WEBVTT 00:00:00.281 --> 00:00:01.084 I mean, you can be seated. 00:00:01.084 --> 00:00:01.707 Well, good morning. 00:00:01.707 --> 00:00:04.666 Yes, the song of songs. 00:00:04.666 --> 00:00:05.309 Who's ready? 00:00:05.309 --> 00:00:07.905 Whoo, let's talk about sex. 00:00:07.905 --> 00:00:14.608 Baby, I did not do that at the first gathering, they would not have. 00:00:14.608 --> 00:00:20.399 Probably Years ago I was at a bookstore. 00:00:20.399 --> 00:00:26.144 We actually, sonya and I and Pastor Paul, were at a bookstore near Harvard and there was a Commentary in the song of songs. 00:00:26.144 --> 00:00:29.553 I'm like that would be wild to do a series on the song of songs. 00:00:29.553 --> 00:00:34.972 This is a book of erotic love poetry, so I'm like I got to do it one day, and today is the day. 00:00:36.161 --> 00:00:42.457 I've already told a number of people about this and they, the responses have been typically mostly what are you thinking? 00:00:42.457 --> 00:00:44.582 And Trust me, I haven't. 00:00:44.582 --> 00:00:46.689 I have also thought the same thing of myself. 00:00:46.689 --> 00:00:47.691 What are you thinking, brailey? 00:00:47.691 --> 00:00:50.795 But here's why I want to talk about it, because it's in the Bible. 00:00:50.795 --> 00:00:51.700 It's wild. 00:00:51.700 --> 00:00:52.966 I mean this book again. 00:00:52.966 --> 00:00:53.127 It's. 00:00:53.328 --> 00:00:54.231 I'm not gonna pull out a punch. 00:00:54.231 --> 00:00:55.740 We're all adults, more or less, in this room. 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:56.722 We can handle it. 00:00:56.722 --> 00:00:57.606 I'm not gonna be over the top. 00:00:57.606 --> 00:00:58.869 I promise I won't make it weird. 00:00:58.869 --> 00:01:08.325 But listen, we are surrounded by movies and songs and conversation that coffee shops are way more gratuitous than this kind of stuff, and so we might as well talk about it in church. 00:01:08.325 --> 00:01:12.957 That's what I think and also it's in the Bible, like what we should. 00:01:12.957 --> 00:01:13.700 What do we make of this? 00:01:13.700 --> 00:01:14.944 How do we read this kind of book? 00:01:14.944 --> 00:01:16.623 I got an email from. 00:01:16.623 --> 00:01:23.950 I sent an email out earlier this week about this and I got an email back from one of our longtime memories whom I just loved dearly and she's like I never knew this book was even in there. 00:01:23.950 --> 00:01:25.945 What do we make of this book? 00:01:25.945 --> 00:01:27.170 We're gonna find out. 00:01:27.170 --> 00:01:32.671 So if this is a good idea, it was my idea, it was a bad idea, it was Sonia's idea. 00:01:32.671 --> 00:01:35.266 Write that down, please. 00:01:35.266 --> 00:01:54.302 But yeah, the song of songs, and the song of songs is Wedged in between the book of Ecclesiastes, this book of wisdom that we think Solomon wrote, or something like that, and it's wedged in between that book and the book of Isaiah, this great prophet, this great Jewish prophet. 00:01:54.302 --> 00:02:02.945 And wedged in between there is this book of poetry called the song of song to the song of Solomon, and the open, as you heard Jamie read. 00:02:02.965 --> 00:02:04.248 By the way, the book opens. 00:02:04.248 --> 00:02:05.311 You know, you heard her read it. 00:02:05.311 --> 00:02:10.673 Well, I only had her read the first four verses, because the fifth verse, if you look in your Bible, the NRSV. 00:02:10.673 --> 00:02:15.479 It's a woman speaking and she says let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. 00:02:15.479 --> 00:02:21.783 And then she goes on and verse five says I am black and beautiful, which I was pretty awesome. 00:02:21.783 --> 00:02:23.871 I'm like Jamie, do you want to read that? 00:02:23.871 --> 00:02:26.306 Anyway, there's some other stuff in there that was kind of so. 00:02:26.306 --> 00:02:27.550 We just cut to the first four verses. 00:02:27.580 --> 00:02:32.280 But the book opens with a let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. 00:02:32.280 --> 00:02:40.435 It does not open with an abstract praise of love or some kind of a scientific you know, treat us on love. 00:02:40.435 --> 00:02:44.247 Nor does it open with a three-point sermon on here's what love is. 00:02:44.247 --> 00:02:49.866 No, it opens in this way Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. 00:02:49.866 --> 00:03:03.188 This demand for kisses, and maybe even a little bit more, if you heard what Jamie read, it's this burst of emotion and desire of let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your wine or for your love, rather, is better than wine. 00:03:03.188 --> 00:03:08.551 It's awesome because human beings, I would argue, are beings of desire. 00:03:08.551 --> 00:03:19.873 So the great saint august and the great thinker, in the early part of the church he said that human beings are beings of desire, which means we're not so much simply rational beings or logistical beings. 00:03:19.873 --> 00:03:23.468 We don't always get convinced by more data or more information. 