Sequel to the Song of Songs
A sermon preached by Revd Ross Meikle
Sunday 9 August 2026
In this sermon, I will put forth to you that this week’s secret song of Scripture has a modern-day sequel.
First, our text in question: the Song of Songs
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;
For love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave; its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
If all the wealth of our house were offered for love, it would be utterly scorned.
An ancient love poem. We use it at weddings, although it has stiff competition with St Paul’s song in his first letter to the Corinthians.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
We get two different ideas of love from these two wedding poems of Scripture. St Paul gives us virtues: a series of seemingly passive but steadfast characteristics of love, teaching a new Christian community what it might mean to truly the loving ways of God. It’s quite an academic and abstract approach to defining love – but when engaging with an ancient Greek community who love rhetoric and big ideas, then that is the natural language to use. Body and spirit can be separated and examined apart from one another.
Meanwhile, this older Hebrew text comes from a collection of love poetry – the bulk of which is a form of role play as two lovers speak desirous words to one another, seeking each other out in the night, so driven by their love for one another. It is a sensual and sex positive song, but don’t worry – the sequel I’m thinking of isn’t a modern-day pop song. The main takeaway at this moment is to note the language of love.
It is strong as death. It is fierce. It rages and blazes like a wildfire.
It is a wholly different kind of rhetoric than that St Paul.
Both are important; one isn’t better than the other. But, I suspect that they speak into a tension that has existed throughout Christian history and theology – and possibly other major faiths too. It’s a tension that has serious theological and doctrinal questions, and it pokes at the paradoxes in which we put our faith.
It’s a tension around our bodies, what it means to be human, and what it means to be a sexual or sensual being.
There are and have always been theological movements that undermine our sensuality, our feelings of desire and erotic love. A purity culture around spirituality that tells us that what our bodies want is sinful and wicked. The body must be tamed. The body must be controlled. Therefore: no dancing, no drinking, no sex, no worldly pleasure. My grandparents were raised Welsh Brethren, and Grandma would tell me about the strict rules they followed.
This aligns neatly enough with Saint Paul’s virtues of love, his fruits of the Holy Spirit, and his teachings. And, then, through that lens we can interpret the rest of Scripture – such as our Song of Songs today – and turn the sensual into an allegory for the love of God for God’s people, or a love song between Jesus and the Church.
Yet, in so doing, we begin to reject what our bodies tell us to be true.
And then we become vulnerable to teachings that put us at odds with ourselves, and far greater sins are committed as twisted theologies and ideologies use purity culture to shame, control, and oppress bodies.
It is from purity culture that we get the suppression of women’s freedoms and rights.
It is from purity culture that white supremacy values one type of body over another, instigating slave trades and genocides.
It is from purity culture that the Church of England ties itself in knots over conversations about sexual and gender identities.
It is from purity culture that young bodies are fetishised and older bodies are disregarded.
It is a culture of control over those who are unable to conform to a strict and narrow definition of what it means to be human.
But then we get the Song of Songs, standing on its own terms. Unbound and unafraid to be sensual. Love is tactile and active. A raging flame. We know what that means. We have felt fire – its heat, its light, its potential for danger. We know that fire can be controlled, but that it can also run away like a wildfire. So too with love. We can try to control it – sometimes we must – but under the right conditions, love may blaze like a wildfire.
That can be scary.
Love can be scary.
It makes us do strange and foolish things like travel across the world, commit our life to another in marriage, or even train to be a priest.
Because when I talk about love being sensual, I do not mean merely sex. I mean everything that is tangible. The Song of Songs talks about death – and again, that isn’t something abstract. Death is physical, from the way our bodies prepare themselves to die to the way that grief consumes our bodies when someone we love dies.
And I also mean everything that drives us that we feel in our bodies: choosing the option that makes us feel calm peace instead of anxious jitters. The gut instinct that either keeps us safe or encourages us to take a leap of faith.
That’s why people came to John to be baptised. They needed to feel in their bodies something that they had heard to be true.
They could be renewed. They could die to the old and live to the new.
And so their bodies would be thrust under the waters: take a deep breath, and under. A drowning simulation to remind us that our bodies and our earthly life are finite. Yet with God there is such love that transforms the way we use our bodies during this life. We become a part of the worldwide body of Christ, sustained sacramentally by the Body of Christ, to love God and neighbour in acts of service. So we rise from the waters. They do not overwhelm us or the love God has for us.
Water is another one of those elements that like fire inspires us.
It too is strong as death. It too is fierce as the grave.
It has the power to sweep through the world and wield such destruction.
At this stage of the climate crisis, we are all too familiar with the destructive power of floods and wildfires.
Water perhaps has one up on fire. It has the power to put out flames, to extinguish the light.
Water brings darkness.
But as song of songs tells us: Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
A house that built on a rock that withstands the storm. That is Love.
A man who walks upon the waters and tells the storm to cease. He is Love.
Tongues of fire equipping and inspiring that man’s disciples. They are Love.
And the darkness will not overcome it. Alleluia!
So to the sequel of the Song of Songs. It needs to be sensual, drawing on the language of fire and water and light. Where God and love is tangible and grounded, taking that which is abstract and ethereal – and finding it in the world around us. A song that we can relate to because it deals with the images and ideas that are universally understood.
Here is that song’s chorus, which I will read as a closing prayer:
Shine, Jesus, shine
Fill this land with the Father’s glory
Blaze, Spirit, blaze – Set our hearts on fire.
Flow, river, flow – Flood the nations with grace and mercy.
Send forth your word
Lord, and let there be light.
Amen.