Until today, I’ve never preached on the Song of Solomon.  I remember hearing only two sermons on this love song, only one of which was in church.  That was nearly twenty years ago.  The pastor was almost apologetic for preaching from this love poem.  Considering that God is love, it would seem to make perfect sense to preach on this love song; only, the Song of Solomon seems, at least on the surface, to be singing of the love between a man and a woman.  That’s a good love, a mighty love, but is it a love worthy of God’s Word?  Yes.

Over the three thousand years we have had this love poem, the faithful have tried to make sense of it in various ways: it’s God, speaking to His people; it’s Jesus speaking to his church, the Bride of Christ.  Medieval monks practically swooned, hearing Jesus speak to them thus.  As a stark indication of my lack of imagination, it’s very difficult for me to put myself in the role of the young woman being wooed by these words, let alone swoon over them.  I hear, I see, I feel, from the perspective of the young man.  I’ve been there.  I know, feel, those words.

Early commentators tried to sanitize the poem by making it an elaborate allegory, where we aren’t meant to take anything literally but instead take each named, physical thing as corresponding to some other, spiritual thing, like a code.  I’d rather not do that, though I probably will.  My inclination is to take the poem as what it claims to be, what it looks to be: a celebration, a head-over-heels in love celebration of the love between a young man and a young woman, with all the twitter-pated feelings of that first rush of new love, awash and afloat on love.  Poets have made this their stock in trade as long as there has been poetry.

But what’s holy about the subject?  What is Bible-worthy about the subject?  Beloved, the answer is not so hard to see.  Scripture tells us many stories about the love of a man and a woman: Adam and Eve, Noah and his wife, always there, laboring alongside him, constant, reliable; Abraham and Sarah the head turner; Isaac and Rebekah with her gold bracelets and nose ring, Jacob and Rachel for whom he labored seven years—with the unexpected addition of Leah—Moses and Zipporah, David and Abigail.  Devotion, support—together: enduring, abiding, challenging, blessed love.  Paul offers instruction upon how husband and wife ought to relate to one another in Christ.  The love of a man and a woman is Bible-worthy—indeed, it is holy—because this love is ordained by God, because man and woman were created for this love: “‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.’  That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen 2:23-24).  This is a rejoining of what had been divided.  God delights in this love; it is good.

B. B. King sang his blues about the thrill being gone. Unnumbered sad, forgettable love songs follow that path!  Love that didn’t last.  I’ve experienced love that didn’t last, only to wonder after, later, whether it was really love.  What I’ve found over my few years is that love changes, grows, develops, matures.  Like any living thing, it cannot remain as it was and remain alive.  The seed must die for the plant to flourish and bear fruit with the seed in it.  Only, we still don’t know what to make of the change, because we don’t want that thrill to be gone.  We don’t want that high to go away: we want to feel high all the time.  Oh, that causes trouble, even when the substance is love.

The excitement, the anticipation, the exuberant magnification of young love.  It’s everything to us when we first experience it; it’s terribly, wonderfully bittersweet as we look back.  We wouldn’t let go of it for the world.  We may even thank God for the blessing, even when we felt hurt, even when we messed up something that was good.  We may thank God for the blessing of love even today, still with the one we love, whom we love with the same love, but mature, developed, filled-in, experienced, wise and blessed beyond the ability of words to tell.  No adequate words—as confronts us every time we go to buy an anniversary card.  Unless you’re the grab and go kind.  $6.99?!  No way!

The young woman hears her beloved—she’s listening for him; she hears him before she sees him.  If the sight of our beloved gives us joy, how that joy is amplified by the sound of the beloved’s voice.  Words from another heart.  Words for you—all for you!

The young woman is delighted by her lover—his skill, his quickness, his elegant strength, “like a gazelle or a young stag” (2:8); she loves to watch him move, walk, work.  She loves to watch him approach her, see his eyes light up, his smile, all for her.  Guys, have you ever shown off for your woman?  How’d that work out?  Such fools for love!  Women, have you ever felt a sudden rush of love for your man when he wasn’t really doing anything at all?

The young woman is at home, inside, enclosed; she longs to experience the freedom she sees, the strength and joy she sees in her lover.  She hears him, on the other side of the wall: so near!  She sees him through the window lattice (2:9).  So close, except for the walls!  The old, formal structures that come between, hold others off at arm’s length.  She longs for him to draw her out, outside, beyond the walls, the safe familiar confinement of home, rules and routines.  Freedom.  The freedom of love.  Love sets free, sisters and brothers; we know this as we know Jesus Christ.  Love sets free in order to bind us to the beloved, a binding better than the sterile, lonely “freedom” about which the world sings and weeps—“baby, baby, don’t get hooked on me”: the imperial self, seeking itself, always seeking itself and never finding, because it will not seek itself in others, in loving others, in loving God, who is love.

