The Song of Songs, chapter seven, verses one through 13. This is the word of the Lord. How beautiful are your feet and sandals, O noble daughter. Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a master hand. Your navel is a rounded bowl that never lacks mixed wine. Your belly is a heap of wheat encircled with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are pools in Heshgon, by the gate of Bathrabeam. Your nose is like a tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like caramel, and your flowing locks are like purple. A king is held captive in the tresses. How beautiful and pleasant you are, oh loved one, with all your delights. Your stature is like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters. I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its fruit. Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like apples, and your mouth like the best wine. It goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding over lips and teeth. I am my beloved's, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages. Let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened, and the pomegranates are in bloom. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and beside our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you Oh, my beloved. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Our Lord and our God. Open our hearts to your word. that we may be washed by it. Open our ears to hear the voice of your son, that we may know his love. We ask in his name. Amen. In the Apostles' Creed, we confess the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. And so we see that the body is important. God did not make us bodiless souls. He made us embodied creatures. It is not the soul alone that is made in his image. It is man that is made in his image, body and soul. The whole man is the whole image of God. the incarnation. When the Word became flesh, the Son of God took to himself all our likeness. He became body and soul. He became body and soul that he might save us, body and soul. He suffered for us, body and soul. He died for us, body and soul. He was raised for us, body and soul. He has ascended into heaven for us, body and soul. And from there, he will come again for us, body and soul. And at last, he will raise us, body and soul, and transform us, body and soul. and bring us to that life everlasting, a life that we will enjoy body and soul. The body is not a prison for the soul. It is not something that God has given for us to escape. And though it is true that at death the soul departs from the body, that is not forever, but only for a time. In scripture, the body is not called a prison, but a temple. It is a place of dwelling. It is a place of rest. Now it may be that we do not very much like our bodies. How many of us wish for a different body? It is easy to be insecure about our bodies. And so our bodies may not feel like a place of rest. but may instead feel like a prison, like a prison of anxiety. And we grieve over our bodies. We grieve especially over those things that we cannot help, that we cannot change. And we may even cry out to God, why have you made me thus? It is like the lament of Adam, as imagined in paradise lost. Did I request the maker from my clay? to mold me, man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me? I did not ask to be made. I did not ask to be made this way. Why? Why have you made me this way? See, the Lord does not despise us for this lament. He does not despise us for our grieving what he has given to us as a gift. He does not respond with a word of rebuke. He responds with the word become flesh. This one who took to himself our likeness, he had no form or majesty that we should look at him. He had no beauty that we should desire him. Surely, surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. He took to himself our body and soul. because he loves us, body and soul. We see this grace in the mystery of marriage, how the two become one flesh. The body of the woman becomes the man's, and the body of the man becomes the woman's. And so it is that Christ gives us his body. And so it is that Christ takes us as his body. In Christ, we may learn to be content with the body that he has given. We may learn to be content with the body that he has given because he delights in us, body and soul. We wonder how he could delight in our bodies But of course, this same question could be asked of our souls. How can he delight in our souls when our hearts are so wayward, so restless, so false? And yet he does. Here is the mystery of his love. It is unlike any other love. It does not love you because of your beauty. You're beautiful because of His love. His love, it makes us beautiful. For his love is beauty itself. In the Song of Songs, chapter seven, the bridegroom delights in the body of his bride. He delights in the whole of her body, but he also delights in the parts of her body. And so it is with Christ and the church. He delights in the church's body, not only in her whole, but also in her parts. He delights in each one of her members. He delights in each one of you. Or can it be? Yet it is so. As we learn his love for us. As we learn his delight in us. We learn to be content. We learn to rest content with this body that he has given. We learn to trust that whatever we lack, his grace will supply. That whatever we must suffer in the body, It is not worth comparing to that glory that will be revealed in the body. If we would know the truth concerning our bodies, let us not stare in the mirror. Let us stare to his face. Let us rest in the love of his eyes, in the grace of his mouth, in the joy