[He or She]
[16] Awake, O north wind,
and come, O south wind!
Blow upon my garden,
let its spices flow.
[She]
Let my beloved come to his garden,
and eat its choicest fruits.
[He]
[5:1] I came to my garden, my sister, my bride,
I gathered my myrrh with my spice,
I ate my honeycomb with my honey,
I drank my wine with my milk.
[God]
Eat, friends, drink,
and be drunk with love!
(Song of Solomon 4:16-5:1 ESV)
In very poetic, metaphorical language, this passage describes the couple finally enjoying physical intimacy on their wedding night. I won't talk much about the event itself, since it's hard to do so tastefully and modestly, which is why Scripture itself uses metaphor instead of any actual details. I'll try to follow in Scripture's example.
This passage paints a beautiful picture of what physical intimacy is and always should be. Instead of stating it outright, it tells the story of this couple, using them as examples.
Look at their happiness in this moment. They both wish for this intimacy; after all, it is their wedding night! She lovingly invites him to enjoy her, and he lovingly accepts. Their joy is pure and perfect; there is no regret in anything they are doing. They are experiencing the bliss of true intimacy without any hint of pain, regret, shame, or disease. This is a night to sing songs about, and truly, the Bible has been singing their song for 3,000 years!
This highlights the fact that physical intimacy is a beautiful and joyous thing, by God's design. It is supposed to be this delightful, this enjoyable, this memorable, this pure.
So how did they get here?
The first and most obvious answer is that they waited. Physical intimacy was designed by God to be the culmination of a man and a woman as two people becoming one. First they pursue each others' mind, heart, and soul as they get to know each other and decide they want to spend their lives with each other. Then, after they have covenanted before God and their family and friends to spend their lives together, they finally get to enjoy each others' bodies.
This is the first way to avoid regret and pain with sex: only have it with your spouse, the person you are closest to, the person you are one with. Additionally, only do it after you have promised to belong only to each other in marriage.
There is more to it than just that, however.
Physical intimacy should also be an act of mutual inviting and mutual enjoying. It should not be an act of taking or of forcing. As this couple demonstrates, your body is a gift to be given, not a thing to be taken advantage of.
Scripture is clear elsewhere that couples married couples should not deny each other physically (1 Cor 7:5), that in marriage your body is not yours alone, but belongs to your spouse (1 Cor 7:3-4), and that as a couple, the two are now one (Eph 5:31). Some people try to misuse these verses to demand and force physical intimacy from their spouse, but this is a perversion of Scripture that distorts what intimacy is supposed to be.
Physical intimacy is a gift given to the person who has successfully won your heart. A few verses earlier, Solomon praises his bride because she has loved him well. He has pursued her romantically, but she has also pursued him, and because they have loved each other so well before their marriage, their wedding night is a delight of mutual giving and enjoying.
This carries through into all of marriage. If a man stops pursuing the heart of his wife and only demands intimacy of the body without the intimacy of the heart, mind, and soul, the sex will never be as good as it should have been. If it is demanded instead of given, it cannot be true intimacy. It loses its intended status as the culmination of intimacy and instead becomes a mockery of it.
The message for husbands and wives, then, is to keep pursuing each others' hearts every day of your marriage, so much so that each night you can joyfully, willingly, eagerly give yourselves to each other, as a culmination of how well you have loved each other outside of the bedroom.
The message for single people is to stop idolizing the wedding night as if that one moment is going to change your life. This attitude is especially prevalent in single men, but it's not absent among women. Intimacy isn't about that one moment; it's about the entire journey of which that moment is only one small part.
Single people, don't fantasize over the end of the journey. Enjoy each step of the process, because a culmination is only as good as the moments that lead up to it. Even if the last 5 minutes of a movie are incredible, no one will care if the first hour and a half are terrible.
So when you're meeting someone, courting them, and working towards marriage with them, enjoy intimacy in the mind, the heart, and the soul. Focus on being as intimate as you can without bumping bodies.
The greater your intimacy outside of the bedroom, the greater the experience inside it.
This is the goal. Love each other well, so that physical intimacy is a joyful gift, a culmination of love.
Yet we do live in a world of sin and brokenness. Many of us feel like we've already fallen from this ideal.
To this I will say two things. First, we serve a God of redemption. Jesus isn't interested in punishing you for your mistakes; after all, He went to the Cross so that He could suffer for your mistakes, not you. He wants to redeem your life, if you will let Him.
Secondly, you can set this up as your goal no matter where you are starting from. If you are currently in a place of brokenness and pain, you can still set this loving intimacy as your goal, and start moving towards it. God loves to redeem broken people and fix broken lives. It might seem like an impossible goal now, but Jesus came back to life. He's the God of doing impossible things.
By the grace of God, may we all experience love and intimacy so freely given!
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