I am writing this blog on Sunday night (the 3rd of Nov.) before the aftermath of the elections.  I am writing to warn men who read this blog to have godly restraint in the days to come.  The enemy has stirred up anger and hatred to a fever pitch in the media.  Men need to refrain from falling into this ugly stew.  We have a wonderful opportunity to show those around us who we really are –  Overcomers.  “This is the victory that has overcome the world, ever our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world?  Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (I John 5:4-5).  

In our weekly bible study in our apartment building, believers gather from  different church backgrounds.  I consistently tell them that we will not talk politics, leading us into  rabbit holes with no hope of finding light.  I have said repeatedly that our focus is three fold.  First, the guidance of God’s eternal word; second, the Lordship of Jesus in all our affairs; and three, the kingdom reign of Jesus.  We pray often, “may our kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  On these three issues we have a firm standing.  Men, may you be on solid ground.  We will be able to withstand the coming storm with a focus on these three principles.

We don’t know the future, but we have absolute confidence that in Jesus we are overcomers.  Paul give us encouragement. “We don’t yet see things clearly.  We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.  But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the  sun shines bright!  We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!” (I Cor 13:12 Message) Then Paul reminds us of love showing the way.  “But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.  And the best of the three is love” (I Cor 13:13 Message).

Earlier in Chapter 13 of I Corinthians, Paul give a picture of  a loving person.   Men, ask God to be merciful and gracious to you, giving you the courage  to be a loving man in the days to come, a man who has overcome in Jesus.  You don’t know the outcome of the elections for our nation, but you are reigning with Jesus.  All thing will  work for the good of God’s reign in our affairs.  

Paul says the love that God puts in our hearts will have the following result in our attitude.  “This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience – it looks for a way of being constructive.  It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance…..It does not keep account of evil or goat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it shares the joy of those who live by the truth.  Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything.  Love never fails. (I Cor 13: 4 &6-8).

Men, in the days to come, know that His love in you will help you weather the storm that is coming.  Paul prayed, “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully (Eph. 2:18b -19 NLT). 

This is the title of an article in First Things by theologian Peter Leithart.  I marvel how spiritually astute theologians  can express their thoughts in such a concise and profound manner.  I found this to be true of Leithart’s discussion of sexuality.  I hope I can do justice to his very insightful article in this short blog. He begins with this insightful statement, “Ours is an age of sexual insanity.”  After giving a litany of examples, he notes, “Our sexual ethic reduces to a single prohibition: Thou shalt not suppress any sexual desires.”  

“How can we free ourselves from the morass,” wonders Leithart.  He points us to the Song of Songs (S of S 4:16-5:1). “At the center of the Song of Songs is a garden scene: Bridegroom and Bride rejoice in one another in an erotic Eden, which rekindles the sexual bliss of a new Adam and a new Eve, fired by the unquenchable flame of Yahweh’s love.”

He asks, “What is restored?”  It is found in the dance of mutual desire between male and female.  “The Bride initiates the duet, longing for the Bridegroom’s inebriating kisses, intoxicated by his fragrance, hoping to escape to a chamber where they can drink together the wine of love….. .their desires are fulfilled in an erotic banquet where each is both host(ess) and fare.”   Sexual purity is restored as it burns white-hot.  Leithart notes, “Each receives, each gives; each is consuming, each is consumed.  For Solomon, something like erotic delirium, charged by the current of mutual passion, is the pinnacle of sexual rationality.” Leithart suggests, “far from dividing or separating, sexual disjunction ‘links.'”  

Solitude isn’t good for either men or women.  “In the erotic Eden of the Song, woman becomes herself by virtue of her magnetic attraction to the man, while the man is man as he bends in desire toward his bride.”  We are not able the understand the reality of “woman’ without co-implicating the reality “man.”  When man and woman are restored to their polarity and harmony, the Song’s erotic Eden portrays a humanity no longer disabled.

Bu the Song isn’t just a love story.  The bridegroom is the lover, Yahweh.  The bride is not a generic beloved, but the Bride of Christ.  The erotic Eden of the Song is also a liturgical Eden, where the Creator communes with man in the original marriage whose icon is the disjunctive union of male and female.”  If we read the Song as both a poem and allegory it helps us with sanity.  We need to see the liturgical Eden as well as the erotic Eden.

Leithart closes with this observation.  “But we can’t reach past the liturgical Eden to seize the erotic Eden.  The liturgical enacts the archetypal reciprocity and bi-polarity of Bridegroom and Bride.  The path to sexual sanity passes through the liturgical dialogue of Christ Jesus and his church, which alone restores our broken sexuality and models the polyphonic love for which God created us in his image as male and female.” 

I embrace the images of erotic and liturgical Eden.  Most evangelical have not focused on the liturgical Eden, whereas the past history of Christian spirituality has given us many commentaries on the Song, seeing the church as the bride and Jesus as the bridegroom.  This has been my view for nearly thirty years.  It has helped me to experience my sexual energy intermingled with my spiritual energy.  My sexual passions are as holy as those of my spiritual passions.  I can admit that I am a soulful man with erotic desires.  May my deepest passion be for the Lord, while not being ashamed of my sexual energy.