Sermon: The Divine Liturgy Pt. 3 - Liturgy As Love Story

The Divine Liturgy Pt. 3 – Liturgy as Love Story Sunday, April 13th, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA Song of Solomon 1:15–2:4

BRIDEGROOM: 15Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; Thou hast doves’ eyes.

BRIDE: 16Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: Also our bed is green. 17The beams of our house are cedar, And our rafters of fir. 1I am the rose of Sharon, And the lily of the valleys.

BRIDEGROOM: 2As the lily among thorns, So is my love among the daughters.

BRIDE: 3As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, So is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, And his fruit was sweet to my taste. 4He brought me to the banqueting house, And his banner over me was love.

Prayer

Father, we thank you for the gift that is worship. The gift of hearing your voice, of being given in Scripture the words to respond to your voice in faith and in love. And so teach us now to become true worshippers of the true God, for there is none other than You. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

What was the very first thing that God said was not good?

• It was Adam alone in the garden. It says in Genesis 2:18, “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; [therefore] I will make him an help meet for him.” Other translations say, “I will make him a helper comparable to him” (NKJV), or “I will make him a helper corresponding to him.”
  • The idea is that Adam needs something, someone, that is like him in certain respects, but also unlike him in other respects. Adam needs a helper that is suitable, fitting, and complimentary to him, someone that can supply and make up for what he lacks. And so, God puts Adam into a deep sleep, a happy death, and he takes one of his ribs, and He builds/forms/creates from Adam’s side Woman.
• Now what kind of help is Eve to Adam?
  • First of all, she is his physical compliment. Without woman’s reproductive organs and powers, there are no children. There is no you and me, there is no “be fruitful and multiply,” there is no future for the human race.
  • But Woman is not merely Man’s physical compliment, she is also something more because humanity is something more than what is physical. Unlike plants and animals that also generate and procreate each according to their kind, man is made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:27). That is to say, man and woman have an immortal, spiritual, intellectual soul that is capable of knowing God, speaking to God, and even being united to God.
    • It says in 2 Peter 1:4, God has “given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”
  • This participation in the divine nature (union with God) is the chief end of man. It is our telos, the ultimate why for God creating Adam and fashioning woman from his side.
  • God did not want Adam and Eve to just have physical offspring, he wanted them to have spiritual offspring (disciples!). God wants the world to be filled with living breathing knowing images of the Holy Trinity, who exercise dominion and authority and bring the beauty and glory of God to all creation.
    • As the very last line of the Psalter declares, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:6).
  • And so the spiritual reason God created woman, was so that