We’re going to need to sing, so we will need some songs.
We’re going to need some wisdom, so we’re given little nuggets of goodness.
We’re going to need purpose, so we’re invited into a discussion about what brings true meaning to life.
And we’re also going to need relationships. Enter the Song of Songs.
This always happens to be a great discussion. Song of Songs is a biblical piece of literature that is loaded with sexually-charged language. There have been many attempts to trivialize the language and make the book into a metaphor that expresses God’s relationship with His people. While my belief in this metaphor and my appreciation for the truth contained therein continues to grow (especially in light of our discussion about wedding imagery in the Torah), to try to ignore the obvious and blatant references to marital sexuality in the book does the body a great disservice. Let’s unpack what I mean by that.
There is a place to discuss and appreciate discussion about the beauty of sexuality within its appropriate context. My passion for this topic runs rampant as I believe the Church does not discuss this topic enough (not even remotely). The topic is viewed as “off limits” and is therefore an untouched oasis of misunderstanding. We have so much skewed understanding in the realm of Christian sexuality that I’m not sure we even know where to begin. Just over a year ago, I wrote an eight-part series on sexuality and all the ways we need to work on redeeming it — but God never gave me the green light to publish it, so it sits unpublished in my rough drafts folder.
To make a long rant at least a little shorter, I would say that we need to discuss healthy sexuality more within the Christian discussion, and Song of Songs proves it. Hand the book to any married couple who has been married for at least a few years and they will tell you that the book is a litany of sexual poetry. The descriptions that each of the lovers give to their beloved’s body (barring some cultural barriers) will make any reader blush. And it’s not hard to understand what the bride is talking about when she describes "opening the gate” and letting her lover into her “garden.” This is steamy stuff.
And I’m sure that some of you are feeling a little uneasy after reading those last two sentences — which is the problem.
It’s in the book, people; read it for yourself.
But we continue to act like we are not allowed to discuss sexuality. It’s craziness. There is a healthy, appropriate sexuality. Healthy sexuality is to be celebrated — as much as healthy eating, healthy psychology, and healthy spirituality. In fact, healthy sexuality is a part of healthy spirituality and psychology (and vice versa). We are holistic beings. Our sexuality is a part of our spirituality and identity. (For more on this, I would recommend Sex God by Rob Bell.)
But in an attempt to avoid a rant, I’m hoping to discuss the three different Hebrew expressions of love. I share these at every wedding I perform and have borrowed the material very liberally from the content of Rob Bell’s Nooma video entitled “Flame.”
The first expression of Hebrew love is the word reyach. The word expresses “neighborly” or “brotherly” love. It’s the kind of love you would express to your friend or would speak about in passing. In a romantic sense, reyach is the poetic infatuation that a person experiences as they begin a new relationship. They can’t stop thinking about the other person. It’s the place where the poetry and the electric emotion comes from.
There is also the kind of love expressed in ahava. This is the kind of love that will be there through the long-haul. It’s not a love based on fleeting emotions or feelings or poetry. It’s not a love with strings attached — it is unconditional. In a romantic sense, ahava is the love that is expressed in the wedding vows. It’s a love that says, “No matter what happens, no matter what life throws at us, I choose you.” Ahava is the moment that the person decides that he/she is not just infatuated with the other person, but wants to spend every waking moment with them.
But there is also the love that is called dowd. And dowd is the erotic, sexual love that is expressed in Song of Songs. The beloved calls out to her bridegroom and asks him to kiss her with the dowd of his mouth.
When we speak of romantic relationships, we have to understand that God designed all three of those loves to work together simultaneously within a relationship. The struggle comes when we find one of those “loves” missing from the equation. In the college culture, it is very popular to engage in dowd after experiencing reyach and not have any ahava. It’s dysfunctional and destructive. Ancient biblical culture (if you remember our description of arranged marriages) started with ahava, moved onto dowd, and then hoped for reyach. If that wasn’t accomplished, it was dysfunctional and destructive. So many of our weddings in today’s culture are bathed in reyach; they have much music and poetry and beauty and emotion — all of which have their place. But we have downplayed ahava and then wondered why our marriages seem to be so shallow.
We tell our kids to pursue relationships, we celebrate their reyach, and we tell them to prepare their relationships for ahava. But then we tell them to abstain from dowd and wait and wait and wait to get married until later. Then we wonder why our children fall. All three loves are made to work together! The rabbi Paul spoke against this to the Corinthians, telling them that if their loins burned for one another, they were to get married. He told Timothy that those who tell people to abstain from marriage were engaging “teaching from demons.” This sexuality thing is serious stuff.
And Song of Songs reminds us that healthy, erotic sexuality — within the context of marriage — is beautiful, healthy, and to be celebrated. We would do well to take heed of this enlightening teaching of the wisdom literature.
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