00:03:23.468 --> 00:03:27.812 Those things are not bad, but it's because at our core, we're beings of desire. 00:03:27.812 --> 00:03:33.951 We have longings, we have hopes, we experience emotions, and these things are all a part of what it means to be a human being. 00:03:34.980 --> 00:03:36.806 So I was in Texas for about a week just. 00:03:36.806 --> 00:03:41.159 I got back a couple of days ago and when we were down, there was this beautiful time with my family. 00:03:41.159 --> 00:03:42.182 It was my family. 00:03:42.182 --> 00:03:55.319 The six of us drove down there with our dog, and then my parents were down there, and my sister and her Kids and my brother and his wife and their kids, and it was just this wonderful time to be together and we loved every minute of it, as we normally do. 00:03:55.319 --> 00:04:05.552 And one of my daughters who will remain nameless, but I have her permission to share this she just loves these times of being with family, this tribal community, family sense. 00:04:05.552 --> 00:04:11.705 We're only together a few times a year, if even that, maybe just once, and so whenever we come home it's maybe you experience too. 00:04:11.705 --> 00:04:22.435 We always experience like the post christmas, I don't know doldrums or darkness or depression or something like that, the funks, uh, if you're afraid of the word depression, that's the funks. 00:04:22.435 --> 00:04:25.348 We call it the funks and that's what happened the minute we got back. 00:04:25.369 --> 00:04:37.833 We're unpacking and there's my daughter and it happened a few times already but I come out of the bedroom unpacking my suitcase and there she is at the table just crying Because she missed her family so deeply. 00:04:37.833 --> 00:04:44.552 It was such a great experience and she was just moved to tears because she missed her grandparents and her aunts and uncles and and her cousins. 00:04:44.552 --> 00:04:55.913 And so I did the only thing a good father could do I sat down next to her and I pulled out my spreadsheets and I gave her these mathematical equations about why you're going to be okay and these scientific proofs. 00:04:55.913 --> 00:04:57.276 This is not the end of the world. 00:04:57.276 --> 00:04:58.581 Stop crying, it's rationally. 00:04:58.581 --> 00:05:00.572 You know I'm kidding. 00:05:00.572 --> 00:05:01.295 I didn't do that. 00:05:02.230 --> 00:05:03.696 Some of you were like that might be a good idea, ryan. 00:05:03.696 --> 00:05:15.098 No, I just sat next to her and I held her as she cried and she cried and the emotions kind of overwhelmed her, because this is what it means to be a human. 00:05:15.098 --> 00:05:21.680 Now my other daughter, who will remain nameless, turned to me and said well, I'm crying on the inside. 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:28.115 She's a savage, that one, but that's what it means to be a human. 00:05:28.115 --> 00:05:37.541 It's to experience all these emotions and all that comes with it the highs and the lows, the joy and the pain, the ecstasy and the sadness and disappointment. 00:05:37.541 --> 00:05:46.499 These are all God-given aspects of what it means to be a human being, and they're oftentimes mysterious, they're hard to understand, they're complex, they're difficult to know. 00:05:46.499 --> 00:05:53.819 We're beings full of emotion and longing and desire, and even love, and this is a book about love. 00:05:54.333 --> 00:05:57.009 I love, no pun intended, how Shakespeare writes about love. 00:05:57.009 --> 00:06:09.910 In his 116th sonnet he writes this Let me not, to the marriage of true minds, admit impediments, because love is not love which alters when an alteration finds. 00:06:09.910 --> 00:06:14.870 In other words, love is not the kind of thing that can be changed with alterations here or there. 00:06:14.870 --> 00:06:25.209 Love is stronger and more enduring than things that change over time around it, and love doesn't bend with the remover to remove, so it's not easily bent towards things that are around it. 00:06:25.209 --> 00:06:27.149 It's not shaped by its context. 00:06:27.916 --> 00:06:29.350 Love is a strong and even fierce thing. 00:06:29.350 --> 00:06:31.089 Oh no, shakespeare writes. 00:06:31.089 --> 00:06:35.730 It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempest and is never shaken. 00:06:35.730 --> 00:06:37.430 Tempest are storms. 00:06:37.430 --> 00:06:41.428 Love is so strong and fierce and wild and even untamed. 00:06:41.428 --> 00:06:45.766 I would say that it looks into the face of the storm and is not shaken, doesn't fear. 00:06:45.766 --> 00:06:49.550 Then he writes this it is the star to every wandering bark. 00:06:49.550 --> 00:06:54.427 That means like ships that are out at sea and guiding themselves by the night stars. 00:06:54.427 --> 00:07:03.910 This is what love is like it's a star that guides ships that are out at sea, although it says, whose worth is unknown, although his height can be taken. 