As far back as I can remember, I've enjoyed classic romantic adventure stories where the hero saves the heroine from some dire strait: the oft-maligned "damsel in distress" type of story. In fact, I've wondered why they are so maligned. The assertion that they portray women as "weak" is simply wrong; the heroines in these stories often demonstrate tremendous strength of character under adverse circumstances. The idea that it is wrong to depict a woman needing a man is absurd; women and men need each other, as anyone but the most fanatical feminists can plainly see.
By contrast, I'm suspicious of the type of story that portrays the woman as the bold, adventurous character and the man as the one who needs saving. They just seem wrong somehow, though I haven't been able to quite put my finger on what's wrong with them - until this morning, that is.
It suddenly dawned on me that the Bible tells the greatest romantic story of all time: it tells how God seeks and wins His bride (i.e. His people). We can see plainly that the bride-to-be is in desperate need of saving; she is helplessly imprisoned in sin. God, the Hero of the story, relentlessly pursues - and in the end destroys - the enemy that imprisoned the object of His love. The heroine is allured by the Hero's consistency, perseverance, and strength, and she is utterly won over by His ultimate act of supreme courage and self-sacrificial love.
The relationship between man and woman is a reflection of the relationship between God and His church (people). So it is entirely fitting that when we create idealized representations of romantic love, we want the man to be the one who lays his life on the line to save the woman he loves. To do otherwise goes contrary to the natural (read: God-designed) order of things.
I suppose I was thinking about this because it's Valentine's Day and so my mind naturally wandered onto romantic territory. I'm sure that it isn't an original thought; it's so obvious that others must have figured it out long before now. Be that as it may, I hereby mark this as the day that I finally got it.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I like these thoughts. I don't often think of myself a part of the bride, so this helped me think about my need to submit. I would like to pound my chest & exert my dominance (or, at least, my refusal to be dominated) at work, but I can't get caught up in that. Perhaps there's an aspect of "the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit" (1 Peter 3:4) that a man needs to demonstrate.
Yeah, it somehow makes me feel unmanly to think of myself as part of the Bride, but that's probably because our macho (read "prideful") view of manhood is not in line with the biblical view of manhood. It would be hard to find a better example of true rugged manhood than David, but he did not attribute his success to his own strength (I Sam. 17:31-49). And when you read his psalms (which I may point out are *poems*) you see a very soft and submissive heart toward God.
Post a Comment