Grace - It's Wise To Be Drunk

Consider the following quotes:

[Wisdom] has prepared her food, she has mixed her wine; She has also set her table; She has sent out her maidens, she calls from the tops of the heights of the city:  "Whoever is naive, let him turn in here!"  To him who lacks understanding she says, "Come, eat of my food and drink of the wine I have mixed."  Proverbs 9:2-5

He has brought me to his house of wine and his banner over me is love.  Song of Solomon 2:4


...the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.  Romans 5:5b


There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.  1 John 4:18

Isn't it the task of the Holy Spirit to introduce some madness and intoxication into the world?  Why this propensity for balance and safety?  Don't we all long for one moment of raw risk, one moment of divine madness?

Rolheiser, Ronald.  Against an Infinite Horizon:  The Finger of God in Our Everyday Lives.

I, too, believe it's something we all long for--the experience of freedom from all inhibition.  It's certainly what the world longs for and it's why man seeks after every intoxicating substance he can imagine and create.  But why do we have inhibition?  It's because of fear.  There is an ungodly fear that has stifled us and kept us from rising up.  This fear began in the garden of Eden when we first began to believe that God was not for us...that He was not good.

We're too intellectual.  We're too caught up with ourselves.  We're motivated more by fear than by having known and experienced God's love.

The above passage from Proverbs refers to wisdom calling us to drink the wine that it has mixed.  This is referring to two things:

1.  The practice of ancient Hebrews mixing additional herbs and spices into their wine which produced the effect of an aphrodisiac.  Conversely, the Greeks apparently watered down their wine to reduce its effects.

2.  A spiritual application in which the wine refers to God's Holy Spirit and His intoxicating love for us.  God seeks to overwhelm us through Christ's love.  His love removes all fear; it removes any ungodly inhibition.  The wrong way to lose inhibition is through alcohol or drug use.  The right way is being filled with the Spirit.

Fortunately, the church does talk a lot about God's love, but what it hasn't done well is to provide an environment where His unconditional love has been felt.  We've done a great job at coming up with programs and service orders, sermons and resources, but His presence has been restricted.  Our services are too restrictive--they can't be too emotional.  We can't take time away from the sermon.  But all of that cannot replace the felt presence.

I pray that you will be overcome, overwhelmed, and baptized by His love for you.  May you be drunk in God's love, for that is Wisdom's offering to you.  Once this has happened, you'll finally believe that nothing is impossible for God, and nothing is impossible for you.  Oh, then the works that He will do through you will be only what He can do!  Get drunk and go heal some sick people!

Grace=Peace,

Jeremy