Introduction
I have to admit it, I’m a bit of a nerd. That may not be news to you …no one seems to be aghast and shaking their head in wide-eyed disbelief… but I have only recently realised it’s true.
I began to have suspicions
that I might be bit nerdy about two years ago, but I suppose the evidence
became overwhelming whilst on holiday last June, when, instead of just enjoying
a glass of wine in the sunshine, I decided to go through my entire music
collection and select my all-time 100 favourite songs, then arrange them in
alphabetical order first by artist, then by song title on my tablet.
Not content with that, I
then couldn’t stop myself making a second playlist of songs 101-200. It’s
genuinely sad; I actually agonised for about half an hour over whether Bob
Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” should make it into the top 100 or be
relegated to the b-list.
I would have real
difficulty whittling down that list to a top ten, but were I to manage it, I think
I would find it actually impossible pick my all-time best song ever. But alas,
this the kind of utterly pointless challenge I feel I will inevitably have to
rise to on my next holiday.
I mention this because the
Bible tells us that King Solomon wrote many, many songs, but he wanted everyone
to know which one he thought was indisputably the best.
It is the Song of Songs. This
is the Hebrew way of expressing a superlative. If you want to say “the best
king of all” in Hebrew you say “king of kings”. If you want to tell people
about the most amazing day of your life you call it the “day of days.”
And if you want to describe
“the best song ever, the song that is more beautiful, more tuneful, more moving,
more enchanting that any other”, you call it the Song of Songs. This one,
tucked away in our Bibles between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah, is indisputably, and
forever, top of the charts.
Intriguingly, the first book of Kings says that Solomon wrote 3,000 proverbs [that’s a different saying every day for over eight years] and 1,005 songs. That’s a strangely precise number, isn’t it, but it corresponds, as far as we can tell, almost exactly to the number of women Solomon had in his life.
So some people have speculated that, because the number of
songs he wrote and the number of women he loved is so similar, he may have
written a love song for each of those women.
And if this theory is right (and I think it makes a lot of
sense) that’s the reason right there why only
one of Solomon’s 1,005 songs made it into the Bible. It’s as if God said, “that’s
the only one I’m publishing, because only one woman was ever my choice for you
Solomon; she’s the one - and the only one - you should have married.”
We’re going to look at just a few verses of that most
excellent of songs this morning, as we draw to a close this series of six talks
on worship.
So far, we’ve explored why we worship, and why it matters
to do it as well as we can. We’ve seen that the heart of worship is seeking
God’s presence. We’ve seen that God is breathtakingly holy and awesome so we
should come before him with reverence and fear.
Last week, we saw that worship is not a performance that we
passively watch; God wants us to all be involved.
The Heart
Today, we are looking at the idea of intimacy in worship.
The Bible calls for a response to God that is with all our heart as well as with all our mind.
Many of you, perhaps most
of you, know what heartbreak feels like. Have you ever
opened your heart to someone, only to have it torn apart by disappointment and
rejection? Forgive me for reminding you of that experience today; it’s one of
the most crushing, devastating experiences we ever face as human beings.
I once dated a girl for about three months. I was
more smitten with her than she was with me. I remember vividly the day she
dumped me 38 years ago!
I remember where I was sitting, the time of day,
the colour of the carpet and what I was wearing. I remember sobbing, I remember
the snot running down, I remember thinking I was ugly and that I’d never love
again. I can laugh at myself now, but at the time it was utterly distressing.
God experiences rejection thousands and thousands
of times every day by people who spurn
him, deny him, disown him, forget him, use his name as a swear word, ignore him
and curse him.
And yet he still calls every person on this earth into
relationship with him. Throughout the Bible, God reveals himself as having a
heart; he has feelings and passions. He burns. He laughs. He gets upset. He
sings for joy. He cries. He loves.
A couple of
weeks ago, Kathie went to look after the Paris grandchildren for a few days
while our son and daughter-in-law attended a conference. She was gone a whole
week so obviously I lived on cheese and onion crisps and tinned mushroom soup
for five days. I missed her. In fact, from the moment she got on the train I couldn’t
wait for her to get back home. And not just for her cooking I hasten to add.
