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THE WONDER OF LOVE!

This past week I introduced the three primary trigonometry functions to my students at Chandler High School. I explained:
Historical Information: The word trigonometry comes to us from two Greek words, meaning triangle measurement. It deals with the relation between the sides and angles of a triangle.
In trigonometry there are three primary ratios that compare the measures of two sides of a right triangle. The ratios are known as:
sine abbreviated sin and pronounced sign
cosine abbreviated cos and pronounced co -sign
tangent abbreviated tan and pronounced tan’gent
The “sin” of an angle is the ratio of the opposite side to the hypotenuse.
The “cos” of an angle is the ratio of the opposite side to the hypotenuse.
The “tan” of an angle is the ratio of the opposite side to the adjacent side.
When I discussed the pronunciation of “sin” I emphasized that it wasn’t pronounced the way you would pronounce the theological term sin. Sin means to miss the mark, to go your way, or to be self-absorbed. Whereas sine, while abbreviated as “sin,” is pronounced “sign” and is the ratio of the opposite side of an angle to the hypotenuse.
Would I have liked to have said more about sin and God’s response to it? Sure, but to say more than what I said would have been wrong on two counts. First, teachers are not allowed to proselytize students within the classroom. As a teacher, I am, in a very real sense, an employee of the state. I am employed to communicate, in part, the values of the state of Arizona. I cannot use the platform given to me to communicate my own agenda. To say more would dishonor my employer.
Second, it would’ve been wrong to say more than I said because it would not have been an act of love. It would’ve have been coercion. You see, love enjoys expressing itself but it also respects the freedom of others. When love forces itself on others, it crosses the line and becomes ugly.
I mention this to you because the Shulammite girl longed to express her love for Solomon in a public manner. She knew, however, that to do so would not only be inappropriate it would be misconstrued. So she did the next best thing, she made the daughters of Jerusalem promise to do something, not for her, but for love. In the first four verses of chapter eight we read:
If only you were to me like a brother,
who was nursed at my mother’s breasts!
Then, if I found you outside,
I would kiss you,
and no one would despise me.
I would lead you
and bring you to my mother’s house –
she who has taught me.
I would give you spiced wine to drink,
the nectar of my pomegranates.
Oh, may his left hand be under my head
and his right hand embrace me.
I want you to promise me,
O young women of Jerusalem,
that you will surely arouse,
you will surely awaken love
when love pleases to awaken.
The Shulammite girl, at times, wished that Solomon was one of her brothers. She wished that he was someone she could hug and kiss in public. But she knew that to do so would be entirely inappropriate. Yet, she also knew that opportunities to express love are all too often missed.
Maybe they are missed because we just don’t see them. Maybe they are missed because we hesitate a moment too long to say what is on our hearts. Maybe they are missed because we haven’t learned to speak the language that touches someone else’s heart. Whatever the case, the Shulammite girl was fearful that appropriate moments would be lost for a variety of reasons. So she made the Daughters of Jerusalem promise that they would awaken love, that they would arouse the expression of love, at all the appropriate moments.
The two lovers now return from the countryside. The picnic is over and they return to the city. In vv. 5 - 7 we read:
Who is this coming up from the desert
leaning on her lover?
Under the apple tree I roused you;
there your mother conceived you,
there she who was in labor gave you birth.
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy (its fervent love) unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of his house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.
Here we have the wonder of love. Dr. Glickman is his book tells a story that does a nice job of expressing the wonderfulness of love. It reads as follows:
How could I have known that one of the most profound lessons I would learn about love would come from eavesdropping on a conversation between my camp counselor and one of the high-school students in our cabin? The message earlier that evening from the head counselor had been about sex. The gist of it, as I recall, was that sex was not an evil that marriage permitted, but rather a gift that marriage protected. That sounds good now. But we mostly interpreted it as further efforts on the part of the staff to discourage any questionable activities between the boys and girls at the camp.
But one of the guys in the cabin was a little disturbed. I heard him address our counselor with a slight challenge in his voice: “Well, John, it’s a little late for me to hear that message.”
