Song of Solomon 1.2 2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of
his mouth! For your love is better than wine…
1.4 b We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol
your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.
4.10 10 How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How
much better is your love than wine…
Okay, I get it. I think. Sometimes when we read the Bible
we run across ancient idioms that don’t quite square with our modern way of
thinking. This morning as I read the first four chapters of the Song of Solomon
(or The Song of Songs) I thought: what in the world is this all about? It’s
a different way of thinking and I’m not too sure I understand it.
Apparently, it’s a love song of some sort and the lovers
are plain old goofy – in love… I think. Sure sounds like it to me. What caught
me right out of the gate is the idiom: your
love is better than wine. I thought about that and I asked myself, why? Why is “…your love…better than wine”?
Consuming wine has a physical effect: one becomes
intoxicated (more or less depending on the amount consumed.) Likewise, love has
an effect: the one who is affected by love is, well, weird. Not in a bad way of
course, but in a different way. A person in love may act like a person on wine:
drunk, crazy, out of their right mind. The powerful effect of love is more
mysterious and intoxicating than wine. Wow.
And so, the question: why is this even in the Bible? I
dunno. What does this have to do with my spiritual life? Not sure. Why even
read it? I think we read it because there is something mysterious about God who
is all almighty and all, holy and majestic and all that, and yet seems to have
an affection for us humans, who, in our own right, are mysterious, fickle and captivating.
There is something about affection that affects us. We’re
affected by affection the way wine affects us: goofy, dreamy, and somewhat
unstable. The deeper the affection and devotion, the worse it gets. So can we
attach that thought to God who is all almighty and all, holy, and majestic? We
can if we understand how mysterious He is and how mysterious (and wonderful) is
His love for us. If we get it just right, His love for us is better than wine
because His love changes us. His love makes us do things we otherwise wouldn’t
do. We’re affectionately affected.
I know there are those among us who’d rather not put God
in the place of crazy ‘drunken’ love; who’d rather He remain all almighty and
all. It seems God may be easier to take if we know He isn’t goofy and dreamy in
love for us. But then there are those silly romantics among us who think the All Almighty and All has a softer side –
an affectionate side – and loves us with a love that changes us from who we
were into who we are, because He is who He is… and His love for us is in fact,
better than wine. I, for one, can buy into that idiom…
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