00:07:03.910 --> 00:07:10.103 So, stars, you can measure where the stars are or where they are in the sky, but you don't really know the worth of the star. 00:07:10.103 --> 00:07:10.444 Same with love. 00:07:10.444 --> 00:07:14.218 Same with love it's worth is unknown, although its height can be taken. 00:07:14.310 --> 00:07:18.935 Then Shakespeare goes on to say this about love Love is not times full. 00:07:18.935 --> 00:07:19.778 I love that. 00:07:19.778 --> 00:07:25.579 The title of my sermon, by the way, is loves, not times full, meaning love is not beholden to time. 00:07:25.579 --> 00:07:27.737 Love is not a time is not master love. 00:07:27.737 --> 00:07:39.632 Love is this untamed thing that cannot be even sort of subjugated to time, even though rosy lips and cheeks, within his bending sickles compass, come Meaning. 00:07:39.632 --> 00:07:43.990 This is even as we age, through our rosy lips and our cheeks. 00:07:43.990 --> 00:07:48.910 As we get older, those things tend to fade away and they come under the sickle of time's compass. 00:07:48.910 --> 00:07:50.350 Love is not that way at all. 00:07:50.350 --> 00:07:55.002 Love endures even beyond age, even throughout the decades and centuries and our lives. 00:07:55.002 --> 00:07:58.281 Love is not the kind of thing that bends to sickles compass. 00:07:58.281 --> 00:08:01.470 Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks. 00:08:01.470 --> 00:08:03.189 It doesn't change over time. 00:08:03.189 --> 00:08:09.374 It endures, but it bears it out, even to the edge of doom or death, you might say. 00:08:09.374 --> 00:08:21.298 And then Shakespeare says this in this moment of honesty If this be error, if I'm wrong, and upon me it's proved, I never writ, nor no man has ever loved. 00:08:21.298 --> 00:08:28.324 Love is this incredibly wild and complex, untamed, mysterious deal. 00:08:28.994 --> 00:08:40.870 And the song of songs opens Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, this most unscientific, concrete and untethered opening, I would say, in all of the Bible, and I love it. 00:08:40.870 --> 00:08:43.629 This is, of course, the song of songs. 00:08:43.629 --> 00:08:45.566 It's the song of all songs. 00:08:45.566 --> 00:08:46.070 What the title means? 00:08:46.070 --> 00:08:46.557 It's of all the songs. 00:08:46.557 --> 00:08:49.470 It is the song above all the songs. 00:08:50.131 --> 00:08:54.087 Rabbi, the great Rabbi Akiva, called it the holiest of the holy writings. 00:08:54.087 --> 00:08:54.549 This is what he says. 00:08:54.549 --> 00:08:55.552 It is. 00:08:55.552 --> 00:08:56.033 All. 00:08:56.033 --> 00:09:00.190 The world is not worth the day on which the song of songs was given to the people of Israel. 00:09:00.190 --> 00:09:05.750 He loved this book, for all the writings are holy, but the song of songs is the holy of holies. 00:09:05.750 --> 00:09:07.389 How about that for some to talk about? 00:09:07.389 --> 00:09:11.167 Then the great Origen, who wrote in the 200s. 00:09:11.167 --> 00:09:18.389 Origen says this about the song Blessed is he or she who enters the holy places, but even more blessed is the one who enters the holy of holies. 00:09:18.389 --> 00:09:20.529 Likewise, he's talking about the temple there. 00:09:20.529 --> 00:09:30.769 Likewise, blessed is the one who knows holy songs and sings them, but much more blessed is the one who sings the song Songs. 00:09:32.779 --> 00:09:34.629 I would encourage you to read this book along with us. 00:09:34.629 --> 00:09:36.549 We're going to do a few weeks on this book. 00:09:36.549 --> 00:09:37.405 It's actually quite short. 00:09:37.405 --> 00:09:38.830 It's only eight chapters long. 00:09:38.830 --> 00:09:41.909 I think we'll examine the whole book in each sermon. 00:09:41.909 --> 00:09:45.429 I'm not going to do an exegetical dive into one verse or three verses. 00:09:45.429 --> 00:09:46.989 It's just not really possible to do that. 00:09:46.989 --> 00:09:49.264 The whole book. 00:09:49.264 --> 00:09:49.830 I'd read it in one sitting. 00:09:50.993 --> 00:09:53.585 In fact I was driving down the road their day listening to it. 00:09:53.585 --> 00:09:54.570 On the Bible app, which you can do, it's great. 00:09:54.570 --> 00:09:58.926 I'm not going to read it to you and I was a few moments. 00:09:58.926 --> 00:09:59.830 I was blushing in the car alone. 00:09:59.830 --> 00:10:02.399 I was like, oh man, this is, this is saucy. 00:10:04.475 --> 00:10:06.429 But here's how the book was meant to be read or listened to. 00:10:06.429 --> 00:10:12.749 It was an or it was from the oral tradition, they would read it out loud, and even today the Jewish people read it at weddings. 00:10:12.749 --> 00:10:21.655 They celebrate it uh, uh, passover and the Sabbath by reading this book of poetry found in the Old Testament, and it's best read. 00:10:21.655 --> 00:10:25.129 A lot of scholars believe out loud or listen to out loud. 00:10:25.129 --> 00:10:28.610 So I encourage you to do that as we go along. 