We live, caught between a world of baseness and a world of passion. One of sin and Satan and ourselves and one of love and God and marriage. And yet, why aren't we thinking about this? Most of the time we are caught up in ourselves, or we are caught up in some trite thing in the world. Why aren't we thinking about what's going on here? On the one hand, there is an existentialistic world bent on growing old and then dying and on the other we have this passionate God ready to marry us. It's two extremes. Except, we are playing at the existentials home field. In my Bible study with my friend we were reading Isaiah 62:4-5:
No longer will they call you Deserted,
or name your land Desolate.
But you will be called My Delight Is In Her,
and your land Married;
for Yahweh will take delight in you,
and your land will be married.
As a young man marries a maiden,
so will your sons marry you;
as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride,
so will your God rejoice over you.
That's a lot. There's enough there for a 2 hour theological discussion on that. It has to do with intimacy, a oneness far like the closest intimacy here on earth, that between a young man and his bride, which is exactly how God will rejoice over us. Not only that, but there is shalom between us and each other and us and our land, our Earth. We not only will be married to our God, but to each other and to our home, to our land. It's those things in the world that we so often feel take our breath away by their beauty, the autumn leaves, the sunset, the clouds in the sky at a time of day, these things in nature we will be married to also, even music (it's a part of our natural world; music is just waves) never to be separated from them again. Or from each other. It's completeness. It's exactly what God says when he, in Revelation 21, he finally says, "It is done." We are finally made whole and complete and we are one, not only with our Beloved Jesus, but with each other and with our world. With everything that has ever romanced our heart, we will be married to forever. It will finally be ours. And it's ours because it has been made good by our God :) Not only that, but it will be all to make us fall deeper in love with our Beloved Jesus. Remember the seraphim in Isaiah 6? They were crying holy, holy, holy to each other, not to God. They wanted to see what the other ones saw in God's beauty and celebrate him together. So it will be in the bride of Jesus. We are not just individuals madly in love with Jesus and running away to be only with him. We are together falling for him, marrying him, and beginning a life of eternity of forever and ever, happily ever after. The rich, bare intimacy with God, one of a closeness and fire in which we cry out, "Jesus, Lover of My Soul, let me to thy bosom fly" (Charles Wesley), we will one day share all together as we worship our Beloved God in a single body. Many of God's people don't have a closeness with their brothers or sisters in Christ, many God has allowed to be in isolated areas. Just remember, we are all apart of God's bride, we are together his own. We are never alone; never without God, and never without each other in Jesus' body. We can always be apart of the sacred romance that God is pursuing with us through Jesus Christ. And when we live in him, we are always made one with God and we are called to be one with each other.
How radical this is! How unknown by our world, unknown by our society. Isaiah 62:4-5 is saying marriage in this world is what will be the standard in the next. Where we are constantly being rejoiced over by our God who is rejoicing over us as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride. It's not just joy at the reception, it's the joy of the intimacy and the tenderness of the wedding night. It's this oneness in our spiritual bodies that we will have in our redemption (Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 15), that we will experience a spiritual intimacy that physical, earthly intimacy is only the shadow of. And loneliness, separation, distance, these words won't exist in eternity with us. It says as a young man marries a maiden, so your sons will marry you-not only will we have rich intimacy with God, but we will have it with each other. Like the seraphim calling to each other of how beautiful they see God and wanting to share that. It's why Jesus said that in heaven people are not married any more, but are like the angels (Matthew 22:30). Married lovers on earth will finally be one, never to be apart from each other and always one!! Amen! I can't wait for that with my wife!! Not more daily grind of getting up, going to work and school and not seeing her until I get home. Not in heaven! And even more so than that, we will live our lives in this bare intimacy together, always worshipping God and being excited to see what other lovers of God see in him. And we will take joy in each other's love for our God, and our love for each other. It will just be one big festival of love with which we will partake of forever to our heart's utter delight. That's avante-garde marriage. Marriage that's not just us and God, but us together in one body married to God, to each other, to our land, to everything in the natural world that romances our heart. And romances each other's heart. Imagine the conversations that will take place! To see and to feel something that romances someone else's heart and to experience that for yourself. How wonderful God is to be so generous in his love for us to not only give us himself, but also each other. Experimental love-it's a way of life in heaven. Where marriage is everything.
My brother and I love Isaiah 62:4-5. It's so deep. Why aren't there people down at the local coffeehouse talking about this until the wee hours of the night? If you know that it's not going on at your local coffeehouse, we'd strongly encourage beginning it :) We need someone down there hashing it out over a cup of coffee! Or taking a walk through downtown at 2am while it's raining trying to figure this out with the Spirit. It's experimental love; it's avante-garde marriage. It's the biggest marriage proposal ever to give every single person their heart's desire through Jesus Christ, our Lover, our God.
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