BLOGGING TOWARD SUNDAY…

Almost in time for Valentines Day comes a story from an old preacher friend of mine:

Twenty years ago he announced he was going to preach a sermon entitled, “Great Sex for Christians.” On the appointed Sunday, the church was awfully full and awfully quiet. He began with an old joke: “Sex is great on days that start with T — Today, Tomorrow, Tuesday, Thursday, Thaturday, and Thunday!”

There wasn’t even a giggle, let alone laughter. Just gasps. Those folks had never heard the words “great” and “sex” AND “Christians” mentioned in the same sentence. Sexual enjoyment was the curse of the Fall, the aftertaste of Eve’s forbidden fruit.

I expect that today, his church is just as full and just as quiet, but they would laugh at the joke now. But the sad truth is that many Christians are unable to relate their sexuality to their spirituality. They labor under the delusion that they either have to love sex and hate God, or hate sex and love God.

The proof of that can be seen in the number of Christians who are unable to sustain relationships. Sex is a means by which union with another person occurs…a bridge to oneness. Not just a basic drive, but a symptom of our basic need…the need to become one with another…the cure for our loneliness.

Paul says in Ephesians 5 that our sexual longings are symptoms of our longing for God. He says that husbands and wives should submit to, sacrifice for, and care for each other in the same way as Christ and his Church do. Then he says the union of husband and wife is the best analogy we have for the God-human relationship.

Listen closely: The oneness between husband and wife, which cannot occur without sexual bonding, is the best illustration we have of the divine-human relationship!

My friend closed his sermon by saying that great sex is what God wants for us. People who are struggling with shabby sex lives don’t need sermons…they need to hear the good news about God’s gift of sexuality.

Filed under: Blogging Toward Sunday