The Song of Songs 2: a Special Relationship ...

Tuesday, Nov 19, 2013. We have started to read the Song of Songs - the famous love song of the Old Testament, the Song of Solomon. Today, looking into its Chapter 2, we will make three points:

The Song Gets More Intense …

1 I am a rose1 of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. 2 Like a lily among thorns is my darling among the young women. 3 Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. 4 Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love. 5 Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love. 6

His left arm is under my head, and his right arm embraces me.

7 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. 8 Listen! My beloved! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills. 9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look! There he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, peering through the lattice. 10 My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. 11 See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. 12 Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. 13 The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.” 14 My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. 15 Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. 16 My beloved is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies. 17 Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the rugged hills. (Song of Solomon 2) He is mine … **

My first point here is: the love song is about intimacy. It is about a relationship which embraces the whole human - with body and mind. Today, intimacy and physical relationships are no particular topic in our Christian services. But we need to talk about it as we talk about other parts of life - and it is done in the New Testament, as well as in the Old Testament.

Second, there is this special sentence, which has touched me already many times, and for years. “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” Love needs to be waited for. Love needs to come. It needs to wake up. It needs to have its own natural time scale. You cannot force it - or you cause strong damage. You cannot push it too much. It has its own will - and it needs its own will. Do not try to push it or to wake it, or you will destroy it!

Third: “my beloved is mine, and I am his”. Love is more than just a physical relationship. It is more than friendship. The relationship between man and woman is more than all of this. He is mine. She is mine. I am his. I am hers. “My man”. “My woman”. Man and woman have been made for one another, to form a deeper unity. It is a full unity, made for being long-term. Made forever. We usually do not fully understand the miracle of love and marriage, the miracle of man and woman. The Old Testament points it out to us - and so does the New Testament, when Jesus talks about it, and when the apostles try to guide us. (Roland Potthast) ... more texts