Bhakti, the Beloved, & Beauty-The Three Loves (k, Maybe just 1)
Valentine's Day? :)
I began a previous message saying God is probably angry at you.
Today I’d like to talk about why.
Love.
Love is powerful.
Song of Songs of Solomon 8
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its ardour unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.
Many waters cannot quench love;
rivers cannot sweep it away.
If one were to give
all the wealth of one’s house for love,
it would be utterly scorned.
(Obviously, this is a song expressing the love of a bride to her groom-soon to be husband. We’ll come back to this later.) Clearly, the Bible teaches that LOVE is powerful. & because the Bible contains far too much to cover in one message, I’m going to focus on only three types of love:
For those of you who like to keep things simple, remember Three B’s
Bhakti, the Beloved, & Beauty.
But we'll get even simpler before this message is finished.
There is so much in the Bible, and, really, all human literature, about love that I’d like to focus on music.
Bhakti
The most ancient musical text including partial musical notation is among the Hurrian Songs- Amorite/Canaanite city of Ugarit 1400 BC – H6 the Hymn to the goddess of fruit, Nikkal
In the Gita-the great story is, of course, a Gita.
& it proclaims the value and importance of & Bhakti Dharma, Devotion to Duty in service to god.
6th Century BCE Pythagoras discovered the profound connection between acoustical phenomena and mathematical symmetry-that a Perfect Octave vibrated at a ½ ratio (C1 is created by a vibration at 64 cycles per second, & C2 is produced by 128 cycles C3 by 256 cycles per second & so on…). A Perfect 5th is produced by 1/3 ratio-the next simplest fraction-and Pythagoras developed the Western 12-tone system based on the relationship between these 5ths. He surmised from the mathematics of sound that if we all could just learn to get our souls in tune with the “music of the spheres” would could achieve enlightenment as individuals and as a community.
Much of ancient human literature focuses on human love and devotion to God. But the Bible takes a VERY different approach. It focuses more on God’s love and devotion to us (!)
David, quite possibly as a young boy, watching his father’s sheep, wrote a song of worship
Psalms
.??????? ???,????? ?????? (the Hebrew is backwards! It should read Jehovah roi, lo etsar Right to Left, but Word keeps it left to right for reasons I can’t fix) God is my Shepherd, I shall not lack anything.
When God revealed Himself in a special way to Moses, He described Himself:
Exodus 34:5 Then the LORD
came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. Exodus
34: 6 And he passed in front of
Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD,
the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to
anger, abounding in love
and faithfulness,Exodus 34:7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion
and sin.
Psalm 136
1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.
2 Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.
3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.
4 to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.
5 who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.
6 who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.
7 who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.
8 the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.
9 the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.
10 to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt
His love endures forever.
11 and brought Israel out from among them
His love endures forever.
12 with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
His love endures forever.
13 to him who divided the Red Sea[a] asunder
His love endures forever.
14 and brought Israel through the midst of it,
His love endures forever.
15 but swept Pharaoh and his army into the Red Sea;
His love endures forever.
16 to him who led his people through the wilderness;
His love endures forever.
17 to him who struck down great kings,
His love endures forever.
18 and killed mighty kings—
His love endures forever.
19 Sihon king of the Amorites
His love endures forever.
20 and Og king of Bashan—
His love endures forever.
21 and gave their land as an inheritance,
His love endures forever.
22 an inheritance to his servant Israel.
His love endures forever.
23 He remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.
24 and freed us from our enemies.
His love endures forever.
25 He gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.
26 Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever.
God loves us. Unstoppably, incomparably, unendingly, impossibly
He says this to His people:
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
Jeremiah 31:3
Most people around the world recognize the importance of us loving God. But most people, including, I think, many in the Church, miss the point that God loves us. He is devoted to us. When I think of Bhakti in the Bible, I think much less of human devotion to God, and much more about God’s devotion to humanity.
1 John 4:7-8,10,17 (we'll come back to vs. 10-12 later)
But this is, certainly, not the only form of devotion expressed in our great artistic traditions. Probably the most popular musical literature extols the virtue of romantic love.
the Beloved
The oldest known song with lyrics and melody is the Seikilos Epitaph circa 1st century, which Seikilos wrote to honor his beloved wife at her death:
?s?? ??? fa???? While you live, shine
µ?d?? ???? s? ??p?? eliminate all greif
p??? ?????? ?st? t? ??? life is short.
t???? ? ?????? ?pa?te?. Time demands an end (finish-completion)
such poetry is among the most beautiful of human creations.
