went strolling through the orchard, looking for signs of spring, looking for buds about to burst into flower, anticipating readiness, ripeness (The Message).
Lover (6:12): Before I realized it, my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people (NIV). Before I knew it, my heart was raptured, carried away by lofty thoughts (The Message)!
Lover (7:5): Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel. Your hair is like royal tapestry; the King is held captive by its tresses (NIV). Shapely and graceful your sandaled feet, and queenly your movement—your limbs are lithe and elegant, the work of a master artist (The Message).
Lover (7:6): How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights (NIV)! Your body is a chalice, wine-filled. Your skin is silken and tawny, like a field of wheat touched by the breeze (The Message).
Lover (7:7): Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit (NIV). Your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is carved ivory, curved and slender. Your eyes are wells of light, deep with mystery. Quintessentially feminine! Your profile turns all heads, commanding attention (The Message).
Lover (7:8): I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine (NIV). The feelings I get when I see the high mountain ranges—stirrings of desire, longings for the heights—remind me of you, and I'm spoiled for anyone else! Your beauty, within and without, is absolute, dear lover, close companion. You are tall and supple, like the palm tree, and your full breasts are like sweet clusters of dates. I say, "I'm going to climb that palm tree! I'm going to caress its fruit!" Oh yes! Your breasts will be clusters of sweet fruit to me, your breath clean and cool like fresh mint, your tongue and lips like the best wine (The Message).
In response to her Lover's Words of adoration and passionately expressed Desires, the Lover’s Beloved reaches out to her Lover as seen in the passages provided below:
The Beloved/Church (7:9): May the wine go straight to my Lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth (NIV). Yes, and yours are, too—my Love's kisses flow from His lips to mine (The Message).
Beloved (7:10): I belong to my Lover, and His desire is for me (NIV). I am my Lover's. I'm all He wants. I'm all the world to Him (The Message)!
Beloved (7:11): Come, my Lover, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages (NIV). Come, dear Lover—let's tramp through the countryside. Let's sleep at some wayside inn, then rise early and listen to bird-song (The Message).
Beloved (7:12): Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom—there I will give You my love (NIV). Let's look for wildflowers in bloom, blackberry bushes blossoming white (The Message).
Beloved (7:13): The mandrakes send out their fragrance, and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my Lover (NIV). Fruit trees festooned with cascading flowers. And there I'll give myself to You, my love to Your Love (The Message)!
Beloved (8:10): I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. Thus I have become in His Eyes like one bringing contentment (NIV). Dear brothers, I'm a walled-in virgin still, but my breasts are full—and when my Lover sees me, He knows He'll soon be satisfied (The Message).
Beloved (8:12): My own vineyard is mine to give (NIV). But my vineyard is all mine, and I'm keeping it to myself (The Message).
Beloved (8:14): Come away, my Lover, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains (NIV). Run to me, dear Lover. Come like a gazelle. Leap like a wild stag on the spice mountains (The Message).
And so Song of Songs ends (as we see in 8:14) with the Beloved’s bid for her Lover to “come away” with her. As uncomfortable as it might feel to insert Jesus into such a passionately romantic context, it would be good to remember that it was Jesus, after all, Who thought up love, sex, and romance and that it was He Who created wine, poetry, and music. These very things came (and still come) from Him, my friends…from His Being…from Who He is as a Person.
Peace,
Dave
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their Message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You Are in Me and I AM in You. May they also be in Us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory that You gave Me, that they may be one as We Are One: I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I AM, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know You, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them."—John 17:20-26
And now, Part III…
As mysterious as it might seem, God not only worships within the Loving Oneness of His Triuneness, but He expresses elements of worship (love and devotion) in a seemingly unlikely context: And that is, in creation; and, more specifically, in His relationship with mankind. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, likens a man’s love for and devotion to his wife to that of Jesus toward the Church (see Ephesians 5:25-33). In the Old Testament book, Song of Songs, The Lover (Jesus) feels a love and expresses a devotion toward His Beloved (The Church) in a manner that is nearly impossible to miss. Provided below are some excerpts from this surprisingly erotic work:
The Lover/Jesus (1:10): Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings, your neck with strings of jewels (NIV). You remind me of Pharaoh's well-groomed and satiny mares. Pendant earrings line the elegance of your cheeks; strands of jewels illumine the curve of your throat. I'm making jewelry for you, gold and silver jewelry that will mark and accent your beauty (The Message).
Lover (1:15): How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes are doves (NIV). Oh, my dear friend! You're so beautiful! And your eyes so beautiful—like doves (The Message)!
