Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. It’s a day either revered or reviled. It’s a day to celebrate your love, mourn love lost, or simply figure out what to get while looking thoughtful in the process. Young couples love it, while many long-time couples loathe it.
And yet, Proverbs 5:18 calls us to, “rejoice in the wife of your youth.” Yet, this is a joy that many miss. After a decade of marriage, the word “rejoicing” is not a word many would use to describe their relationship. It is estimated that after 10 years marriage, only 25% of first marriages are successful (i.e. intact and happy).
So, if God’s intention was that we would be able to maintain a spark many years into marriage, why are so many of us missing out on this? What are we doing wrong?
Right in the middle of your Bible is a love poem. It’s a song, actually. It calls itself the Song of Songs. Of all the love songs that have ever been written. Of all the songs ever sung from one lover to another, Solomon says this one tops them all. The greatest love song of all time. It is a exuberant, unabashed, and somewhat explicit celebration of love between a husband and his bride.
For centuries, a somewhat embarrassed church didn’t quite know what to do with this little book in the Bible. They tried to say it was an allegory of Jesus’ love for his church. In fact, one Bible commentator writing in the 19th Century says that this book cannot be about the amours or sexual relationship between Solomon and his bride, because such a thing would be monstrous.
Personally, though, I find it reassuring that right in the middle of God’s Word is this blatant, brazen celebration of love in marriage and married sex. It was God’s idea, after all. It was His gift to us. Why shouldn’t we rejoice in that? So, this weekend we’ll see if we can’t recover a bit of that which has been lost. In many ways, the Song of Songs is a primer on how the husband and the wife can romance each other. I want to show you from the Song of Songs three ways that husbands and wives can creatively communicate their love to each other, and keep that flame alive, or even rekindle it.