Sloppy Wet Kiss

There is an absolutely beautiful worship song named “How He Loves” written by John Mark McMillan but made famous by Kim Walker and jesusculture. The tagline says, “Now heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest…”How He Loves

I sat in a class on worship and we discussed that song at length. I was in the presence of some amazing world-class worship leaders, one of which had been the Worship Pastor of one of the greatest mega churches of the twentieth century. He informed us that their church altered that section because they didn’t want to distract anyone with the erotic connotations of that verse. This lead to a lively debate among the class that I believe points to a greater issue within the body of Christ. I will explain…

If God held the opinion of those worship leaders, He would never have written the Song of Solomon. Perhaps part of the problem in how they viewed this portion of How He Loves is our (the Church’s) lack of teaching of that insightful book of the Bible. As a matter of fact, when was the last time you heard a sermon or teaching from The Song of Solomon? I can tell you as a preacher, I can’t remember the last time I preached one although I read the book at least once a year.

In any event, my point is that the Song of Solomon (also known as the Song of Songs) is a very in your face, erotic piece of literature-on purpose. God has never intended to veil Man’s passion for either his spouse or His God. The fact is that God is passionate about us, so much so that when his children stray away from him for other gods or other things, he calls it adultery and not just idolatry. God is passionate about us and we need to regain that passion for Him.

In some churches and denominations, the standard for worship has become not offending or distracting our neighbor instead of focusing on God and expressing love and devotion to Him. As a result, we cannot raise our hands, stand, sing too loud or do anything else that may be deemed inappropriate. I remind you of King David who danced in the streets as the ark (the symbol of God’s Presence) returned to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6:12-23). His wife, Michal is a good example of those of us who look at true worship with disdain and accuse the worshipper of vulgarity. We can glean from that narrative that God was pleased with David’s passionate expression of worship even though his wife thought he acted like a fool.

When we are enraptured in passionate intimacy with our God, we will sing at the top of our lungs, we may raise our hands to heaven or we may lie prostrate on the ground and groan silently as we worship him. Worship has many valid expressions but it is never devoid of passion. For those that have a problem with this, I encourage you to read the Song of Songs and realize that this is not just a picture of Solomon and his Beloved but of Jesus and His Bride. As a matter of fact, to proclaim that Heaven meets earth with a sloppy wet kiss is somewhat tame compared to the Song of Songs.

I encourage you to stop sanitizing your relationship with God…definitely stop sanitizing your worship experience and allow yourself to become enraptured in His Presence and His passionate love and return the “sloppy wet kiss” to your beloved.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! (Song of Songs 1:2)