“ Why is that?”
“ Well, Sharon, and I have already . . . you know . . .”
“ ‘You know,’ what?” the counselor asked.
“ We, uh, you know – went all the way,” the student said, speeding up his words at the end but expressing himself with a hint of pride.
“ What do you mean, ‘all the way’?” John pressed, drawing out the last phrase as if to make up for the speed with which it had been uttered. I couldn’t believe the counselor was so dense. What was he thinking?
“ You know, all the way,” the boy stressed, as if saying with emphasis would clarify the meaning.
But the counselor didn’t let him off the hook. “No, I don’t know what you mean. What are you talking about?”
“ You know, we had sex!” he blurted out, exasperated.
“ Ohhhhh, that’s what you mean,” John said with a show of surprise. “And you think that’s going all the way?”
“ Well, yes.”
“ That’s not going all the way at all,” he explained. “I’ll tell you what going all the way is. There’s a guy in my neighborhood who has five kids, and his wife is now in a wheelchair. He gets the kids off to school each morning, sells insurance all day to make a living, then comes home and makes dinner for his family. And at the end of the evening, he looks his wife in the eye and tells her he loves her. I know he means it, too, because he tells me he’s the luckiest guy he knows to have been blessed with her. That’s what going all the way is.”
Like me, maybe you’re stunned by the counselors response to the boy who thought he had gone all the way. But Solomon and the Shulammite girl wouldn’t have been stunned by this story, they would’ve nodded in agreement for they understood the true nature of love. They understood that there is a devotion in the nature of love that cannot be quenched by life’s difficulties.
This is what the girl meant when she said that “It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.” She knows that true love does not exhaust itself. Like Moses at the burning bush she was captivated by the reality that here is a blaze that exist with no apparent source of fuel. The fuel, of course, as with the burning bush, must be God himself. Moses sensed that, and surely the Shulammite girl sensed that love, real love, has a blaze that finds its fuel in God.
She also knows that love is a gift and, as such, it cannot be purchased. Those who attempt to purchase it simply invite scorn. They invite scorn for two reasons. First, in an attempt to purchase what cannot be purchased they show themselves ignorant of the source of true love. Second, they invite scorn because they believe they have the means to purchase what cannot be purchased. Even if they sold all their possessions at market value they wouldn’t have enough to buy what cannot be bought.
Okay, if you cannot buy love even by selling everything you own, is there anything that can be given to attain it? Sure, but it is more costly than your possessions. You can give the gift of yourself. The only cost involved in doing so is that you must die to self.
Someone has said:
“ Marriage is a romance in which the hero and heroine die in the first chapter.”
He or she wasn’t talking about a pact where the two murder each other. They were talking about the fact that for a marriage to work, each person must die to self. That’s is what we can give to purchase love, we can give ourselves.
The Song ends where it began, with the brothers. This time, however, it is a happier occasion. Their sister had married Solomon and the setting is that of a family reunion. As they sat around the brothers reminisced about their sister. They said:
We have a young sister,
and her breasts are not yet grown.
What shall we do for our sister
for the day she is spoken for?
If she is a wall,
we will build towers of silver on her.
If she is a door,
we will enclose her with panels of cedar.
They recalled asking themselves: What shall we do to prepare our sister for marriage. If she was a wall prohibiting access, they would reward her. If she was a door that provided access, they would restrict her freedom, boarding up the door if necessary. Before, they could embarrass her any more than they had already done so she spoke up and said.
I was a wall,
and my breasts were like towers (on that wall),
Thus I have become in his eyes
like one bringing contentment (shalom)
[Shulamith finds shalom in Solomon].
She interrupted them and with her quick wit, embarrassed them. Her thoughts then turned to Solomon for the vineyards her brothers cared for belonged to him. She remembered the day their eyes first met and on that day the two found shalom - they found peace, good health, fulfillment, contentment.
At the Place of Plenty the vineyards belonged to Solomon, but her vineyard was hers to keep or give to the man of her dreams. In telling Solomon, in 12b, that the thousand shekels for her vineyard were for him she was giving him all her love.

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