Lover (2:14): My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely (NIV). Oh, get up, dear friend, my fair and beautiful lover—come to me! Come, my shy and modest dove—leave your seclusion, come out in the open. Let me see your face, let me hear your voice. For your voice is soothing, and your face is ravishing (The Message).
Lover (6:4): You are beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners (NIV). Dear, dear friend and lover, you're as beautiful as Tirzah, city of delights, lovely as Jerusalem, city of dreams, the ravishing visions of my ecstasy (The Message).
Lover (6:5): Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me (NIV). Your beauty is too much for me—I'm in over my head. I'm not used to this! I can't take it in (The Message).
Lover (6:9): My dove, my perfect one, is unique (NIV). There's no one like her on earth, never has been, never will be. She's a woman beyond compare. My dove is perfection, pure and innocent as the day she was born, and cradled in joy by her mother (The Message).
Lover (6:11): I went down to the grove of nut trees to look at the new growth in the valley, to see if the vines had budded or the pomegranates were in bloom (NIV). One day I went strolling through the orchard, looking for signs of spring, looking for buds about to burst into flower, anticipating readiness, ripeness (The Message).
Lover (6:12): Before I realized it, my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people (NIV). Before I knew it, my heart was raptured, carried away by lofty thoughts (The Message)!
Lover (7:5): Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel. Your hair is like royal tapestry; the King is held captive by its tresses (NIV). Shapely and graceful your sandaled feet, and queenly your movement—your limbs are lithe and elegant, the work of a master artist (The Message).
Lover (7:6): How beautiful you are and how pleasing, O love, with your delights (NIV)! Your body is a chalice, wine-filled. Your skin is silken and tawny, like a field of wheat touched by the breeze (The Message).
Lover (7:7): Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit (NIV). Your breasts are like fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is carved ivory, curved and slender. Your eyes are wells of light, deep with mystery. Quintessentially feminine! Your profile turns all heads, commanding attention (The Message).
Lover (7:8): I said, "I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit." May your breasts be like the clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine (NIV). The feelings I get when I see the high mountain ranges—stirrings of desire, longings for the heights—remind me of you, and I'm spoiled for anyone else! Your beauty, within and without, is absolute, dear lover, close companion. You are tall and supple, like the palm tree, and your full breasts are like sweet clusters of dates. I say, "I'm going to climb that palm tree! I'm going to caress its fruit!" Oh yes! Your breasts will be clusters of sweet fruit to me, your breath clean and cool like fresh mint, your tongue and lips like the best wine (The Message).
In response to her Lover's Words of adoration and passionately expressed Desires, the Lover’s Beloved reaches out to her Lover as seen in the passages provided below:
The Beloved/Church (7:9): May the wine go straight to my Lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth (NIV). Yes, and yours are, too—my Love's kisses flow from His lips to mine (The Message).
Beloved (7:10): I belong to my Lover, and His desire is for me (NIV). I am my Lover's. I'm all He wants. I'm all the world to Him (The Message)!
Beloved (7:11): Come, my Lover, let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages (NIV). Come, dear Lover—let's tramp through the countryside. Let's sleep at some wayside inn, then rise early and listen to bird-song (The Message).
Beloved (7:12): Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom—there I will give You my love (NIV). Let's look for wildflowers in bloom, blackberry bushes blossoming white (The Message).
Beloved (7:13): The mandrakes send out their fragrance, and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my Lover (NIV). Fruit trees festooned with cascading flowers. And there I'll give myself to You, my love to Your Love (The Message)!
Beloved (8:10): I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. Thus I have become in His Eyes like one bringing contentment (NIV). Dear brothers, I'm a walled-in virgin still, but my breasts are full—and when my Lover sees me, He knows He'll soon be satisfied (The Message).
Beloved (8:12): My own vineyard is mine to give (NIV). But my vineyard is all mine, and I'm keeping it to myself (The Message).
Beloved (8:14): Come away, my Lover, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains (NIV). Run to me, dear Lover. Come like a gazelle. Leap like a wild stag on the spice mountains (The Message).
And so Song of Songs ends (as we see in 8:14) with the Beloved’s bid for her Lover to “come away” with her. As uncomfortable as it might feel to insert Jesus into such a passionately romantic context, it would be good to remember that it was Jesus, after all, Who thought up love, sex, and romance and that it was He Who created wine, poetry, and music. These very things came (and still come) from Him, my friends…from His Being…from Who He is as a Person.
Peace,
Dave
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