00:10:28.610 --> 00:10:29.929 But here's the elephant in the room. 00:10:29.929 --> 00:10:35.238 I was always told when you're younger, when I was younger, if there's an elephant in the room you better name it. 00:10:35.238 --> 00:10:37.506 So we're going to name it. 00:10:37.506 --> 00:10:38.269 Here's the elephant in the room. 00:10:38.269 --> 00:10:50.470 This book, the song of songs that I remind you is in the Bible, is so explicit, it's so erotic that young Jewish boys weren't allowed to read it until they were much older. 00:10:50.470 --> 00:10:53.921 Think of some pictures of some Jewish boys who figured. 00:10:53.921 --> 00:10:55.807 Hence the warning. 00:10:55.807 --> 00:10:59.443 I promise I won't make it weird. 00:10:59.443 --> 00:11:00.710 But yeah, this is the elephant in the room. 00:11:00.710 --> 00:11:04.110 It was so explicit and so erotic, this erotic love for you. 00:11:04.634 --> 00:11:09.889 A lot of scholars didn't even want it in the cannon, like we shouldn't have this in the Bible because it's just too, you know. 00:11:09.889 --> 00:11:14.649 But thankfully, you know, wiser minds ruled out and they in fact did include it in the cannon. 00:11:14.649 --> 00:11:18.802 So it raises the question for us, the cannon. 00:11:18.802 --> 00:11:23.760 By the way, cannon means like the, the, the, the, the, the set of scriptures that we hold as sort of like, given to us by God. 00:11:23.760 --> 00:11:26.919 So the cannon of scripture is what you have in your pubic. 00:11:28.250 --> 00:11:31.015 Well, here's the question what do we make of this book? 00:11:31.015 --> 00:11:36.232 And if you've never read it, read it and, you know, do with what you will. 00:11:36.232 --> 00:11:37.371 But what do we make of this book? 00:11:37.371 --> 00:11:38.533 How should we read it? 00:11:38.533 --> 00:11:41.975 What does this say about the human experience? 00:11:41.975 --> 00:11:46.054 Today's epiphany I'm not sure if you know it, actually yesterday was epiphany, but it's the epiphany holiday. 00:11:46.054 --> 00:11:51.815 Epiphany is the end of the Christmas-tide celebration, so there really are 12 days of Christmas, and then yesterday was the end of it. 00:11:51.815 --> 00:11:58.261 Epiphany is the day we celebrate the Magi coming to discover the Christ child in the well. 00:11:58.261 --> 00:12:02.705 He probably wasn't in the manger when the Magi showed up, but when they come later, there he is. 00:12:02.705 --> 00:12:12.365 And it's also a celebration of the fact that God, the ethereal, the eternal, the ephemeral, the ineffable, becomes a human. 00:12:12.365 --> 00:12:15.865 Like the unknown, inexplicable, god becomes a human being. 00:12:15.865 --> 00:12:19.240 It's wild and mysterious, and so we celebrate that. 00:12:19.315 --> 00:12:31.342 And I thought it'd be kind of fun to talk about this book, because it really does explain a bit what it's like to be a human, and this is a God who's become a human and affirmed the humanness of our world. 00:12:31.342 --> 00:12:42.798 So sometimes we think about these things that are human as like, kind of like, oh, that's sort of despicable or tainted, and no doubt the world has actually taken things that were good and holy and made them sort of taint them like romantic love. 00:12:42.798 --> 00:12:49.623 But romantic love is a gift from God that should be treasured and talked about and at will and freely in our lives. 00:12:49.623 --> 00:12:50.619 There's nothing wrong with it. 00:12:50.619 --> 00:12:57.183 Sometimes we even use the words that go that's dirty or that's filthy or whatever the case might be, and I get it, but really in its purest form. 00:12:57.183 --> 00:13:04.259 This is a gift from God to be a human, and we should know what it means to be a human, and so this book explores that and how should we read it? 00:13:04.794 --> 00:13:07.340 Many people in the ancient world read it as a literal story. 00:13:07.340 --> 00:13:10.922 So there's, if you read it, there's two predominant voices in the book. 00:13:10.922 --> 00:13:12.681 There's a male voice and a female voice. 00:13:12.681 --> 00:13:28.881 In fact, the female voice is the more prominent one, the more active voice, so some folks think that a woman, at least in part, was helping write the book, but it's two voices going back and forth and they talk about themselves and their longing for the other, their desire for the other person, and it's marked by their absence and presence. 00:13:28.881 --> 00:13:36.299 There's also a third set of voices, or like cacophony of voices, that kind of chime in every now and again, but it's most of these two voices. 00:13:36.299 --> 00:13:40.942 So should we read it as a literal book of two people who are in love? 00:13:40.942 --> 00:13:42.080 And what does it mean to be in love? 00:13:42.080 --> 00:13:45.801 That's one way to read it, as a literal story of love poems from two people. 00:13:46.596 --> 00:14:00.445 Or over the course of history the Jewish people began to read it as an allegory, a poem of love from God to humans well, in this case to Israel, which for us is a tad weird because we're like erotic love poetry from God to Israel. 