Song of Songs 2:4-5: He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Sustain me with cakes of raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am lovesick.
We domesticate Jesus. He’s a baby in a manger, or a mild-mannered apostle of niceness. If spectacles had been invented in the first century, He’d be wearing them.
That’s not how people who knew Him thought of Him. His own family thought Him mad and wanted to put Him away. He corrected and insulted hosts during dinner. When Jesus showed up, the man possessed by a Legion of demons, cowered before Him; he knew that in Jesus he had met his match, a strong man more wild than himself. “Zeal for Your house eats me up” – that was Jesus’ theme verse from the Psalm as He turned over tables in the temple.
Jesus wasn’t easy to have around. He was what we would call a problem. Jesus was a handful. Jesus was a meshuggah , an uncontrollable madman, because He was consumed by the Spirit who clothed Gideon and Samson and David and filled the raging, wild prophets.
Passion is infectious. Lovers breathe out their spirit on their beloveds, and Jesus is the perfect lover. So it is that the bride of the Song of Songs is sick, crazy, with the love of the Bridegroom. When her beloved is missing in the middle of the night, she charges out into the “streets and squares” calling his name and seeking for the one her soul loves. In her desperate search, she’s like Lady Folly prowling at midnight looking for men to devour. It’s not respectable; but it is pure, the white heat of divine love burning in her.
We serve wine at the Lord’s table, not grape juice. That’s because this is a table for lovers, a table for a Bride drunk with joy, inebriated with the Spirit, consumed by desire for our Lover. At this table, our Lover Jesus pours out the wine of His blood for us, so that we can be swept up in the passion of His Spirit.
“Eat, friends; drink and drink deeply, O lovers.”
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
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