Excerpt from sermon on 08/30/2015:
Love – whether experienced as the love of God for Israel, or the love of Christ for the Church, or the love of Christ for me and you, or the love of a lover for his or her beloved – renews and recreates us. We know this about love but we forget it. The power of the Song of Songs is that it reminds us of the renewing and recreating power of love. The lover is not portrayed as a turtle or a snail, slowly, painfully making his way to his beloved, but as a gazelle or a young stag, joyfully bounding over the mountains and hills in anticipation of beholding his beloved. The lover doesn’t imprison his beloved; instead he invites her to join him in the world: Arise, my love, and come away. Come out of your enclosed existence into the big, wide world that is open to you and to me to explore together. The winter of your life has passed, the rain is over and gone. See, the flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come and the voice of the turtledove is heard in the land. The fig tree puts forth its figs. The vines are in blossom and give forth a sweet fragrance. The time is ripe, the world is ripe, we are ripe. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
FULL SERMON HERE
Love – whether experienced as the love of God for Israel, or the love of Christ for the Church, or the love of Christ for me and you, or the love of a lover for his or her beloved – renews and recreates us. We know this about love but we forget it. The power of the Song of Songs is that it reminds us of the renewing and recreating power of love. The lover is not portrayed as a turtle or a snail, slowly, painfully making his way to his beloved, but as a gazelle or a young stag, joyfully bounding over the mountains and hills in anticipation of beholding his beloved. The lover doesn’t imprison his beloved; instead he invites her to join him in the world: Arise, my love, and come away. Come out of your enclosed existence into the big, wide world that is open to you and to me to explore together. The winter of your life has passed, the rain is over and gone. See, the flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come and the voice of the turtledove is heard in the land. The fig tree puts forth its figs. The vines are in blossom and give forth a sweet fragrance. The time is ripe, the world is ripe, we are ripe. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
FULL SERMON HERE
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