00:14:00.445 --> 00:14:02.301 That's kind of strange, or even to us, you know. 00:14:02.301 --> 00:14:05.201 But in the ancient world it was not as weird as it sounds today. 00:14:05.201 --> 00:14:11.782 In the ancient world and antiquity there were lots of poems and even sort of love poems between the gods and gods and humans. 00:14:11.782 --> 00:14:14.720 That was sort of the context in which we get the Israel story. 00:14:14.720 --> 00:14:20.724 So if Israel did in fact write or use this book as an allegory like between God and humans. 00:14:20.724 --> 00:14:21.477 That was kind of normal. 00:14:21.477 --> 00:14:25.503 And as you read it that way, it might, to your modern sensibilities, be a bit weird. 00:14:25.503 --> 00:14:30.700 That's fine, and if you're a strong masculine dude and it makes you uncomfortable, that's you're in good company. 00:14:30.700 --> 00:14:32.581 That's how they maybe have read it. 00:14:32.815 --> 00:14:35.443 So how did God intend for us to read it? 00:14:35.443 --> 00:14:36.557 I don't really know. 00:14:36.557 --> 00:14:40.200 It's a difficult book to read, but I want to explore it at least a little bit. 00:14:40.200 --> 00:14:45.280 And as you read it, there's really not a trace of a coherent plot, even Like, where is this book going? 00:14:45.280 --> 00:14:48.441 It sort of ebbs and flows and we don't really even know who the author is. 00:14:48.500 --> 00:14:51.923 In fact it says the song of songs that were Solomon's. 00:14:51.923 --> 00:14:52.758 I think I have that verse. 00:14:52.758 --> 00:15:08.522 One there we go, or we call it in your Bible might say the song of Solomon, but no one really knows if it was in fact Solomon who wrote it or if it's a book written like on behalf of Solomon or in the wisdom tradition of Solomon, which is normal to do in the book, or in the ancient world. 00:15:08.522 --> 00:15:12.077 You would say this is a book of poems that are in honor of Solomon. 00:15:12.077 --> 00:15:13.240 That kind of thing. 00:15:13.240 --> 00:15:14.705 No one knows. 00:15:14.705 --> 00:15:22.563 It doesn't really matter Either who wrote the book exactly, but it really is a book that talks about loving and desires and longing, absence and presence. 00:15:22.563 --> 00:15:32.842 It's a picture of a relationship between, in this case, a man and a woman, and all the joy that comes along with that and the struggle that comes along with that sometimes. 00:15:32.842 --> 00:15:34.441 The complexity of love. 00:15:34.441 --> 00:15:36.562 I mean, come on, love is a complex deal. 00:15:36.562 --> 00:15:37.096 Are you with me? 00:15:37.096 --> 00:15:43.279 And all the folks who've ever been in love or wanted to be in love said amen, love is a complex deal. 00:15:44.075 --> 00:15:45.942 I will never forget the first time I fell in love. 00:15:45.942 --> 00:15:47.157 I'll never forget. 00:15:47.157 --> 00:15:53.166 I was in the first grade, tolgate Elementary in Aurora, colorado. 00:15:53.166 --> 00:16:01.278 Her name was Avalina McDonald and I'll never forget how that day, I knew because I chased her around the soccer field and I just felt something different. 00:16:01.278 --> 00:16:01.841 You know what I'm saying. 00:16:01.841 --> 00:16:03.057 Like, this is different. 00:16:03.057 --> 00:16:07.124 I'm chasing her, unlike I chased my friend Tommy over there. 00:16:07.124 --> 00:16:07.706 This is different. 00:16:07.706 --> 00:16:09.660 I think I love this girl. 00:16:10.514 --> 00:16:20.937 So I went home and did the only thing any young man in first grade who was gonna be a former or future preacher would do I wrote her a love letter Isn't that normal? 00:16:20.937 --> 00:16:31.642 And I sat down and I spent hours and maybe it was only minutes, but I wrote this long letter, pouring out my heart and my soul to this girl who I barely knew, and I had chased her on the field that day. 00:16:31.642 --> 00:16:35.500 I wanted her to know how much I loved her, how much I just longed to be with her. 00:16:35.500 --> 00:16:45.259 But I made the mistake of putting this note on the counter by the phone in the house and my mom found it and she's like Ryan, what is this? 00:16:45.259 --> 00:16:48.278 I was like you don't even understand me. 00:16:48.278 --> 00:16:49.000 You don't get me. 00:16:49.000 --> 00:16:49.701 I'm in love. 00:16:49.701 --> 00:16:50.663 You don't know what love is. 00:16:50.663 --> 00:16:51.525 How could you know? 00:16:51.525 --> 00:16:53.418 You're an old lady, I know what love is. 00:16:53.418 --> 00:16:56.761 How dare you tell me what love is? 00:16:56.761 --> 00:16:59.523 She never let me give it to this girl. 00:16:59.523 --> 00:17:03.804 Probably a good thing, but I'll never forget that Love is complex. 00:17:03.865 --> 00:17:04.326 Are you with me? 00:17:04.326 --> 00:17:10.863 It's a complex, mysterious, vast, huge deal, and to fall in love is a strange thing. 00:17:10.863 --> 00:17:13.902 Fact is love between the man and woman. 00:17:13.902 --> 00:17:16.361 In this book it almost has a life of its own. 00:17:16.361 --> 00:17:23.145 There's several times the woman's voice says hey, do not awake or arouse love before it's ready. 