For the love of God!

Come away to the skies, my beloved arise

and rejoice in the day thou wast born,

on this festival day come exulting away,

and with singing to Zion return.

I'm in love with the image of God as our lover. Who is this God? Who is this God who comes wooing us to heaven like some absolutely hot seducer? The words above are by the prolific writer of hymns Charles Wesley. He takes his text from the Song of Solomon.

The words describe a lover’s searching out of the beloved, and the bliss that comes when the beloved is finally found. So great is the love that no obstacle is too great to block the progress of the beloved and the lover. As it says in another place, “Love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.” When everything else is exhausted, there is only love. When everything else has passed away, love continues. At least it is with God.

Nothing is ever lost to God our lover. Nothing can ever separate us from God. Not sin. Not impurity. Not even our own attempts at being good. Even when we go down to death, God remains our lover. So what are we supposed to do about living with this God? If God’s love is so free, what are supposed to do?

I think the answer is nothing. We don’t do things in response to God’s love, we become something – someone – new. We are transformed by God’s love, not on our own effort, but in the love of God. We are transformed by love into love.

One of the hardest things for me about God’s love is that it doesn’t let me stay in one place, one emotional space, for very long. God’s love doesn’t give much opportunity for looking back over past failings and regrets. God’s love frees us from regret. There’s no looking back in God’s love, no time to get hung up on our losses. We may love the feeling of mulling over the past, filled with all of its broken pieces, but the exercise has nothing whatsoever to do with God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “God is closer to us than the past.” The love of God is always given to us to draw us into the future, to make us lovers not only of God, but of all whom God gives us in the path of life. The rapture of this love is not fixed high in heaven, but breaks forth in the whole world, in every place where God desires to be. We are God’s desire, God’s love made flesh.