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- The Wildest Prayer You Can Pray
Recently, I have been reflecting on the audacity of the second verse in Song of Songs 1.
It is quite possibly the craziest, boldest, wildest, most audacious prayer in all of Scripture.
The prayer is the simple words of the Bride to her Bridegroom:
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
This, of course, assumes a reading of the Song of Songs in which we imagine ourselves as the Bride and Jesus as the Bridegroom — an interpretation that has been the predominant interpretation throughout church history. Yet it’s also verses like this that make us shock and shudder at the thought that this book can be read allegorically.
Can we imagine approaching God with this much audacity? With this much boldness? With this much romance?
I’d love to invite us to imagine what this verse could symbolize in our relationship with God.
What is a kiss if not a physical demonstration of shared love?
Can we imagine approaching God with this kind of bold prayer? If I had to paraphrase it in contemporary language, I would say:
“God, come and love me. Demonstrate your love. Prove it!”
In the sixteenth century, Teresa of Avila expressed a similar sentiment to the one we might feel when she comments on this verse. She writes:
“O my Lord and my God, and what words are these that a worm speaks them to its Creator!…But who will dare, my King, utter these words without Your permission?”
While Teresa famously had a low opinion of herself — probably too low for our contemporary standards — her description of herself as a “worm” betrays why she sees this prayer as too audacious to pray. If we are worms, then how dare we ask God to come and love us?
Yet, we inadvertently demonstrate that we have a similarly low view of ourselves when we are afraid to pray a prayer like Song of Songs 1:2.
If we see ourselves as radically beloved, cherished, and adored by God, then we would have no problem confidently asking him to demonstrate his love for us — free of shame.
Yet our very fear and hesitation to pray such a bold prayer reveals more about us than it does about God — perhaps we view ourselves as unworthy of love, or we are so bound by shame that we can’t possibly imagine that God would want to demonstrate his love for us in physical, tangible ways.
But the good news is that God already has demonstrated his love for us in a physical, tangible way.
Paul says it this way:
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This is the glorious good news! God already has “kissed us with the kisses of his mouth” by sending his own Son to die on our behalf even when we were sinners. Even when we are at our least deserving, God was the most willing to demonstrate his love for us. Nothing but this message can disarm our shame! Of course we can ask God to demonstrate his love to us precisely because he has already done it!
Another ancient commentator, Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century, believes that the mouth to which this verse refers is the Word of God — the incarnation of Jesus. He writes:
“I must ask you to give your whole attention here. The mouth that kisses signifies the Word who assumes human nature…A fertile kiss therefore, a marvel of stupendous self-abasement that is not a mere pressing of mouth upon mouth; it is the uniting of God with man. Normally the touch of lip on lip is the sign of a loving embrace of hearts, but this conjoining of natures brings together the human and divine, shows God reconciling ‘to himselve all things, whether on earth or in heaven.’”
Bernard, with brilliant theological insight, ties all of this together. God’s ultimate demonstration of love is in the incarnation — God becoming flesh to die on behalf of our sin — so that we can become one with God.
In other words, God loves us so that we can love him back.
This is the glorious good news that leads to a complete transformation of our identity. Instead of sin, shame, and brokenness, we can approach God radically confident that his love for us has so transformed our identity that we can with confidence draw near to his throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16).
Paul prays for the Ephesians church:
18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Perhaps the New Testament equivalent of “kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” is Paul’s prayer for the Ephesian church that they would know the audacious love of Christ and be filled with the fullness of God.
So, I’d love to invite us to pray with wild audacity today. Take a few deep breaths. Maybe as you breathe in, pray “Come,” and as you breathe out, pray “Holy Spirit.”
Then, once you’ve taken a few deep breaths, pray the wildest prayer you can pray: “God, come and demonstrate your love to me. Prove it! Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!”
Best,
Ryan