of his countenance. And behold, as we do, we are changed. We are transformed. We lose ourselves. We forget our vanity and our pride. We become radiant. We become radiant with the beauty and the glory of the Lord. And at last, our lament is turned to praise. One with Him, at last our body becomes a place of rest, the house of a quiet heart. In the Song of Songs, Chapter 7, we see the importance of the body, but especially the importance of the woman's body. As we noted before, her belly is likened to a heap of wheat and her breasts to the clusters of the vine. And in this, we see not only her own beauty, but the beauty of what is born of her. For her belly is her womb. Her womb is a heap of wheat, and her breasts are clusters of the vine. Why is the wheat given, but for bread Why is the grape given but for wine? Her womb is a heap of wheat, that from it may come the bread of life. Her breast is the cluster of the vine, that from it may come the cup of blessing. His words are fulfilled in that most blessed of women. His womb became the temple of the Lord. His breasts became the source of his life. It was from her flesh that he became flesh. It was from the wheat of her womb that he became the bread of life. It was from the cluster of her breast that he became the cup of blessing. See the importance of the body. Without her body, there is no salvation. But without her body, there is no incarnation. From the flesh of his mother, he has his flesh. By the flesh of his mother, he becomes one flesh with his bride. Is this not why from the cross our Lord said of his mother, To that disciple whom he loved, behold your mother. We are one flesh with him. We are flesh of his flesh. We belong to him body and soul. He desires us, body and soul. I am my beloved's and his desire is for me. And now again, at the end of chapter seven, The bride responds to the words of her beloved. She responds to his words of love. Verse 11. Come, my beloved. Let us go out into the fields and lodge in the villages. Let us go out early to the vineyards and see whether the vines have budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened and the pomegranates are in bloom. There, I will give you my love. We hear now the voice of the bride. She longs to be with the bridegroom in his vineyard. She longs to be with him in his garden. For it is there that she may give him her love. It is there that she will give him her love. It is there that she will give him the fruit of her love. It is there that she offers to him the fruit that she has borne for him. the fruit that she has gathered for him. The fragrance of her love, it is pleasant. It is the sweet fragrance of mandrakes. It is the fragrance of every choice fruit. The fragrance of her love is a pleasing aroma. that fragrance is for him, that fruit is for him. But how should we understand these words? Beside our doors are all choice fruits, new as well as old, which I have laid up for you, O my beloved. This fruit that is old, is it truly pleasant? This fruit that is old, has it kept? Consider again her love, It is said to be like wine. And when fruit has become wine, it gets better with age. When we taste wine that is new and wine that is old, what do we say? The old is better. And so it is with love. The fruit of love never goes bad. The fruit of love never spoils. It only gets better and richer and more intoxicating with age. Is this not why God has purposed that the bond of marriage should not be severed except by death so that we may grow old together? and taste the goodness and the richness of an old love, an unspoiled love, a love that has aged well, love that is selfless, never spoils. A self-emptying love cannot be spoiled. It only grows richer. It only becomes better. Blessed is the one who tastes it. and even more blessed is the one who gives it. We taste this love in Christ, but how are we to give it? This brings us again to the importance of the body. As we contemplate this garden of choice fruits, this vineyard of blessing, and this house that rests there, with the bride's offering gathered at its doors. This place may seem familiar to us. We might come to recognize this garden as a sanctuary, this vineyard as the Lord's, this house as his house. and these fruits gathered as a sacrifice for him. A sacrifice that when it is offered rises to him as a pleasing aroma. Why do we gather in the body? Why do we worship in the body? We offer to him the whole of ourselves. We offer to him the whole of ourselves, body and soul. Does his love for us is old, older than the world itself, but also ever new? It is new every day. So we then learn to offer him a love that is old and new. firmly planted in his house, we become like that tree, that tree whose leaf never withers and whose fruit is ever sure. We gather in this place to call to our beloved that he may come and that here we may give him our love. But we pray not only for him to be present by his spirit. We long for something more. We long for him to be present in the body. We long for that day when we will see him in the body, when we will behold him face to face, then at last we will give him all our love. The fruit that we have gathered for him here and the fruit that we will bear for him there, a love that is old and new. And there we will grow old with him, forever tasting his love, forever offering our love. forever offering, forever tasting that fruit that is old and new. And the longer we are there, the more we will come to know that his love for us, his love for us that is without beginning, His love for us is without end. There we will know his love without end in a world without end. Amen.