Take me away with you—let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into His chambers.
~Song 1:4
ENDLESS LOVE
Consider
the dream in your heart, the deepest and most treasured thoughts you
have. What is it that compels you to search out a certain matter that
drives you more than any other thing in life? Is it marriage; children, a
career, a cause? While all that is good, our hearts were made to long
for something beyond what we see here on earth; even above all beauty,
all pleasures, and or any which thing that seems to bring fulfillment.
We are made to long for a higher kind of fulfilment, to yearn for rest
from the ache of a Desire that is etched, imbedded in the deep recesses
of the heart. To long for the place that is in God's Heart, which only
you, can fill. O' yes, there is a place in His Heart, as there is a
place in yours that can only be filled with each other’s love. This is
high Romance. God invites us to look into His Romance, one day at time;
one page of His Story at the time, to look into chapters of the Love
Story that we are most certainly a part of, and to embrace our place in
that Love Story. In one of his written works, St. Augustine said, “To
fall in love with God is the greatest of all romances; to seek Him, the
greatest of all adventures, to find Him, the greatest of all
achievements." There life can take us, even in the midst of our
darkest moments; in fact, darkness can be a place where beauty blossoms
secretly, and nothing is more beautiful that God’s Love. What is darker
that a crucifixion so brutal that our Bridegroom is described in the
book of Isaiah (53) as being marred beyond recognition? Yet it was at
that dark hour, when the sky could not hold light that Yeshua gave birth
to His own Bride. Lee Strobel’s investigation (see sources's page) of
the crucifixion led him to discover that Yeshua’s heart had burst when He suffocated.
When His side was pierced with a lance by a soldier to veryfy His
death, water and blood flowed out of His side. This is a medical
condition also related to a 'broken' heart! Prior to His death, He
sustained rapid heartbeat caused by hypovolemic shock, as He shed His
Holy Blood. That also causes fluid to gather in the sack around the
heart and around the lungs. This gathering of fluid in the membrane
around the heart is called pericardial effusion, and the fluid gathering
around the lungs is called pleural effusion. This explains the flow of
blood and water from Yeshua's side just as John recorded in his
Gospel.
ROMANCE AND SACRIFICE
Romance
is the outward expression of an inward feeling. Where did the
Bridegroom's romance for His Bride take Him? Yeshua’s heart was broken
for His Bride, you can understand that when the condition of His heart
is infused with the Gospel, and all of the Old Testament references that
are linked to His Love and battles for His Bride. This should inspire
acts of romance in us toward Him. The Christian Love Story is the
greatest ever told because all that is true in all the familiar fantasy
stories of the world, are really true in the death of a
Carpenter-King. Yeshua. True of a Lover that chose to die for His Bride
rather than to live without her. In His death, He brought His Bride back
to Life when He kissed her at the Cross. He awakened her from the sleep
of death caused by the poisoned fruit the villain gave her―reviving her
to His endless Love. This is true romance, and this is, in part, the
Romance of the Gospel.
ONENESS WITH YESHUA
But
how is romance with God lived out in the midst of what seems
unromantic, and at times even chaotic? To be married to the Bridegroom
means to be one with Him. The mystery of earthly marriage as explained
by Paul, is that it is really about “Christ and the Church.” He says
that the two become one, thus, thus if the two in an earthy marriage
represent the relationship the Bridegroom Desires with His Bride, then
oneness in marriage with Yeshua the Bridegroom, is also true and
similar, yet it is greater because it is the True Spiritual Marriage.
The oneness is spiritual and it calls for spiritual things. Our brother
in Yeshua, [H]aRold Smith (see sources page), writes: "To enter into
that intimacy with Yeshua, we must choose to become One with Him, to
become as He Is (1John 4:17, see Flesh and Blood). But it is a choice we
make to enter into that intimacy, that Oneness with Who He Is - not Who
we think Him to be. This is why Yeshua said there will be many who will
say to Him, "Lord, Lord" - to whom He will say, "I never knew you"
because, even though they had access to His Power, they never
made the choice to know Him in the Truth of Who He is. They were
wanting to fashion Him after their own image instead of being
fashioned by Him. They settled for less than His Excellence." True
oneness with Yeshua is a higher oneness, but His Bride must appropriate
it.
ONENESS AND SUFFERING
The
Bridegroom beckons His Bride to come closer to Him in every way: In
sickness, in health, in darkness, in light, in lack or riches, in joy
and sorrow, and in what the Bridegroom endures. Suffering. There is a
side to suffering that is dark, yes, but there is a side to it that is
eternally bright, why? Because in suffering the Bridegroom brought
His Bride to Himself, and not just in ordinary suffering, but brutal,
unspeakable pain. He endured it all for His Beloved. Thus, the
brightness of suffering that comes from the Bridegroom, shines His
Bride, and she too, is called to share in His sufferings. Not as He
did for the purpose of our ransom, but as His Spouse who carries the
pain of her Beloved Who still suffers for the fallen world, for the
evil that is continuously rising till it reaches its max, and for those
who are still lost. The Bride will not let Him suffer alone, because
what He feels she feels. F.J. Huegel (1889-1971), in his book Bone of His Bone,
opens our eyes to deep truth about oneness with the Bridegroom: “He can
do nothing without us! We are His body. Christ has bound us to Himself
with ties so strong we are all members of His Body…Christ has bound
Himself so eternally to us that when He moves, we move. [O’] The glory
of this mystic oneness with Christ!”
Romance
with God it is beautiful, inviting, and utterly dangerous. Yet, the
danger of being His, is the only safety the Bride is to seek, if she
loves Him, even unto death. He has loved Her from eterninty with an
everlasting Love, then He came down to earth to show her that He first
loved Her unto Death. This is the Great Romance of the Gospel.
-Grace @thebridegroom.net
