Last time I gave you an assignment. I asked if you would listen to the song Pretty Fair Maid In The Garden, by Tim O’Brien. It can be found on the album Fiddler’s Green.

Hopefully you have a music streaming service, but if not, you can still find the lyrics online if you search the song title and Tim O’Brien. If you haven’t already listened to the song, perhaps you could do so right now.

This is a beautiful traditional song about a man, a stranger, who rides up on a horse and finds a woman, a “pretty fair maid,” in her garden. He does not hesitate, but with his first words, asks if she will be his bride.

The woman responds by saying she cannot, for she has a true love, a soldier, who has been gone for seven years. And then she says if he’s gone for another seven years, she will still be waiting.

In response, the stranger asks her several questions. He first asks if it’s possible he hasn’t returned because he drowned at sea? He then asks if it’s possible he hasn’t returned because he was killed in battle? And then he finally asks if she’s considered he hasn’t returned because he married another woman?

The woman, undeterred, replies that if he drowned at sea, she hopes he’s “happy.” If he was killed in battle . . . she falls silent, saying nothing more. And finally, she replies if has married another woman, she will love the woman who married him.

Not the responses we expected, I would guess.

It is one thing to be committed. It is another to stay true to this commitment when more of the evidence points to the fact this other person will never honor their part, either because they have died, or they just changed their mind. Today, it would be much easier to get an answer in a quandary like this, for the world is so connected and information travels so fast. Although a situation like this can still occur.

It reminds me of a similar story, the movie Cast Away. Many of you know it. A Fed Ex logistics executive goes down in a plane over the ocean. They search but find no traces. Tom Hanks plays the man who is the only survivor, washed up on a deserted island.

Just before he boards this plane, he is having Thanksgiving dinner with his girlfriend’s family, it is a large group. They are being teased about when they are going to tie the knot. And then his pager goes off and he has to leave on an international work trip, right then. The couple spend some time looking at their calendars, it will take some adjusting to make sure he’s back for New Years Eve, but he’ll miss Christmas. It is clear his job takes him away a great deal traveling all over the world.

She drives him to the airport and when they arrive, they go ahead and exchange Christmas presents, for they only have a few minutes. She gives him her grandfather’s stopwatch with a picture of her inside the cover, and he gives her several nice, but not romantic gifts. He kisses her, says goodbye and begins to walk away; but he has planned this. He also purposely kept the car keys in his hand, and when she calls for him and he returns with them, he tells her he almost forgot, he has one more gift for her. He pulls out a little box which could only hold a ring, an engagement ring. She is stunned, admits she’s “terrified,” and he simply tells her to keep it and open it on Christmas. They kiss again and as he is walking away he calls out that he will be “right back.” If only it were only true. If he only he knew.

The plane goes down in the ocean far off course, there is no hope of finding him. His girlfriend always believes he will be found and holds out for several years, until others convince her she needs to get on with her life. At some point, she reluctantly agrees, marries another man, and when her old boyfriend is finally discovered, five years from the time he was lost, she already has a thirteen-month old daughter.

We will pick up with both these stories next time. But what could we say so far?

We have all been touched beyond measure by one person’s unfailing commitment to another. Usually a parent for a child, or between family members, siblings, best friends, soldiers, police. Most of these commitments make sense. But we are especially touched when a commitment made between two lovers will just not die, regardless of the circumstances. Why do you think this is?

Is it only because it is so rare? We wish we could be this faithful, this undeterred, no matter what, because usually we are more self-absorbed and before long, do what suits us. And it is very hard to imagine just how touched we would be if someone stayed this committed to us, over a long period of time, despite great difficulty . . . for it most often does not turn out this way.

Many would say these kinds of things are important to us because people are important, relationships are important, maybe the most important thing in this life, etc.

But I want to suggest something different, something more extreme.

Has it ever occurred to us that this very specific phenomenon we are considering might just be the single, strongest, most powerful thing . . . in all of existence? There I said it.

Some of us might say this about love in general, that there is nothing more important in this life. Love is God’s very nature and the thing which holds the universe together, giving it meaning and purpose. God’s love for us is truly our only hope.

But if you take love to its logical conclusion, making it perfect love, the perfect love of God . . . what do you get? You get fidelity, perfect fidelity, undying commitment. And let us borrow again from Susan Llyod-Jones and The Jesus Storybook Bible:

“You see, no matter what, in spite of everything, God would love his children – with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.

What did the woman say in the song? “If it takes another seven years, even if he is dead, even if he has already married another woman (and why we don’t just add any other reason you can think of, rational or not) . . . my love for him will never die for it is an unbreaking, always and forever love.” And the woman in Cast Away felt the very same way, but she eventually allowed family and friends to “reason” with her.

Be thinking about these things and please listen to the song again, many times; or maybe watch the movie too.

Next time.
Sam