In our last
article we faced this powerful question: How can God call me beautiful at the
beginning of our relationship, before I become mature or do anything for Him?
Read on to discover the answer!
In his
wisdom and foresight, the king sees the Shulamite as she will be when his love
for her has completed its work, and he relates to her on that basis from the
beginning. He knows that the power of her true identity and the dynamic of his
love will transform her as certainly as the dawn comes in the morning. In the
place of intimate fellowship, he can speak these things in such a way that her
heart will hear them and believe. And so he invites her to the place of
nearness and intrigue, the banqueting house, and there sustains her with
expressions of his deepest love.
This
delightful and beautiful picture of the love language exchanged by these two is
given expression in the life of Jesus, this time recorded for us in the Gospel
of Matthew. But in the New Testament portrayal, the heart of Jesus is filled
with pathos and grief. Matthew 23:37-39 is the record of Jesus’
lamentation over Jerusalem because the city, as the representation of the Bride
of Christ, has refused His invitation to intimacy and instead has continued the
historic practice of killing those who come in His Name to draw her to His
side. The emotion of the heart of Jesus is palpable:
O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are
sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen
gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!
Matthew 23:37
Jesus is
here giving testimony to the passion burning in the heart of God, the same
passion that caused Him to speak in such loving terms over the life of His dark
but lovely Bride in the Song. He longs to gather His people to the House of
Wine, to stir our emotions of being cherished and seen as fervent and
single-minded. He deeply desires to speak to our hearts of how He sees us, of the
delight that is within Him, of the confidence He has in the power of His love
to do the things He has promised.
Those
during the course of history who have experienced this “gathering,” this
stirring of the Lord’s intimate love, bear witness: Nothing else matters when
the touch of Christ’s love fills our hearts. This is why Paul the Apostle could
cheerfully consider every other important thing to be so much refuse compared
with the pleasure of knowing Jesus. It is why Stephen exulted as he stared
death in the face, for he saw the Lord’s glory in the face of his Bridegroom
standing at the right hand of the Father to welcome him into eternity. Because
of this reality the martyrs of history have gladly given their lives for the
sake of a better resurrection—one fully conformed to the life of the Beloved.
Jesus fulfills the promise, and He calls you and me to that place.
Jesus, I will receive Your invitation to the place of
intimacy in prayer. I long to hear Your voice telling me the truth of who I am,
and how You love me. I long to live out of the place of affirmation that comes
from Your heart, and that liberates me to love You in return and live in the
beauty of Your holiness. Draw me, Lord, and I will follow after You.
Gary Wiens
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