Romantic Love, the Immortal Beloved, and Johnny Cash

I've been thinking a lot about romantic love. Not my usual thing, I know: other than a lightning-brief whatever-it-was that ended in a severely shattered heart a few years back, I've mostly just set aside that part of life.

But for whatever reason, it's been on my mind of late and especially I've been considering how I haven't really done it justice or given it the credit it's due or the place it deserves in the scheme of God's creation. And I think that's not uncommon among Christians: we tend to minimize it in reaction, I think, to the world's overwhelming obsession with it; and I think, even more than that, we wish to distance ourselves from the myriad of horrifying perversions of it, especially those we find in our own hearts.

But that's not what God tells us about romantic love. God portrays his relationship to us in terms of it; sometimes in very graphic terms. He is a husband to Israel. The church is the bride of Christ. The celebration at his long-awaited return is the wedding supper of the Lamb. The inspired word of God says "...rejoice with the wife of thy youth, let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love." (Prov. 5:18-19) and "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock." (SoS 5:5-6). And, after all; what was the first command God ever gave us, but to "be fruitful and multiply"? (Gen 1:28)

So I find it appropriate and very moving, as I'm listening to the American series of albums by Johnny Cash, to find themes of sin, repentance, regret, judgement, and apocalypse interspersed with some of the most touching and tender love songs ever written. (The American recordings, if you don't know, are six albums recorded in the last decade of his life, with two released posthumously, and feature stark, bare acoustic versions both of his own compositions and numerous covers from multiple genres.)

Consider, for example:

The first time ever I lay with you
I felt your heart so close to mine
And I knew our joy would fill the earth
and last 'til the end of time, my Love
 

The line about our joy filling the earth puts me in mind of the wedding feast of the Lamb: the whole earth full of the joy of pure love.

Or, in relation to "rejoice with the wife of thy youth...let her breasts satisfy thee at all times:

You are the rose of my heart
You are the love of my life
A flower not fading, nor falling apart
If you're cold, let my love make you warm
Rose of my heart
 

Or, what could better embody a man's response to the scriptural command "Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" (Eph. 5:25) than:

When you're weary, feeling small
When tears are in your eyes
I will dry them all
I'm on your side
Oh when times get rough
And friends just can't be found
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

When you're down and out
When you're on the street
When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you
I'll take your part
Oh, when darkness comes
And pain is all around
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down

Of course, in this world of sin and death, the themes of Love are and must be mingled with those of sin, pain, and regret. This one typifies my own experience with True Love with a wry sense of humour:

If heartaches brought fame, in love's crazy game
I'd be a legend in my time
If they gave gold statuettes for tears and regrets
I'd be a legend in my time

But they don't give awards and there's no praise or fame
For hearts that are broken, for love that's in vain

If loneliness meant world acclaim
Everyone would know my name
I'd be a legend in my time

And inevitably:

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar's chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end

And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

Here it all comes together: love, death, hurt, loss, regret, and redemption. By invoking images of the passion of Jesus, we come full circle and the suffering and agony of romantic love are tied to the suffering and agony He experienced for us.