Love that Borders on the Miraculous!
Merry Monday by Parris Bailey
“He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” SOS 2:4
He placed a banner over our heads labeled love, because He forever triumphed over death, hell and sin. It’s a Love that borders on the miraculous. JC Powys says, “Love gives itself without measure and without counting the cost.” Christ becomes the Captain of our Salvation. As we sit at this table of wine, it does us well to talk of His suffering and His victories. Being under his protective banner, He becomes our “Jehovah Nissi”, that shields us from the things of this world. (Ex.17:15) His love truly becomes the pledge and guarantee of our safety and protection. If God be for us who can be against us? This table that we build in our hearts becomes a ever constant strength and joy in battle. I love this Augustine quote:”I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me; It was not I that found O Saviour true; No, I was found of thee. I find, I walk, I love, but, oh, the whole of Love is but my answer, Lord, to thee! For thou wert long beforehand with my soul; Always thou lovedst me. ” (Confession I.I )
It is the cry of the hungry heart for the living bread, and of the tired spirit for the secret place of His presence and His rest. And He answers it by the revelation of His love, so that the happy heart can say, “He brought me into His banqueting house and His banner over me was love.”
When we sit at this banquet table filled with His presence, our thoughts move heavenward as we remember, “The language of each scar in His sacred body is love unspeakable, inconceivable, love of the most worthy to the most worthless love, of the prince of the kings of the earth to a beggar on the dunghill, love of the all glorious Creator to the degraded creature, love of God to a contemptible worm, though a worm originally made after his own image, and capable of loving HIm with the ardor of the loftiest seraph. This love and loveliness is able to be apprehended, realized, and felt by the human soul, though at the same time deeply conscious of its utter unworthiness of it. The soul capable both of enjoying that amazing love and of reciprocating it, and of experiencing, a joy superior to that connected with any mere earthly love-a joy characterized by one who knew it as unspeakable and full of glory. This joy in the Divine Redeemer and His love is the experience of the early Christians which raised them above the smiles and frowns of this world, above the fears and torture of death, of the lions and the stake. This banqueting house is not confined to time or place, but especially found in the ordinances of God’s house, and most of all in that of Communion.” (The Preachers Homiletic Commentary) Come, let us drink and let us eat-and that is where we are forever changed.