If the one thing we must be is free, the one thing we want to be is loved.

Ah, the adventures of young love, drawing us out into this big world.  More importantly, love draws us out of ourselves, into unfamiliar places: the hearts, minds, and souls of others—difficult, blessed places.  Love causes us to see and feel beyond ourselves, outside our walls and latticed windows.

The young woman’s beloved speaks with the voice of love: “Arise, come with me” (2:10).  Get up; it’s time to go.  The invitation of love, the invitation to life, a life of love.  Life to be lived, a world to be known.  How joyful it is to respond to love; how we long to respond to love!  Love doesn’t sit around, idle; love acts.  Love calls, beloved.  God’s love calls to us; Jesus calls to us; the Holy Spirit comes to us, calling us out—so here I am, allegorizing this love song, a little!  Only perceive with me a little of God’s love in this poem’s invitation to love, to new vistas of love, to the heart-binding freedom of love.

The young man calls his love to roam with him, be with him, experience with him.  Experience what?  Creation, God speaking—which means he calls her to experience with him the Word of God.  Men, have you considered that God has called you to your wife to call her further into God’s Word, and that God has called her to call you further into God’s Word?  Holy purpose is at work in this love!  Love is for life.  How confused this world is about love; how stubbornly it refuses to learn.  People don’t want to learn love from God who calls us to love and learn.

Learn what?  “See!  The winter is past; the rains are over and gone” (2:11).  In Israel, winter is a rainy season.  We, here, also understand something about the end of the rainy season.  We also understand what it means that winter is past—especially after last February!  Change.  Spring.  Newness, flowers—“the season of singing has come” (2:12).  Glory!  Every season, as every season of life, has its song.  What is the song of spring?  In Israel, it’s not “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head.”  Green, new, promise, hope, the delirious fragrance of newly-opened roses, the softness and delicacy of new leaves just budding, and their fragility. Love requires care, nurture.  Love provides these, provides what it needs to flourish.  Love is a gift of God, who provides what we need to flourish.  All true reflection upon true love truly guides us to God.  Scripture everywhere gives us ample opportunity for true reflection upon true love.

“The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance” (2:13).  The promise of abundance, of fullness, the satisfaction of hunger.  Of all the hungers with which we hunger—and how we hunger!—the hunger for love is strongest, most insistent.  How we long to be loved!  And to give love?  Do we long to do that, too?  Love is security, joy, peace.  Love is also challenge, test, struggle—how quickly we’ve given up, before!  God who loves us assures us He does not give up on us.

Something good is beginning, something good beyond our words, our hopes, our senses.  Love demands faith.  How demanding love can be!  Change.  Love is about change.  Love grows, develops, matures; love changes.  I suppose it can die, go away, but I think we can too quickly mistake the development of love for the end of love.  Love invites us out into anticipation, newness, into promise.  Promise, like anticipation, requires patience.  God-willing, love will teach us how to practice patience, together.  God-willing, love will teach us how to celebrate change, growth, development, maturity, together.

I’m not convinced that true love dies—you may disagree; I may be wrong.  We can mix fear into love all too quickly, with very sad results.  We lose sight of the fruit and the flowers, the fragrance; we become afraid of going any further, of leaving the walls and latticed windows, where we can contain what we think we have, imprison it—softly, gently; inside those walls of fear, where we try to convince ourselves that we can preserve the first flush of new love, like a fresh cut flower placed in a vase of clear water.  The flower withers.  The water becomes foul.  The change we feared comes, and we stand there, stunned, unwilling to consider the hand we had in it because we sought what could not be, because we told ourselves we could only be truly happy when we had what no one can have this side of eternity, because we refused to receive what God has ordained for us, here: change.

Rejoice in the change!  The early fruit ripens.  The flowers of the blossoming vines open, richly, beautifully, fleetingly.  One joyful fragrance follows another; each season brings its blessings: each season of life, each season of faith, each season of love.  God invites you into love by faith; He invites you into faith by love.  “Arise, come [. . .] come with me.”  He calls you into the journey of love, the journey to Him.

And to Jesus Christ, who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests of his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever.