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The Song of Solomon |
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| Chapter 1 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 5 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 2 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 6 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 3 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 7 | Prayer | Devotional | |
| Chapter 4 | Prayer | Devotional | Chapter 8 | Prayer | Devotional |
Prayers
Glorious Lord, You love us. Grant to us a glimpse of the passion of Your love day by day. Our souls love You as well. Show us how to follow You as those who know that there is One worth staying very close to. Come near to us even now, O God. Are we beautiful to You? Surely Your Son is beautiful to us.
Father God, You have a wonderful plan for Your Son and His bride. There is a great celebration coming soon. There are moments of intimacy in the days ahead. Our Husband comes bounding across the mountains for us. Is there a Lover who truly loves us with such wonderful holiness and with perfect power? Are we truly the beautiful one of Your Son? Is it His voice that we hear in Your Word calling to us? Suddenly a new and glorious world has been born in us and all around us, and there is hope. We belong to Your Son, O God. We are His and He is ours.
Lord Almighty, we are seeking the One whom our soul loves. Where is Jesus today? If we could find Him, we would hold Him and not let Him go. Now He comes to us in Word and sacrament, for we worship Him in covenant assembly. We bow before Him. Will we one day look upon our glorious Savior, crowned in majesty, and seated at Your right hand?
Lord God, Your Son calls His glorious church beautiful. He admires our every detail. He seems to see beyond our current blemishes. He sees what we cannot yet see. He claims that there is no flaw within us. He calls us His bride, and insists that we have captivated Him. Father, how we long for the day of the fullness of this love. We long for the beauty and wonder of the age to come. Come, Lord Jesus! Love us with an everlasting love!
Great God, we have heard of our Husband and our Redeemer. We dream of Him, yet we walk in a world of danger. We long to wake in Your presence on a glorious day. Where is Jesus now? We need to hear His voice. Why are Your ministers hurting Your church? Will they beat us because we are lovesick for Jesus Christ? Can they not celebrate the love of Christ with us? Please teach them to speak to us of His greatness. Show them the One that we must have, for we only want to know the glories of our Husband.
Holy Father, Your Son has gone to be with You, yet He is with us even now somehow. We hear His voice of love in Your Word, and feel our communion with Him in the supper of love that He gave to us. We are greatly blessed. Your Son calls us back to Himself moment by moment. Why would we ever wander from Him? We anticipate the great day of our love even now. Our Husband is somehow with us, though our soul yet longs for Him as if He were gone. We will wait for our great Husband. No other lover will do. No crowd of admirers could every satisfy us.
Lord of Glory, the marriage of Christ and His church is approaching. The time of waiting will soon be over. We hear His voice saying wonderful things about us. He knows perfectly what we will be one day, and He truly loves us even now. We will not resist Him, for He seeks communion with us. We give ourselves to Him, for He is our glorious King. He is a Husband who has proven His love for us at the greatest cost.
Great God, is today the day when we will meet our Husband more fully than every before? We hear His word of pledge. We receive the fire of His earnest love. The time has come for us to know that love more and more. No one can keep us from our Savior any more. He has purchased us by His blood. He finds His joy in us. Be near us forever Lord Jesus! You will never die again.
Devotionals
It has become common for scholars to reject a
"Christ and His church" interpretation of this biblical poem of love. To hold to
the old position of the Puritans is said to be taking too allegorical an
approach in understanding the Scriptures. As we begin our eight message journey
through this rich and challenging book, I need to freely admit that whenever I
encounter a love between a man and a woman, whether within the pages of
Scripture or not, I think that it is right for me to think about the ultimate of
faithful marital love, to think about the way that God has cleaved to His
people, embracing them in intimacy and faithfulness. Furthermore, when I hear of
even a bad king and his subjects, I think it right for our minds to consider the
best of all kings. Therefore, when I encounter a book or a song in the Bible
(such as Psalm 45) about a King with a husband's love for his submissive and
adoring bride, I would consider it strange to miss the obvious biblical analogy.
Of course this does not mean that the Song of Solomon is not also about one man
and one woman brought together in the intimacy of conjugal love. Why should we
reject that obvious meaning in order to consider the greatest of all loves? So
we will find room for both ways of looking at this song. It is a book about one
man and one woman, and a book that naturally points us forward to the greatest
story of love ever known, that of the Messiah King and His perfected church.
One more word of introduction: this book is very difficult to follow, at least
for me. I will follow the notes of the ESV translation that suggest who the
likely speaker is at ever point based on the grammatical clues available in the
Hebrew that we have available today. Like the Book of Revelation, I think we
could head into unprofitable speculation if we try to interpret every detail of
the book too closely. The language is sensual. It is not so much a clear story
line as a book of scenes that are to be felt and appreciated. Here is a great
love expressed in powerful imagery and emotion, not a historical account of a
battle or a doctrinal lesson in a point of theology.
This song is identified as Solomon's in the opening verse. I take this son of
David to be the man in this relationship. The first chapter introduces us to a
young woman, but also to a chorus of others who comment on the love between
Solomon and the young woman. Other characters will appear in future chapters.
The young woman is delighted with the thought of the love of her man. The chorus
joins her in rejoicing over this anticipated love. This is followed by a note on
the part of the woman that there may be something wrong with the darkness of her
skin or her physical beauty (her vineyard). There may be something questionable
about her family relations, and her poverty that would disqualify her from the
close association with her lover-king which her heart greatly desires.
The man extols her great beauty in his eyes and invites her to follow in the
tracks of his flock. This king seems to be a shepherd. He uses animal analogies
that must have been appropriate for the time and the place of the author to
speak highly of the woman. The chorus is supportive of the beauty of the humble
woman.
The remainder of the first chapter moves from the words of the woman, then to
the man, and back again to the woman in poetic description of the intimate
attractiveness of the man to the woman and the woman to the man. Everything is
fragrant, beautiful, and delightful. They will be together and all will be well.
May God grant to us always this kind of freshness and wholesome joy in our love
for our life companion and close friend. When we are able to thank God for
giving such a great gift to unworthy sinners, may our thoughts be brought still
higher to the wonder that the King of glory, who is greatly to be desired,
speaks about His love for us in such a wonderful way, that we are assured that
some day we will be perfected in holiness.
The church desires her great King and is desired by Him. He has laid down His
life to bring about a marriage that will be eternal and wonderful. What will
this life of bliss be like? We cannot really say. But God determined to explain
it to us, at least in part, through entering upon the sacred pages of the Bible
this wonderful poem of love.
As we continue into the second chapter of this
dream-like love poem, I am struck that we seem to be in such a different world
than that of Ecclesiastes. Yet in reality throughout the world of "vanity of
vanities" there were many encouragements to enjoy your wife, though your
pleasures may be fleeting in this world below. Here in the Song of Solomon we
seem to have entered a place of lasting joy. Though the chapters yet to come
will challenge some of that bliss for brief moments, for at least these verses
we are seeing something of heaven in the great love of the young woman for her
valiant man.
In the last chapter we saw that she had seemed conscious of her lowliness and
unworthiness. Now with the renewing strength of her husband's expressions of his
desire for her, the chapter begins with her willing acceptance of his delighted
appraisal. Will our wives dare to believe that we really do desire them, admire
them, and love them? Will we really believe that we are loved by
our Lord - that we (the church) are a rich inheritance in the eyes of our God
(Eph 1:18)?
In the next verse the man extols his lowly maiden as a lily among all the other
women. What joy she again expresses in her man! She is delighted to sit in his
protecting shadow. She speaks of his intimate embrace as a woman who is overcome
with love-sickness thinking of her man.
It is hard to tell what is real and what is the exploration of desire or fancy
as the verses proceed. This superhuman shepherd-king is heard and known by his
voice as he is bounding through forests and leaping over mountains and then is
suddenly gazing through her window. What is he saying to his love? He calls her
his "beautiful one" and he has come to her to woo her - to lead her away with
him. He wants her in the freshness of springtime. He wants to see her face. He
wants to hear her voice. Anything that will endanger or spoil their adventure of
love (little foxes) will be trapped and put away. They must be in a world of
beauty together at the rebirth of a new earth.
They are for each other, and they must be together. Nonetheless, when the night
is over he will leap away again as a majestic stag who seems to break mountains
in two as the dawn's first light shines. This is the very best man. He loves his
wife. He delights in her. He rushes to her. He woos her. He says the right
things, and he is a man, a man who seems to have the power to move the natural
world at his will. This great man loves her!
Husbands should seek to be great men of faith, righteous men whose prayers make
a difference, men who are not only hearers of the word, but who are also doers
of the word, men who understand the times and are both spiritual and practical.
Great men like this are needed and such men should greatly desire their wives.
Every woman of God should have such a great man and should know that he wants
her. He comes to her in strength, but with true love for her. He pursues her and
finds her, and she feels so blessed to be loved by such a man. This man will
never be harsh or cruel to his wife, and God will hear him (1 Peter 3:7).
Where can a man like this be found? Where is the hero who comes bounding through
the forest with desire for his lover, who spends a day and a night as her
everything, and then rises again with power - off to do good things in the land
beyond? There is only one such man - a man who is far greater than any other
man. He accomplishes everything with a word. He is powerful and loving. His
wisdom is beyond compare, and He comes from a far country to rescue His bride
even at the cost of His life. But when the dark night is spent He rises again
with healing in his wings. He is the bright morning star, and He loves His
church.
What a great man Jesus is! To think that we are loved by such a man! How blessed
we are! Like the love-sick maiden of this song, the praise of our Lord should be
on our lips, and we should always be impressed with our Savior, who is the
greatest of all husbands.
Chapter 3 seems to begin with the young woman's
dream. Her soul loves this wonderful man as she thinks about him on her bed at
night. She seeks him but she does not seem to find him at first. She is so
desperate for her Lover that she is determined to go out into the streets of the
city at night and ask the city watchmen if they have seen him. She is bold in
proclaiming her love in front of these men. She says, "Have you seen him whom my
soul loves?"
Then she finds him, and like a woman who has found a husband risen from the
dead, she is afraid to let him go again. She cannot take the chance that he
might leave her, even for a moment. She wants to keep him forever. She brings
him to her mother's home. Her love for him has been stirred and it is now the
central theme of her existence. She must be with him.
The scene shifts abruptly at verse six. The night is gone. A great entourage can
be seen in the distance. Not only is the assembly of horsemen impressive to view
as they come, but they are somehow covered with a glorious fragrance that fills
the air. Here is the great King Solomon, yet someone greater than Solomon in all
his glory seems to be here. He has sixty mighty men with him. His carriage of
gold and silver and purple is somehow a place of love. All is great to gaze
upon. He has a crown for the day of his wedding and his heart is filled with
gladness, as he comes in royal splendor to address his beautiful lover.
The daughters of Zion are called upon to come out and witness these beautiful
dream scenes as Solomon prepares to speak. Incidentally, a husband wants to
believe that his arrival would seem impressive to his bride and joyous for
everyone. (I remember my father's arrival home at the lake house where we lived
during the summers. When he was making the trip to be with us for a long
weekend, we would look for his car, and when we saw him we would all shout,
"Daddy's home!" He had a hard time believing that this was all for real, but I
do suspect that this kind of affection and admiration from our families is
something that our hearts desire as men.) God calls wives (and children) to have
a deep respect for their husbands (and fathers). As men we have some sense that
we make this a more difficult task for our wives since we are weak in spirit, in
wisdom, and in usefulness. But not the great husband-king in this inspired song.
It is a very easy thing to respect him. His arrival is something to be sought
after and to be celebrated.
Jesus instructs us to wait for His return. Throughout the ages even eminent
saints have felt that somehow He seemed to be far away from them, and they
longed for a greater sense of His presence. But one day every eye will see Him.
His return will be both glorious and public. He will come on the clouds of
heaven. The trumpet shall sound and the dead in Christ shall rise, and we who
are alive at the coming of the Lord, we shall be changed. In the twinkling of an
eye our Savior will come in a way that will not be missed.
When Jesus first came, He was brought into this world in a low condition. Yet
even then His coming was signaled by a heavenly host praising God. How much more
glorious will be His return when he brings the resurrection of the dead with
Him! Then the church will praise Her Lord, and wait for His good word of
vindication. And the church shall be purified in holiness, and even openly
acknowledged and acquitted when the Lord of glory arrives with His heavenly
host. Surely we must not lose heart as we watch and wait for Him today. He is
coming soon and will not delay. Until that day, the just shall live by faith
(Romans 1:17).
God has given to the sons of men the wonderful
gift of physical bodies. While there are some who are called to a single life,
and that is a good gift, the royal husband in this love poem is rightly moved by
the physical delights of a particular woman. In this chapter, the husband
admires his bride in detail.
We might judge these details as mundane or inappropriate things to be noticed or
talked about, but God disagrees. Her eyes, her hair, her teeth, her lips, her
mouth, her cheeks, her neck, her breasts, her whole body is worthy of her
husband's special admiration. He is determined to spend time with her and the
enjoyment of her physical beauty is a wonderful part of this celebration. He
finds no flaw in her.
This woman is more than two-dimensional physical beauty. Her presence is desired
and will somehow be a part of who he is. He says to her, "Come with me," and
calls her his bride. She has "captivated his heart." He wants her near. Wine may
gladden the heart of men, but her love is far better than wine. She makes him
glad. Everything about her is lovely to him.
Yet her love has not yet been fully enjoyed, for his bride-to-be is still a
sealed fountain. His sensuous words make it clear that he wants all of her, and
at the end of the chapter her words approve of his intentions. She wants her
garden to be his garden so that he may eat of its choicest fruits and enjoy.
God has made us male and female from the beginning. He has given us the
wonderful gift of sensuous bodies that work well together. This gift is
presented in this chapter as very right and very good. The focus is on the
bride's perfection and her happy and willing desire that her husband would enjoy
her completely.
The purity and joy of this good gift may seem to elude us here below. Nothing is
quite as easy and beautiful as this poem suggests. No bride is altogether
beautiful in body and soul. No husband expresses his admiration and desire in
just the right way, and no woman is so perfectly free and happy in giving
herself to her man.
The poem calls us to enjoy one another in marriage as good gifts from a holy
God, but it also calls us beyond the troubles of this fallen world. We know this
because the Bible speaks very clearly of a perfect bride in another place
(Ephesians 5:25-27).
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for
her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water
with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor,
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without
blemish.
Because of the death of Christ for us, and because of His cleansing and
sanctifying work, one day we will be the glorious bride of Christ, with the
physical reality of the perfect resurrection and with the spiritual beauty of
complete sanctification. We will all be holy and without blemish. This will
include all who are chosen by God through faith in Christ. You may have the gift
of singleness today, and have no desire for the physical intimacy with a spouse
that this poem describes. You may desire an intimate relationship but have not
yet found the right person. You may have been hurt badly through some kind of
abuse or degradation and may find it very difficult to escape these things in
your thoughts and in your life. Yet if Jesus died for you, then you are in Him.
He loves you and sees you as a part of His glorious bride. Together with all of
His heavenly church you will be perfected in holiness and glorious in
resurrection beauty. The King of the church will have us forever.
The final fulfillment of that pure and beautiful marriage may be yet far away,
but today you can have the response of the bride who accepts that she is desired
and says "yes" to that glorious future day. Do not push the Lord away. Your
beloved who died for you is gentle and kind. Together the church responds to His
call. We say, "Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits."
There are times when we have such spectacular or
wrenching things happening to us in our lives that we seriously wonder if there
is some chance that these things are actually dreams. If the events are
unbelievably pleasant we hope that we will never wake up. If they are too
horrifying to face we beg that they are just all-too-realistic nightmares that
could not possibly be true. The sixth chapter of this book seems to have
something of both.
Throughout the poem it is difficult to sort dream from reality. This is a
different world then we live in, yet physical and wonderful. The timing of
events is hard to pin down, but the feelings are to be experienced as the drama
unfolds before the reader.
The previous chapter ended with the invitation of the bride to "come to his
garden, and eat its choicest fruits." In this chapter we begin with the king
acting upon this invitation as he says, "I came to my garden, my sister, my
bride." Is this the bride's dream? If it is, there are other people in it. This
is not a secret love undertaken in private. There are others who are witnesses
to this marriage who urge, "Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!"
The fact that the bride announces "I slept" suggests that all of this is a
dream. The first part of the dream is an encounter between the man and the woman
with very sensuous and sexual language, yet in a moment he is suddenly not
there. She seeks him and he is not found. She asks the watchmen of Jerusalem
concerning him but they abuse her and beat her! Would they have dared to do such
a thing if her husband had been nearby?
Yet she is not concerned about her bruises in this dream sequence. All she wants
is him. She describes him to the daughters of Jerusalem. As she has been
appreciated for the specific details of her physical beauty, now she extols his
head, his hair, his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, his arms, his chest, his legs,
and his mouth. She admires him and she wants him.
The love of a husband and wife is to be mutual, even in physical attraction and
appreciation. This love is not some detached out-of-body experience of souls
that rejoice in one another. We do thank God for the minds and the souls of our
life partners, but there is no need to divide body and soul here as if the body
were a bad thing. A wife should enjoy the body of her husband, just as she knows
that he enjoys her body.
We again remember that not everyone will have this exact desire since some will
not be called to this kind of relationship. Furthermore, many women who have
this desire will never find the men that they have been praying for. But all who
know Jesus, have a great man, and will have him forever. In our nightmares we
imagine that he has left us. We think that he will not be there to protect us,
and that others will be able to destroy us. But the one who has purchased us
with his own blood will not leave us. We will one day enjoy such stable
permanence of faithful love that we will know without even the slightest doubt
that we are completely safe from harm forever. Perhaps some of the horrors that
we may face in this world of sin enable us to appreciate the stability of
perfect love that we will enjoy forever with our Lord.
Together with the bride of this poem, we rejoice in the Lord! He is our great
God in every detail. There is nothing lacking in Him. He has the excellent
beauty of perfect holiness forever.
All of us want to be accepted, admired, and
loved. But it is not enough for us that we be accepted by just anyone. A young
adult may know that he is loved by his parents and by other respected adults,
but is that what he really wants most? A young woman may even understand that
she is loved not only by her mother, but by her mother's God, and yet she longs
for a different admirer. We want to be accepted by the one person from whom we
most desire acceptance, and no other love will do.
This is normal for most people because they have been created by God for a
special relationship with a life partner. That partner will somehow complete
them as the two become one, and to lose that partner would be to lose someone
who was a part of them. The love of parents and the attention of friends are not
enough for most people.
In the beginning of this sixth chapter, there is a group of female friends who
want to join the woman in her dream-like search for her man. At the end of the
chapter there are a group of soldiers who want to look upon the beauty of the
young woman along with the king. Both groups of friends are rebuffed. While the
relationship that has been the focus of this poem has been publicly
acknowledged, it will be privately enjoyed. Though there may be multiple queens
and concubines, there will be only one man and one woman in the fullness of
love.
No other man is allowed to go where this one man will go. It will be his special
garden, their bed of spices together as he "grazes among the lilies." No armies
will see his bride as he sees her, though they might desire to do so. As she has
said, "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." She is the "only one." She is
like a goddess from heaven, like a beautiful Jerusalem from above, and her
prince is her protector from unwanted intruders.
What a day of delight it is when a young woman is given in marriage to a young
man. The crowd is there to witness the event, but only to a point. Eventually it
must be only them. The special intimacy is theirs alone. She is the only one
there with him, and he with her. And the two are one.
Why has God made us this way? Why has God placed this longing within the hearts
of so many men and women for this special relationship that is physical, but
also spiritual; a relationship that is redefining and almost life-giving? We
know this: One day a radiant bride will appear out of heaven as the one-and-only
of the Lord Jesus Christ. She will be like a city from above, a new Jerusalem.
All who are not a part of her will be cast away forever, and we who feel so
insecure and unsure and oppressed from within and without here below will state
with all appropriate confidence these triumphant words, "I am my beloved's and
my beloved is mine."
Do you doubt that you could be loved so much by the Son of God? Do you imagine
that if He enjoyed you it would only be as a play-thing for a moment, then to be
cast off and rejected as one of a list of conquests? Remember that your
Husband-King gave his life for you on the cross. He who died for you and for all
who are His one bride, the Church, will not abandon the prize for whom He rose
again. He is faithful and true. He lives. You will be with Him forever.
There are times when we might want to examine
someone very carefully if no one else could know that we were doing so. We are
normally embarrassed to have detailed physical and emotional interest in another
person. It seems inappropriate, and it may be unappreciated. Perhaps that is our
fear. If the one I secretly love saw me looking at her too closely, would she be
pleased, or would she find it disturbing? Would I lose my chance to be close
with someone, because I revealed my desire for her in a way that seemed to be
too much?
The lover of this poem is very bold indeed. In chapter seven he starts with his
woman's toes and is not finished until he moves inch by inch to the locks of her
hair. His eyes see everything, and he loves what he sees. He is not embarrassed
about his desire to know her and to talk to her about his love for her body. Her
feet, her thighs, her navel, her belly, her breasts, her neck, her eyes and
nose, her hair are all worthy of carefully chosen and imaginative words of
appreciation. Though he is a powerful and confident man, he freely admits that
she has taken him captive!
She is a sensuous tree that he wants to climb. He will speak of taking her and
touching her until his mouth will meet hers in a passionate and full way. She is
ready to surrender to him. She will not deny him, but invites him to the
wonderful place that she has prepared for him. There she will soon give him her
love. This place is more than just a body. She speaks of a whole glorious
creation of fields and villages, vineyards and fruit. She knows that his desire
is for her, and in that best place of her dreams she will give him all that she
has. This is what she has prepared for, and this is her willing heart.