What would you
say if I went to meet Kathie at Eaglescliffe station, watched her get off the
train, kept my hands in my pockets and said, “You alright then?” Or what would
you think if I formally offered my hand to shake hers and said, “How do you do,
Mrs. Lambert?”
Or supposing I
said to her, “I love you with all my mind!” She might say to me, “What about
your heart?” or she might say quite a bit more than that actually! It’s
appropriate in a relationship of love to express some feelings. In fact, it’s
more than just appropriate, it’s essential.
A Song of Love
The Song of Songs is a
romantic and quite spicy poetic dialogue between a young bride and her husband,
and it confirms - with divine approval - what we already know; that falling in
love arouses the strongest and most intense emotions we ever feel. The Song
fills the senses. It is sensually intoxicating and overpowering.
Listen to these verses from
the different parts of the Song: “I have come into my garden, my bride, I have
gathered my myrrh with my spice... Drink your fill of love... All beautiful you
are, my darling; there is no flaw in you... You have stolen my heart... I am
faint with love.... Your mouth is sweetness itself; you are altogether
lovely...
Is it just me, or is it
hot in here?
Is it about worship? Or is
it just about sexual attraction? Is it sort of both? What do you think?
The 3rd century Church Father Origen said, “I advise
and counsel everyone who is not yet rid of vexations of the flesh and blood,
and has not ceased to feel the passions of this bodily nature, to refrain from
reading the [Song of Songs] and the things that will be said about it.”
Someone in this church told me a couple of years ago
that it is their least favourite book in the Bible and they feel quite
uncomfortable reading it.
But the Jewish
commentator Rabbi Aqiba saw a purity
and innocence about this Song that is unparalleled in world literature.
He said, “The entire history of the world from its beginning to this very day
does not outshine that day on which this book was given to Israel. All the
Scriptures, indeed, are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.”
In the same vein, CH Spurgeon who led a church in
London with 12,000 members, preached 59 sermons on the Song of Songs, which
were later published in a book called “The Most Holy Place.”
The Song of Songs is given
to us by God for two reasons; primarily it means what it looks like it means;
two young lovers delighting in each other’s charms - God made us in his image,
male and female, and he said it was very good.
Some disagree and say, “Oh
no, it can’t be; it’s in the Bible, so it must be all about spiritual things
and nothing else.” So, they say, every detail has a deeper and true meaning and
what the Song appears to be all about should be ignored.
One commentator for
example takes the view that when the bride says in chapter 1.12 “My beloved is
to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts” that this is, in fact,
despite all appearances to the contrary, a picture of Christ’s appearing
between the Old and New Testaments.
I just don’t think it is.
When I read, “My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts,”
forgive me if you’re shocked at how worldly and unspiritual your vicar is, but I
don’t think about the incarnation – at
all. And I don’t think Solomon had the first Christmas in mind either when
he wrote those words down.
A Place for Intimacy in Worship
And yet… having said that,
the Church is the bride of Christ. His
beloved, radiant, resplendent bride. And marriage does point to the enduring covenant of love between Christ and his
Church. This is the other, and secondary, reason God gave us this book in his
Word.
Ephesians 5 in the New
Testament says that there’s profound and wondrous mystery in the union of a man
and a woman in marriage and that there are striking parallels between that and
the relationship between Christ and his whole Church worldwide.
Does that mean we should use
the racy language of physical attraction that we read in the Song of Songs in
our sung worship? No, it doesn’t.
Our relationship with
Jesus as individuals is not a romantic
one and I think it’s really unhelpful, especially for men, to be expected to
sing words like, “Let my words be few; Jesus, I am so in love with you.”
Or “I look full in your
wonderful face.” Or “There’s no place I’d rather be than in your arms of love.”
Or this one lifted straight from the Song of Songs addressed to Jesus: “Oh,
that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth.”
Jesus is not my sweetheart.
The Bible never speaks of anyone being in
love with Jesus. And that song with a reference to a wet, sloppy kiss is
just gross. That is the quickest way I know to empty the church of men – I
think this is a tragic misunderstanding of intimacy in worship.
