Song of Songs 8:6-7
“Set
me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.”
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is strong as death,
jealousy is fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.”
Many congratulations
It is a real joy and a privilege to celebrate your wedding
and your love for each other.
You’ve chosen two remarkable passages.
When I read ‘The two of us’ to Alison, she said: ‘Why didn’t
we have that at our wedding’ ?
And I’m delighted that you’ve chosen some verses from the
Song of Songs.
I love this book. It is about a wedding, but it is a love
poem, in which lover and beloved speak of each other and of their love. They
speak of their absolute delight in the other, and of their desire for the
other: a desire for union, that two might be one – in every way. And as someone
said, ‘In all of human literature there are few passages on the power of human
love compared with [the last two verses that we had read (SS 8:6-7)]’.
They speak of
1. the desire of love.
The desire of love is for the desire for total union with
the other.
Earlier in this service, you said: ‘I take you ... to love
and to cherish’. And then you said, ‘All that I am, I give to you; all that I
have, I share with you’
You have taken the other to be yours; and you have given
yourself to the other to be theirs.
Charlotte, the bad news is that from today you have ceased
to belong to yourself. You belong now also to Adam.
Adam, the bad news is that from today you have ceased to
belong to yourself. You belong now also to Charlotte.
You are not just two people saying that you love each other
and that you agree to share your life together.
Christian marriage is much more than that: today you’ve been
knitted together, sown together, bound together. Today you have been stitched
up!
In the old days, a slave would be branded with the seal of
their owner. The seal showed that they belonged to the other.
But look at what the lover says to the beloved.
She does not say, ‘Set your seal on me’: in other words, ‘possess
me’.
She does not say, ‘Let me put my seal on you’: in other
words, ‘let me possess you’.
She says, ‘Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your
arm’. She is saying, ‘the seal that I place on your heart and on your arm – to show
that you belong to me – is nothing less than myself’: She is saying ‘Choose to be
my possession, but only because I have chosen to be completely part of you’
His life and her life are completely entwined.
It’s like the rings. The ring is the other person. They
become part of you. ‘Set me as a seal on your hand’.
So you really are now in the business of living for each
other.
When of you is shamed, the other is shamed
When one of you weeps, the other weeps
When one of you rejoices, the other rejoices
When one of you is honoured, the other is honoured
You’re like two opera singers who are singing a duet. If it
is going to work, you can’t compete with the other. You are now not in the
business of proving that your voice is bigger than their voice, that your tune
is more beautiful than their tune. It’s about something that is bigger than
both of you – and at times you have to step back, and maybe even be silent, so
that the other can be heard. But the beauty of the sound that you make, when
you sing in harmony, far outweighs the beauty of the sound that either of you
could achieve on your own.
Or to use some well known words from Captain
Corelli’s Mandolin, “Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake
and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have
to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is
inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is
not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of
promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any
of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when
being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate
accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other
underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we
found that we were one tree and not two.”
The desire of love is the desire for total
union with the other.
2. the power of love
‘Love is as strong as death’.
Because we are talking about a union of body, mind and soul –
for this union to be broken is death. I’m not talking necessarily about physical
death (although there are the real life Romeos and Juliets), but death in every
other way.
If the two of you have been made one, you can survive on
your own, but how can you really live
on your own?
That is why this union is ‘till death us do part’.
And the passage speaks of jealousy being ‘as fierce as the
grave’.
Jealousy is incredibly destructive if it jealousy of the other person.
But in love there is a right place for jealousy when it is
jealousy for the other person. Because
the two of you are one, it is right to be jealous for their honour, happiness,
fulfilment and their well-being.
The mystery of love is that when you are jealous for their
joy – and when you hate with a burning passion everything that takes away that
joy from them - you will find your joy.
3. the invincibility of love
‘Many waters cannot quench love ..’
God’s love for us cannot be quenched.
But the reality is that our human love can be quenched.
Guard your love:
·
time together: quality time only comes with
quantity time.
·
talk together: share – hopes, dreams,
disappointments, hurts, joys – especially when you are hurting.
·
listen to the other: (sad illustration – not sad
because it is sad – but sad because I am using it as an illustration!) Brenda
and Tom in the Archers. Tom has been so obsessed with his crises that he has
not been able to listen to Brenda when she is hurting.
·
do familiar things together – do new things
together – serve together;
·
don’t take each other for granted: thank you,
you look good.
·
continue the romance
Give and give and give
Forgive
Our prayer is that in 40/50 years time your love will not have been quenched, but you will be deeper in love with each other
4. the pricelessness of love
Love is like life.
It cannot be bought. It is priceless.
It can only be received as a gift.
You are the gift that you are giving to each other today.
Adam, you did nothing to deserve life. Yet you have life.
You did nothing to deserve Charlotte – yet she is giving
herself to you.
Charlotte, you did nothing to deserve life. Yet you have
life.
You did nothing to deserve Adam – yet he is giving himself
to you
And the life that you have, and the love that you have for
each other, is a gift of love from God.
Christians have always understood the Song of Solomon both
as a love poem between lover and the beloved – but at a deeper level they have
understood is as a love poem between human beings and God.
God is the beloved desired by the lover.
And so we ask that he would set us in his very heart.
For his love is not as strong as death, but stronger than
death. He died for you; he conquered death for you.
His jealous passion for our well-being and joy is
unshakeable – and it does burn like a fire. God’s anger is nothing less than
the burning of pain in his heart when we try to seek well-being in things that
can never bring us ultimate happiness.
His love for us is unquenchable.
Adam and Charlotte, as you go through life together,
As you go on expeditions together
As you do your sums together
And you scare your dragons together
I pray that your love for each other will deepen day by day
And I pray that you come to know the astonishing and
overwhelming love that God has for you.
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