Oh if every man who so desires could have such a willing, creative, and
adventurous woman! Oh if every woman who is called to be thus loved could have a
man who would extol all of her in a way that would last! God is the one who has
given us each other. May we enjoy each other as those who know the life that
comes from His grace. May we see His plan for us as good, and rejoice in the
wife of our youth. May we have special places where we will freely and gladly
give ourselves to the lover of our dreams.
Has God given us the capacity to have such vivid and wholesome delights of the
mind without any intention of bringing about the greatest physical fulfillment
of these holy words? Are the pleasures of this present physical world to be
somehow less physically appealing than the place of our promised eternal bliss?
He tells us most definitely that He is love, and that He loves us. He tells us
to cleave to Him in love, and tells us that the relationship of Christ and His
Church is that of a perfect and powerful husband and a holy and beautiful bride.
He tells us that a day is coming when we will be together forever in place of
abounding fruitfulness and joy. Brothers and sisters, believe and wait for that
day. It is surely coming. Do not despair. Jesus knows your grief. He was himself
the Man of Sorrows. But He was wounded for our transgressions, and our healing
has been most definitively secured in His death and resurrection. Live in hope.
Believe in the better day that will come in the twinkling of an eye.
The process of a young man and a young woman
growing up, finding each other, falling in love, and ultimately having one
another, is a very mysterious, troubling, and wonderful thing. We wish it were
not so difficult. There is no changing that. There is no making it all
manageable. It is life and death and life again. It is weighty and elusive,
earthly and heavenly. Who can understand it?
The woman begins chapter eight by expressing her desire to simply be close to
her man without being seen as inappropriate by those who would observe them.
"Can't we just pretend that he is my brother? Then I could meet him and greet
him with my lips and lead him to our home and shut the door behind us. And no
one else would need to know what happened next. We could drink wine together.
His left hand would be under my head and his right hand would embrace me."
But this will not be. For the third and final time she urges the "daughters of
Jerusalem" to not "awaken love" before its time. She does this knowing what it
is to want a man but to have to wait for the right time and place to have him.
This love-sickness is hard to bear. The time for such a relationship naturally
comes about as the years move forward in our lives and there is no wisdom in
encouraging these feelings to arrive too early.
Beginning all at once in verse five, the desired time that was once only a dream
appears now to have become real at last. Perhaps the parents of the bride see
their daughter leaning on her beloved coming up from the wilderness. They
remember her birth and hear her husband's promise of abiding love as strong as
the ever-present fire of the Lord, a fire that cannot be extinguished by floods
of water. Something of her life as one alone is over now and something new is
born in their covenantal union. Her lover speaks.
Set me as a seal upon your heart,
as a seal upon your arm,
for love is as strong as death,
jealousy as fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
the very flame of the Lord.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If a man offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
he would be utterly despised.
The promise here is forever. Something as strong as death is here,
something that can swallow up death in its power. That something is the divine
gift of physical and spiritual love. There was a day when a little girl was not
ready for such strong love. If someone had wanted her intimacy her brothers
would have protected her from advances that were not yet right. Back then it
was not yet the time for love to be awakened. But now she is a woman, and her
great husband will find peace in her willing love.
This peace is worth thousands upon thousands of pieces of silver to Solomon, but
his bride does not want his money. The beloved couple have their own reward in
one another. He will hear her voice, as a sound that will be for him alone.
She urges him on to the "mountains of spices" as the fulfillment of her earlier
dreams.
What a wonderful love! What a beautiful joy when all the uncertainty and
trouble of finding your one-and-only is now behind you and you are together at
last. From this point forward, as long as your life will last, no one can
charge you with anything wrong in your full enjoyment of each other.
Nonetheless, from the message of Ecclesiastes we
remember that this world is fleeting. How long will our lives last?
But there is an embrace that goes beyond the grave. There is a forever love
that is stronger than death. How ironic that one great death was the pathway to
the secure provision of undying love for so many. The death of the eternal Son
of God was the secure embrace of a husband for His bride. How challenging it
can be to find and embrace this greatest of all loves! We hear His call and
feel divine love stirring in our hearts. Could it be that there really is a
hero? Could it be that there really is a Jesus; a real person who loves you?
Rest in His secure embrace. Prepare your heart for His eternal love. The love
of Christ has been awakened within your soul. You must have Him forever.