Set Me As a Seal
It's wedding season. I've been to a couple of nuptials already this summer. How about you? Perhaps you are getting married this summer.
A wedding day is important if for no other reason than it's a day we celebrate true love. It's a red-letter day for the couple, of course, but it should also be so for the whole community. Yet our society has lost site of the communal importance of weddings and marriage. We seemed to have relegated marriage as primarily a private agreement between two individuals, and the wedding has become a public pageant to acknowledge that private agreement.
We fail to realize how a wedding ought to be a public promise between the couple and the community. Over and above their vows to each other, the couple promises to be a model of covenant love for all to see and draw strength from. And the community promises to support the couple through thick and thin, holding them accountable to their promise.
Whether we know it or not, we, as community, need regular doses of young, idealistic love to bolster us in our own covenants of love and fidelity. Not just those who are married, but all of us. We all have promises to keep.
Whether they know it or not, the betrothed couple needs us, all of us, to be a part of their lives, celebrating with them their good times of course, but also hanging-in with them through the tough times. No couple, no matter how much in love or how seemingly compatible, can sustain their intimacy in isolation.
Based on the Hebrew scripture's Song of Songs, Matt Maher sings a lovely wedding hymn called Set Me As a Seal.
It's not difficult to imagine young lovers singing these words to one another. The poetry draws the two into intimacy. But recall that one interpretation of these biblical words is that of Yahweh singing them to his beloved Israelites. Imagine God singing these words to you and me and all of us together:
When two people fall in love and become fully intoxicated with each other, they feel as though they are the first ones to discover true and lasting love. They have found magic that draws them together like no one else has ever experienced. And it's true! Their love is unique and new and fresh . . . and it cries out to be shared with others! For that is the love of Yahweh for his beloved Israel, the love of God for all of us! Each day, God sings a love song to us:
On their wedding day, the newly married couple receives many gifts from family and friends. But they can also extend a gift to the rest of us. Through their personalized ceremony, their greeting to each one of us, their first dance together, their gracious reception of toasts from parents and attendants, and their toasts to one another, they can show us that love is still possible, and that our lives would be empty and useless without it.
Perhaps you are participating in a wedding soon. Give a listen to "Set Me As a Seal" beforehand. Rejoice in the promise vowed between two lovers, but also remember the implicit covenant between the couple and the community.
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Spirit Compass reflections are developed in partnership
Set Me As a Seal
Set me as a seal on your heart.
Set me as a seal on your soul.
For strong as death is love,
unyielding as the grave.
Nothing will quench its flame,
nothing will quench its flame. I looked for you, the one my heart loves.
I looked for you, but did not find you.
I searched through the night until I rested in your sight.
Now, I will never let you go. How beautiful you are, my darling.
Show me your face, let me hear your voice.
Sweet as the dew in the early morn,
like a lily among the thorns.
with the Center for Ministry Development.