How He Loves (part 2)

If it seems like it’s been forever since we did the devotional on How He Loves (Part 1), it’s because it’s been forever!

We left off after verse 1.  The chorus is fairly self explanatory, so we kind of skipped over it.  What I wanted to do here was to go through the second verse.  Of course, by the second verse, I mean the original one with that oh so controversial line in it, “when heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss…”

Before we get there, let’s start at the beginning of verse 2.  “So we are His portion and He is our prize.”  This sounds wrong to me.  Isn’t He our portion?  Well, this line is not only Biblical; it’s straight from the Bible!  We find the thought in Deuteronomy 32:9.  Rather than me with woeful attempts to use the English language try to explain it, I’ll quote Matthew Henry’s explanation here.

“All the world is His.  He is owner and possessor of heaven and earth, but His Church is His in a peculiar manner.  It is His demesne, His vineyard, His garden enclosed.  He has a particular delight in it:  it is the beloved of His soul, in it He walks, He dwells, it is His rest forever.  He has a particular concern for it, keeps it as the apple of His eye.  He has particular expectations from it, as a man has from his portion, has a much greater rent of honour, glory, and worship, from that distinguished remnant, than from all the world besides.  That God should be His people’s portion is easy to be accounted for, for He is their joy and felicity; but how they should be His portion, Who neither needs them, nor can be benefitted by them, must be resolved into the wondrous condescensions of free grace.”

What a wondrous thought.  There are so many blessing that can only be resolved by the wondrous condescension of free grace!  So much so, that we’re drawn to redemption only by His grace.  On our own we wouldn’t desire redemption.  It is only by His grace that we come to Him.  There is so much grace that if it were an ocean we would all be sinking in it!  Even people that neither acknowledge nor worship Him are benefiters of His grace every day.

The most breathtaking display of His grace was when heaven met earth by God the Son taking earthly form, becoming despised and rejected, beaten and crucified, all so that rebels could become worshipers.  That’s where this line, “When heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss” comes in.  Unfortunately this line alone is why we will never sing the song on Sunday morning.  I would have to take 20 minutes and explain what is meant by these lines, and only those that would be there would understand.  John Mark McMillan has blogged about this, so I’ll let his explanation stand.

“The idea behind the lyric is that the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of earth converge in a way that is both beautiful and awkwardly messy.  Think about the birth of a child, or even the death of Jesus Himself.  These miracles are both incredibly beautiful and incredibly sloppy (‘gory’ may be more realistic, but ‘Heaven meets earth like a gory mess’ didn’t seem to have the same ring).  Why does the church have such a problem when things being sloppy?  Do we really think we’re fooling anyone on Sunday morning, especially God?  Are we going to offend Him?...”

A sloppy wet kiss… Both beautiful and messy at the same time.  What a perfect description of what happened at both the incarnation and the cross.  This is why when David Crowder (with John Mark’s permission and blessing) changed the line to “unforeseen kiss.”  It has meant that so many more people have heard and sung this song than would have if he hadn’t changed the line.  The unfortunate part is that unforeseen completely changes the meaning of this verse.   When we consider the shocking way that Christ redeemed His people to the father, we can’t help but be struck by the depth of His love.  When we consider this, we should have no time to consider our regrets because we should be so busy worshiping Him!

Many of you know my dislike for “7-11” songs (7 words repeated 11 times),but when you consider how He does love us, and in such an undeserved way, you just have to repeat to the world that He loves us so much, and the world needs to see that!  Oh, how He loves us!