Love is beyond human comprehension.
Of course, we can all picture a man in armor rushing to the aid of a woman he fancies with the assurance that she fancies him and, at that moment, needs him. That is simple enough. But what of a knight going to save a whore, inclined by all past evidence not to return his love, from the pit her own destructive passions? The very sentence makes the mind recoil from all its warm feelings. We innocents will whisper to ourselves "don't use that sort of language" and pass over the notion with disgust. As much as we might want to think otherwise, we all would have that reaction if we were honest. To put our fairytale into such a context is scandalous. Who would dare?
God would.
The Creator of love cries out that scandalous tale in His own Holy Book. Over and over He speaks through kings and prophets of the Love that makes us uncomfortable. Through Ezekiel He told us, "...I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, [and] I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.
"When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine" (16:6-8, ESV).
We see these words of filth and bareness and shift in our seats, disgruntled. Is so much talk of nakedness and blood truly necessary? God thinks so. He paints clearly the state we were found in, when He came to us with the chance to live and be loved. The Love that takes a filthy, broken thing and raises it to an age and state "for love"... that is the Love He offers. But it doesn't stop their either. God's Love continues even when, as Ezekiel describes, "you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passerby; your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colorful shrines, and on them played the whore" (16:15-16a, ESV). His Love is the kind that will continue even in such atrocities. Without qualm or hesitation, He will save His bride from the very bed of her adultery. We might feel embarrassed at such pages and the Love they imply, but it is those pages of Love, that make us blush or feel uncomfortable, which we need to study and comprehend most if we ever want to understand the love our Creator made. To hear our hero Rahab was a prostitute and our model David an adulterer offends us, but God still put it in front of us clearly, daring us to be offended.
That is Love. Intruding, offensive, and unashamed.
Oh boy... hard to hear in some ways, but absolute truth. Thank you. I needed to hear that.
ReplyDeleteA very good word. But I'm curious...did you write this after attending FBC one Sunday and hearing the pastor read his intro scripture from Hosea??? It just made me think of that - all that "whoring" stuff; as uncomfortable and un"churchy" as it is that I can almost hear the old ladies squirming in their pews. But what an example of undeserved love! Pure and simple - straight from the Creator of love.
ReplyDeleteWell, this one was inspired by a compilation of things that gathered over time, namely "Redeeming Love" by Francine Rivers and "Immanuel's Veins" by Ted Dekker. It might have been fairly soon after that sunday too, though, cause I remember that :) Pretty much, it came from everywhere over the last few years and i finally got it out on the page.
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