All About Love (thoughts on Romantic Theology)

"He that has seen Me has seen the Father...." John 14:9

"He is the image of the invisible God...." Col. 1:15

In the Divine Comedy, Dante reaches the end of his journey in the last cantos of "Purgatory". I say it's the end of his journey because he finally reaches his true love, Beatrice. However, he will soon discover that this "ending" is only another beginning. He meets her at the top of Mt. Purgatory where she comes at the end of strange pageant: a train of creatures and people, all representing the books of the Bible, theological and cardinal virtues, and even Christ Himself (represented by a Griffin). Every element of the pageant is meant to symbolize a different sacrament, i.e., a means and point of contact with God, whether it be divine revelation, "the law written on our hearts," or Christ (who is the Sacrament).

Beatrice belongs to this train. She symbolizes how romantic love (when done properly) is yet another sacrament, a doorway to the divine, a means of ascension higher and higher into the love of God. This is not only the central conceit of the entire Comedy, but also a key component in the Christian view of marriage. Christianity has always viewed marriage as a sacrament, a means of contact with God where He administers and ministers grace to us. This is what Charles Williams called "Romantic Theology," though he never claimed the idea to be novel. Christian orthodoxy has always believed and taught that romance, though it can go awry like anything else, was always meant to be an avenue of communion with God through another person, which was the entire point of marriage: two people brought together by God to be used of God to sanctify each other. The grace of God given to us through each other---that is the essence of Christian romance, and it is a sacramental essence.

The Bible reveals the sacramental essence of marriage in some surprising ways. One of those ways can be found in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Now, First Corinthians is all about love (and not just the 13th chapter). "Let all things be done out of love" (16:14) is the summation and theme of the whole book; furthermore, if we love each other, then we will seek each others "well-being" (10:24) and do all things "for edification" (15:26). In other words, love should lead us to be a means of grace (i.e., a sacrament) to other Christians. If you belong to God, then you have been made a sacrament to others, especially those inside the Church.

What does this have to do with marriage? Well, in chapter 7, Paul explains how men and women can "avoid fornication": "let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband" (vs. 2), i.e., get married and have sex. That's right. Paul (that cranky old curmudgeon) is telling Christian spouses to have sex, and (get this) it's not just a matter of practical morality: "Let the husband render unto his wife due benevolence, and likewise also the wife unto her husband" (vs. 3). This is not just about keeping yourself sexually pure (and faithful) in marriage; this is also about showing "benevolence" to your spouse by not withholding sex (vs. 5). Thus, in marriage, sex is tied directly to edification. It is one of the ways a husband is a sacramental means of grace to his wife (and vice versa).

Is your mind blown yet? It should be. Who views sex like this? Not our culture. Whether inside or outside of marriage, sex is merely a means of domination: two individuals mutually working their will on the other. It has nothing to do with grace at all. Furthermore, I daresay that the Church in America does little better. Marriage is important, at least politically and socially, but what about theologically and sacramentally? All of marriage (whether it be sex or something else) is meant to be sacramental, i.e., about grace, about meeting God. That is why wives "submit" themselves to their husbands and husbands "lay down" themselves for their wives: it is a mutual sacrifice on behalf of the other, and into that loving matrix the presence of God comes into our midst.

That, of course, is the whole point: of the Divine Comedy, of Christian marriage, of Christianity and Christ Himself. God is a sacramental God. He meets us in the midst of our moments, especially (as Dante showed us) in our darkest moments. Love reaches out to us in the dark wood, and it will lead us home, even through Hell itself. It is what T.S. Eliot meant by "mid-winter spring": those moments of light and life in the midst of the cold, dead lands, the intersection of our time with God's eternity. This is not about abstractions; this is about love, about Christ, who is the fullest proof of God's love (Rom. 5:8; I John 4:9-10), a love that manifested itself in our midst, that was made flesh and blood and bones and veins and fat and walked into our winter with all the glories and colors of spring. The point of the story, of all good stories (whether Dante's, Christ's, your marriage, or your walk with God), is love, love manifested in our midst with all its surprises and its unapologetic, relentless and reckless sacrifice for its beloved.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

"In the night season..." (In His Hands, Part I)

"Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have tried and chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Is. 48:10

In the Divine Comedy, Dante discovers an odd rule of Mount Purgatory. Every soul there may ascend the mountain as they will except at night, where a great and horrible darkness falls over everything. At times like that, the only thing to do is to sit and wait in the dark. Throughout the poem (and in typical Medieval symbolism), light is representative of God. Those in Hell, being separated from God, have no light. Those in Paradise, being in God's presence, have all-light (or all the light that they desire). Purgatory, however, goes through times of light and dark, of ascension and stillness. It alone bears that dichotomy.

In the Comedy, Purgatory is not just a Roman Catholic image of the afterlife. It is also an image of the human soul as it lives in the here and now, going through the birth-pangs of sanctification. What Dante (good Christian that he was) was trying to point out is that sanctification is necessarily a halting affair. You cannot move onward without the gracious light of God's truth, and the times that light is hidden are part of the proceedings. If you are to love God, then you must not only know God but also have the humility to trust His goodness, especially in the dark.

The idea of being purged through dark times is biblical to the core. Sometimes it is a direct result of living in sin, such as Israel in both their wilderness wanderings and (in the case of Isaiah) their Babylonian exile. Other times, it is a means to prove your reliance on God alone, such as Jesus' temptation in the wilderness or Paul's "thorn in the flesh." In either case, the end result is to be the same: God is your all in all, and His grace is sufficient for you. This principle is vividly apparent in Isaiah, where God wages a ceaseless war against hubris, the hubris that sees itself as God and its own salvation (Is. 47:8-14). God will smash all of our false hopes and counsels, smash them with a furious, unrelenting love that will not leave you in the rot of your idolatry and ignorance.

We must understand: too often we view "the furnace of affliction," those dark nights of the soul, as a bad thing, as a hindrance and a failure. It is true (as said before) that those times can be a result of sin in your life, but we will know those times because we will know our sin, even though we have refused to deal with it. But there are other times where there is no conscious sin that has beset us, and you do yourself no favors by racking your brain to think of one. This is because in either case (whether by sin or not), the purging is not a failure. On the contrary: it is all a part of the plan.

Look at the Babylonian exile. Though it was a result of Israel's longstanding and sinful obstinacy, it was still under God's purview. He knew from the beginning that Israel would be obstinate, and thus He planned accordingly (Is. 48:3-11). The "thus" is always present, always paramount. What happened did not surprise God at all, and the subsequent purging was not 'Plan B". It was always Plan A, for everything is all plan. God knew, and thus He planned. Whom He foreknew, He predestined to justification and glory. The days of purging are not about God's displeasure (as we so often think). Rather, it is about the sovereign grace of God. Remember Mount Purgatory: the Sun's shinings were not arbitrary, nor was the darkness an accident. It is all plan, all within the scope and scheme of redemption. If God has called you and set you on the path, then you will make it home.

To be sure, your journey will not be a straight line. God does not work in a straight line, because He is not a straight line. He is not the prime principle of some system working out its logical conclusion, nor is He a cosmological administrator working out kinks, cleaning up messes, and keeping everything within protocol. He is not mindless or helpless. He is the loving Creator, and all His movements are artful, purposeful, and loving. Always loving, for the Great and Glad Creator is your Great and Glad Father, and He will lead you home on a path wrought for you, wrought by His own hands, intentionally infused with sunlight and tears. Amen.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013