In The Brothers Karamazov, Dmitri says to Alyosha that “Beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend with each other for the hearts of men.” (quoted in O’Donnell, 109)
God wants you to see the beauty of what he has made, and glorify him – and enjoy him – because as Augustine put it, Jesus Christ is “the beauty of all things beautiful” (quoted in O’Donnel, 109)
Satan wants you to see the beauty of what God has made, but he wants you to desire that beauty for yourself – so that you might possess it and use it for your own selfish pleasure. Of course, such a misuse of beauty can only corrupt and destroy beauty. The world’s standard of beauty cannot endure. Everything sags and wrinkles and fades. The quest to maintain everything as it was misses the point of beauty!
Jesus Christ is “the beauty of all things beautiful.” It is only when Christ is our standard of beauty that we begin to see beauty aright. Christ – who had no beauty that we should desire him (Isaiah 53:2) – becomes our standard of beauty.
Our passage begins and ends with an emphasis on the Bride’s desire for her Beloved to come. And at the center of our passage tonight is the Song’s remarkable statement that Love is stronger than Death.
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