00:17:23.145 --> 00:17:25.182 I think here it is in the scripture. 00:17:25.182 --> 00:17:26.440 So it's actually three different places. 00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:28.843 I said I'll go ahead for me, sarah, we lose it. 00:17:28.843 --> 00:17:34.207 Don't stir up or awaken or arouse love until it's ready. 00:17:34.207 --> 00:17:41.204 It's like love, whatever it is, it's so beautiful and so good that we can't mess it up. 00:17:41.204 --> 00:17:47.181 It's this beautiful, sacred, holy, mysterious thing and we just can't goof it up. 00:17:48.174 --> 00:17:54.521 It's hard for us to fathom today because we get a lot of mileage out of this word love, this old English word that we use for everything. 00:17:54.521 --> 00:17:56.537 Love, I mean. 00:17:56.537 --> 00:18:07.363 In the same breath, I will tell someone I love them, that I say also I love those new shoes I got for Christmas that I can wear at the gym, and I love that new pair of pants I got. 00:18:07.363 --> 00:18:09.757 And I also love you. 00:18:09.757 --> 00:18:14.926 I'm gonna love my wife and I also love chipotle burritos. 00:18:14.926 --> 00:18:16.763 Are you with me? 00:18:16.763 --> 00:18:17.461 Now? 00:18:17.461 --> 00:18:19.839 Of course, I love my wife more than burritos. 00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:25.109 I mean, it's different, right, but imagine if I was having a date with my wife while eating a burrito. 00:18:25.109 --> 00:18:29.603 Man, that wouldn't, that would be, that would be something. 00:18:29.603 --> 00:18:34.708 Anyway, there you know, we just get a. 00:18:35.181 --> 00:18:38.640 This word has lost its meaning for many, many obvious reasons. 00:18:38.640 --> 00:18:47.210 We use this word for everything, but in the Hebrew, the language this song of songs has written in, they use at least three different words for the word love. 00:18:47.210 --> 00:18:49.142 I'm going to teach them to you this morning, the one. 00:18:49.142 --> 00:18:50.227 I'll give them to you one at a time. 00:18:50.227 --> 00:18:53.621 The words are raya, ahava, and do so. 00:18:53.621 --> 00:18:54.503 The first one is raya. 00:18:54.503 --> 00:18:58.690 Now, raya is a friendly kind of love. 00:18:58.690 --> 00:19:00.767 It's a friendship companionship. 00:19:00.767 --> 00:19:10.460 You might have what you call like a kindred spirit, a best friend, so when you'd stay up late at night talking about anything with over the phone or in person, you might go to the movies with this person. 00:19:10.460 --> 00:19:12.359 This is a raya kind of love. 00:19:12.359 --> 00:19:14.708 Everyone say raya, raya. 00:19:14.708 --> 00:19:16.946 It's a friendship kind of love. 00:19:16.946 --> 00:19:19.240 It's expressed in this book, the song of songs. 00:19:19.240 --> 00:19:25.489 So here, for example, it says this in the song of songs You're beautiful from head to toe, my dear raya. 00:19:26.119 --> 00:19:29.019 Beautiful beyond compare, absolutely flawless. 00:19:29.019 --> 00:19:34.960 Now, ladies, get yourself a friend that talks to you the way that this writer does, am I right? 00:19:34.960 --> 00:19:36.948 You come walking out for your date with the girls. 00:19:36.948 --> 00:19:38.345 The girls are not going to be like, hey, how do I look? 00:19:38.345 --> 00:19:42.166 Oh, girl, you are beautiful from head to toe, my dear. 00:19:42.166 --> 00:19:43.054 Look, my dear look. 00:19:43.054 --> 00:19:44.075 Beautiful beyond compare. 00:19:44.075 --> 00:19:49.801 You were absolutely flawless, girl, sleigh, queen, how do I do? 00:19:49.801 --> 00:19:52.787 And fellas, my brothers? 00:19:52.787 --> 00:19:55.319 We also could use some friends like this. 00:19:55.319 --> 00:19:56.344 It sounds different. 00:19:56.344 --> 00:19:57.471 Yeah, man, how do I look? 00:19:57.471 --> 00:19:58.557 You look good, let's go. 00:19:58.557 --> 00:19:59.180 All right, let's go. 00:19:59.180 --> 00:20:02.904 It's a friendly kind of love. 00:20:02.904 --> 00:20:03.366 Are you with me? 00:20:03.800 --> 00:20:05.598 The second kind of love is this ah-ha-ha. 00:20:05.598 --> 00:20:06.221 Everyone say ah-ha-ha. 00:20:06.221 --> 00:20:15.191 Here's how you spell it in the English or in transliteration Ah-ha-ha is a deeper, more committed will, a love of the will. 00:20:15.191 --> 00:20:19.671 So it's bigger and beyond fleeting romantic feelings. 00:20:19.671 --> 00:20:26.326 It's actually broader than temporary physical urges that we might experience early on in a relationship or as someone passes by. 00:20:26.326 --> 00:20:30.049 It's a decision to join your life with another person. 00:20:30.049 --> 00:20:32.666 It's an emotion that leads to commitment. 00:20:32.666 --> 00:20:33.730 Are you with me? 00:20:34.441 --> 00:20:38.259 So when Katie and I first started hanging out, we met in 1998 when we were married. 00:20:38.259 --> 00:20:40.059 It'll be 24 years this upcoming fall. 00:20:40.059 --> 00:20:44.286 So 23 and a couple months is how long we've been married and we were friends. 