But there’s a passion and
a longing, and a delighting and an overflow of admiration, like we find in the Song
of Songs, that absolutely should fill our worship. Here are a few examples of
what I mean:
In the Song of Songs, you find an overwhelming sense of anticipation;
the young lovers long to be up close together.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God. When can I go and meet
with God? (Psalm 42).
One thing I ask from the
Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the
house of the Lord all the days of my life, to
gaze on the beauty of the Lord. (Psalm 27).
In the Song of Songs, the lovers express their pleasure
and satisfaction resting in each other’s company.
How priceless is your
unfailing love, O God! We take refuge in the
shadow of your wings. We feast on the abundance
of your house; and drink from your river
of delights. For with you is the
fountain of life; in your light we see
light. (Psalm 36).
In the Song of Songs, the lovers continually speak out
flowing, superlative words of praise for each other.
I love you, Lord, the
strength of my salvation. My rock, in whom I
take refuge, my fortress and my
deliverer; my shield and my
stronghold. (Psalm 18).
When I was a young
Christian, the song “I love you Lord, and I lift my voice” was new. There have
been times when I have joined with others to sing that song, starting gently
but with rising volume and a cascade of harmonies; it’s a simple song of the
heart, you don’t need the words as they are few, and it is properly intimate;
“Take joy my King in what you hear, let it be a sweet sound in your ear.”
In
the Song of Songs chapter 2, the beloved says,
“See, the winter is
past; the rains are over
and gone. Flowers appear on the
earth; the season of singing
has come…”
The beloved is first
and foremost Solomon’s young bride. But she is also a foreshadowing of the one,
holy and apostolic Church loved by Christ.
“The winter is past
and the rains are over and gone” she sings. Springtime, when wintry cold and
darkness is past, is so like the new reality of fruitfulness and abundance we
have tasted and savoured in Christ.
“This is the season
of singing” she says. And we are in a season of singing in the Church today,
did you know that? We are living in an age where more worship songs are being
written than ever before. They’re not all works of art by any means, some are
truly awful, but many are inspired, and look; the heart of the Church is in the
right place and that is what God sees above all.
Seven times in the Bible it says, “sing a new song to
the Lord.” Interestingly, some churches should note this, there is no command
anywhere in Scripture to sing an old song - though it is certainly not
forbidden of course.
In times of revival and outpouring, in times when
heaven touches earth, the Holy Spirit brings forth a blossoming of worship
where expressions of intimacy rise to greater prominence.
The great American revivalist Charles Finney once
said, looking back over his life, “In times of revival the language of the Song
of Songs became as natural as breathing.”
The hymn “Here Is Love, Vast as the Ocean” was written
during the Welsh revival and it speaks of that blessed season when heaven’s
peace and justice kissed a guilty world in love.
Did you know that the most common New Testament word
translated “worship” occurring 59 times (proskuneo)
means “to bow down and kiss” and it originally carried with it the idea of
subjects falling facedown before a king or kissing his feet.
Ending
Which brings us, as we come towards
the end, to Mary of Bethany in John 12.
She takes about a pint of
pure nard, a fabulously expensive perfume from a very rare plant that grows
only in the foothills of the Himalayas. She pours it all on Jesus’ feet and
wipes them dry with her hair. And the whole house fills with the fragrance of
this costly aromatic fragrance.
In Jesus’ day, nard had to
be transported over several months from northern India, via Persia to Roman
occupied Judea. It was vanishingly rare, highly exotic, decidedly luxurious and
vastly expensive. It has an incredibly clean, pure, fragrant, intense and
aromatic scent.
Verse 3 says Mary “poured
it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.” There is an unembarrassed
intimacy about that act. Mary’s offering is profoundly personal. It is from an
overflowing heart, as well as a renewed mind.
This Mary, we know from
Luke 10, loved to just sit at Jesus’ feet, and bask in his presence, and allow
her mind to be changed and her heart to be stirred by his words of grace, and
let everything else in her life just fade into the background as she focused on
him. This is the kind of intimacy in worship the Lord seeks.
And as the whole house was
filled with the fragrance of the perfume, may this house be filled with the
glorious sound of our uninhibited love for the Lord.
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 25 November 2018