As one might expect, we find in the Bible many examples of love songs to God. But also within it we see examples of human love poems.
Song of Songs 1000 BCE
I am my beloved’s and he is mine, His banner over me is love.
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
Song of Solomon 8:7
In the Proverbs, Wisdom calls out like a lover, and Solomon exhorts his son to call back to wisdom-the Scriptures are spiced with stories of human love, all of which should point us to God, his Spirit, and His ways.
Ephesians 5 describes human love in an unexpected way.
Ephesians 5: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for herEphesians 5: 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,Ephesians 5: 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Ephesians 5:28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.Ephesians 5:29 After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— Ephesians 5:30 for we are members of his body. Ephesians 5:31 “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”Ephesians 5: 32 This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.
God’s love invites us to richer human Love, and human love, at its best, is a reflection of the Beauty that makes us most human, that which draws us to the Divine.
God calls us to experience His love, to experience human love, and, also, I believe, to experience a kind of love we may not talk much about, a love for Beauty.
Bhakti, Beloved, Beauty
Beauty
CS Lewis argued that love of Beauty was the primary quality and virtue good education should inculcate. He said
St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in 'ordinate affections' or 'just sentiments' will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science.
Lewis argues that men who are disconnected from the emotions of virtue are “Men without Chests”. He then goes on to site traditions like the Rta in Hindu thougth and the Tao in Chinese to argue that humans all over the world view the purpose of education as alignment with the Way or order of things, and through this to appreciate all that is truly beautiful. Yet, while we talk of art, I think there is the art of building your own life and character, cooperating with God.
. . . the Beauty of a Well Lived Life
Francis of Assisi was born into a wealthy family. He left that to follow Jesus. He took the exhortations of Jesus literally, including when Jesus said “Preach the Gospel to all creatures”.
(the story of Francis in court)
He would preach the Gospel as he walked through the forest, figuring obedience to Jesus was his responsibility, the fruit of the labor was God’s.
His life was beautiful, winsome, attractive.
He wrote
Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury pardon
Where there is doubt faith
Where there is despair hope
Where there is darkness light
Where there is sadness joy
O, divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Speaking of dying for eternal life. There has never been a life more beautifully lived than Jesus’.
Paul exhorted us to have the same mindset as Him. Philippians 2:5-11. . .
He lived beautifully and He died beautifully.
Jesus spoke only seven sentences from the cross as He was dying. Two of those sentences were from the Psalms-the ancient songbook of Israel. “My God, my God, Why have you forsaken me?” Psalm 22. And, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit”, Psalm 31. John at least implies Jesus may have referred to others psalms when he said “I thirst” (psalm 69 & 22) Even in death, Jesus spoke in song.
We are all familiar with other scandals of sexual misconduct among priests, and Pope Francis’ responses to these tragedies. Maybe, I could be wrong, maybe, if we, as those to whom people look for spiritual guidance and example, were more focused on the Love (His Bhakti for us), the loves (our Beloved), and the Beauty God has given us in His world, the art He breathes into us, we would be less inclined to fall into behaviors which are truly ugly..
We must heed the words of the Apostle Paul that we should lay aside all filth, and,
Speaking to one another in forms of ancient art, and, inspired by the Spirit, in new music we create we should build each other up in the faith. (Ephesians 5:17-20)
May we all be inspired by God to create new art well, to live and love well, and may this generation’s contributions inspire future generation to be more humane, and, as creatures made in the image of God, more fully human, reflecting His goodness, glory, grace, justice, devotion, and love.
We find His love endlessly inspiring.
By Frederick Lehmen, 1917
3rd vs. by Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai mid 11th century
1. The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.
o Refrain:
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
2. When hoary time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
3. Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4
The story of Phan Th? Kim Phúc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWH2Vi0PcoI
(Kim Phuc is the girl who was at the center of the picture from the Viet Nam War, running naked away from the napalm fire that consumed her village and burned her. She came to faith in Christ and forgave those who injured her. The story is moving and extraordinary).
I'd like to conclude this message by singing Francis' Prayer,
please join me in prayer.