00:20:44.286 --> 00:20:47.220 We had the raya for a whole year before anything else. 00:20:47.220 --> 00:20:48.404 We were friends for about a year. 00:20:48.404 --> 00:20:50.185 That summer we met in the fall. 00:20:50.185 --> 00:20:50.622 Later. 00:20:50.662 --> 00:20:51.807 That summer I came to visit her. 00:20:51.807 --> 00:20:56.226 I flew out here to Minnesota to visit her family and there was like no pressure because it was just friendly. 00:20:56.226 --> 00:20:57.730 We were friends, we were raya, no problem. 00:20:57.730 --> 00:21:00.969 So I met her mom and dad, and not as the boyfriend but as just a friend. 00:21:00.969 --> 00:21:09.729 Then I came back a week or two later because I wanted to come back again, which should have been a sign In fact I had run out of money. 00:21:09.729 --> 00:21:12.247 So I took a Greyhound bus out to Minnesota. 00:21:12.247 --> 00:21:14.112 That's love. 00:21:14.112 --> 00:21:15.404 You ever been in the Greyhound bus? 00:21:15.404 --> 00:21:19.624 My gosh, I will never do that again. 00:21:19.624 --> 00:21:23.205 I should have known that was really love. 00:21:23.205 --> 00:21:27.329 I Greyhound busted and that was before the days of cell phones or anything. 00:21:27.329 --> 00:21:28.092 I couldn't watch. 00:21:28.092 --> 00:21:32.250 I was on a bus with my CD player and my big booklet of CDs. 00:21:32.250 --> 00:21:33.903 Someone stole my pillow. 00:21:33.903 --> 00:21:37.672 It was a bad week, anyway, but I had to. 00:21:37.672 --> 00:21:39.259 I had to know, and I think she did to it. 00:21:39.339 --> 00:21:42.863 Dude, did we have the ah-ha-ha, or was it just right, or were we just friends? 00:21:42.863 --> 00:21:44.241 What was it? 00:21:44.241 --> 00:21:47.147 Well, I remember praying not long after that. 00:21:47.147 --> 00:21:49.987 I remember praying and asking God what should I do? 00:21:49.987 --> 00:21:52.981 And I remember God. 00:21:52.981 --> 00:21:57.192 I felt like you know, maybe God has spoken to me only a few times in my life. 00:21:57.192 --> 00:21:58.785 I just knew clearly it was God. 00:21:58.785 --> 00:22:01.487 It wasn't out loud, it was like just a feeling or thought I had. 00:22:01.487 --> 00:22:06.387 It was like deep in my soul and I felt like God said to me Ryan, what if you couldn't have her? 00:22:06.387 --> 00:22:10.108 Like what if you couldn't marry her or just kind of have her? 00:22:10.108 --> 00:22:10.461 What if you? 00:22:10.461 --> 00:22:11.566 What if she didn't like you? 00:22:11.566 --> 00:22:13.366 Or what if she moved away suddenly? 00:22:13.366 --> 00:22:15.086 Or what if somehow she was just gone? 00:22:15.086 --> 00:22:18.367 And I had this visceral reaction to that. 00:22:18.367 --> 00:22:27.286 I was like like I felt like my breath I'm not kidding, I thought this my chest got tight and my breath was kind of like, and then I felt like God said see how much you really do like her. 00:22:27.286 --> 00:22:30.326 Ah yeah, ah-ha-va. 00:22:31.380 --> 00:22:36.909 Ah-ha-va is deep longing for the other person, like your thoughts circle around them all the time. 00:22:36.909 --> 00:22:41.131 Your mind and your will, your emotions are sort of bent towards that person. 00:22:41.131 --> 00:22:47.125 It's this deep ache in your heart when you're around them or thinking of them, and you can't think of anything else. 00:22:47.125 --> 00:22:55.945 So in chapter eight, verse seven, it says this the writer many waters cannot quench ah-ha-va, rivers cannot wash it away. 00:22:55.945 --> 00:23:01.792 If one were to give all their wealth of his house for ah-ha-va, it'd be utterly scorned. 00:23:01.792 --> 00:23:05.250 You can't buy ah-ha-va with all the wealth you have in your house. 00:23:05.250 --> 00:23:06.484 It's not attainable that way. 00:23:06.484 --> 00:23:08.325 It's something entirely different. 00:23:08.325 --> 00:23:10.544 So you have raya, this friendship. 00:23:10.544 --> 00:23:13.852 You have ah-ha-va, this deep, committed, passionate love. 00:23:13.852 --> 00:23:16.059 That sort of your will is bent towards them. 00:23:16.059 --> 00:23:18.449 And then you have the third kind of love dode. 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:19.443 Everyone say dode. 00:23:19.443 --> 00:23:25.530 Dode, literally translated, means to corouse or to rock or to fondle. 00:23:25.530 --> 00:23:27.222 I think you get the idea. 00:23:27.222 --> 00:23:32.848 In fact this was the most PG image we could find of this word. 00:23:32.848 --> 00:23:35.282 Let your imagination. 00:23:35.282 --> 00:23:35.905 Well, maybe not. 00:23:35.905 --> 00:23:39.349 Anyhow, dode means to corouse or to fondle or to rock. 00:23:39.349 --> 00:23:44.500 In fact in the Proverbs it says this about dode Go ahead for me, sarah. 00:23:44.500 --> 00:23:48.990 It says come, let us drink deeply of dode until the morning. 00:23:48.990 --> 00:23:51.500 Or in the Song of Songs, verse one, you already heard that. 00:23:51.500 --> 00:23:54.321 Chapter one, verse two you heard this already, jamie. 00:23:54.321 --> 00:23:54.702 You read it. 00:23:54.702 --> 00:23:56.930 Oh, go ahead, there we go. 00:23:56.930 --> 00:24:02.332 May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your dode is better than wine. 00:24:02.780 --> 00:24:07.500 See, dode is this physical, sexual, erotic element of this relationship between this man and this woman. 00:24:07.500 --> 00:24:12.366 It's where we get the word eros from in the Greek, or the word in English, it is the word erotic. 00:24:12.366 --> 00:24:17.311 So it's this physical, tangible expression of love. 00:24:17.311 --> 00:24:21.480 So it might be helpful to think about these kinds of love as maybe a flame. 00:24:21.480 --> 00:24:29.500 So you have the raya flame, and raya is this friendly, compassionate, companionate, friendship, a deep friendship. 00:24:29.500 --> 00:24:32.500 Maybe you consider yourself soulmates or best friends. 00:24:32.500 --> 00:24:34.488 You talk until the wee hours of the morning. 00:24:34.488 --> 00:24:50.500 And then maybe you have the second kind of love, which is the ahavah love, which is this committed kind of love where you stand up in front of your friends and family and declare out loud your intentions for each other and you got to candle and make some vows and share rings, but your whole life revolves around that person. 00:24:50.500 --> 00:24:53.494 It endures forever because you're so committed. 00:24:53.494 --> 00:24:54.420 That's the ahavah love. 00:24:54.420 --> 00:24:56.500 And then you have this dode love. 00:24:56.500 --> 00:25:02.500 Dode is, of course, this sensual, this physical element of the love. 00:25:02.500 --> 00:25:06.411 It's this flame, this dode, that we sometimes experience. 00:25:06.411 --> 00:25:13.500 And in this story of the song, of songs, you have this man and this woman experiencing all three of these at one time. 00:25:13.500 --> 00:25:28.232 And these three flames combine as one, as one flame, one huge flame, and it's as though when they experience this one big flame, it's just much bigger and brighter and warmer than each individual flame by themselves. 00:25:28.232 --> 00:25:33.671 Somehow, when they're combined together, they make something bigger and stronger than if they're alone. 00:25:34.820 --> 00:25:44.630 Jesus, later on in the New Testament, talks about this idea of entire beings coming together, with all of themselves becoming, you know, into one sort of. 00:25:44.630 --> 00:25:47.747 He says it this way, says the two will become one flesh. 00:25:47.747 --> 00:25:52.938 One flesh is much bigger and broader and deeper than just a physical act. 00:25:52.938 --> 00:25:53.480 Are you with me? 00:25:53.480 --> 00:25:55.428 It's much deeper than that. 00:25:55.428 --> 00:25:57.988 It's entire beings coming together. 00:25:57.988 --> 00:26:04.252 It's emotions and hearts and wills and minds and experiences and life stories. 00:26:04.252 --> 00:26:09.432 It's a mingling of the whole person, a mingling of the souls, the spirit and the physical. 00:26:09.432 --> 00:26:10.501 It's all this. 00:26:10.501 --> 00:26:14.411 The physical act is a picture of a deeper spiritual reality. 00:26:14.411 --> 00:26:17.287 It's never just a physical thing. 00:26:17.287 --> 00:26:19.025 Most things aren't. 00:26:20.840 --> 00:26:27.212 Jesus teaches us that sex is a deeply spiritual act that involves the whole part of ourselves. 00:26:27.212 --> 00:26:41.392 It's a beautiful and powerful thing meant to endure forever, never to be by itself, because this thing, when all three are combined, creates something much bigger and broader and more beautiful than just each individual flame. 00:26:41.392 --> 00:26:54.500 What's your real hot up in here? 00:26:54.500 --> 00:27:03.778 And when these three flames combine, this is what we experienced in the song of songs. 00:27:03.778 --> 00:27:13.385 This big flame, this expression of love, this deepest visceral expression of love in the human beings, in the story of these two humans. 00:27:13.385 --> 00:27:19.500 And one flame is never as big or as bright or as hot as all three. 00:27:20.362 --> 00:27:22.407 Think about all the ways we goof this up. 00:27:22.407 --> 00:27:35.500 See, an extramarital affair or just a physical affair, is people trying to chase down the dode flame by itself, trying to warm themselves by just the dode flame alone. 00:27:35.500 --> 00:27:42.500 There's no friendship, there's no commitment, there's no lifelong I'm going to hold on to you, come hell or high water. 00:27:42.500 --> 00:27:43.261 There's none of that. 00:27:43.261 --> 00:27:47.460 It's just simply just this physical dode flame and it just can't keep you warm. 00:27:47.460 --> 00:27:54.747 But people keep going back to it again and again and again and again, thinking it will keep them warm and it just can't. 00:27:54.747 --> 00:28:03.606 Whether it's an extramarital affair or people that have one night stands or just engage in kind of frivolous physical activities, it's not enough to keep you warm. 00:28:03.606 --> 00:28:05.262