“The awakening of love”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Sunday, September 1, 2024
Song of Songs 2: 8-13 (Forward, p. 34) CEV p. 688
Over the centuries certain people have found the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon as it is also known) quite distasteful, even offensive, for it ‘dares’ to speak of human love in very sensual, even explicit, terms. These people thought it inappropriate, even vulgar, that such a ‘lofty’ and spiritually minded book as the Bible should stoop to such earthy and graphic language. And, so what some of these folks have said, as a way of ‘explaining away’ this graphic content, is that it is actually speaking of the love that God has for us, rather than the love that humans have for each other.
All this has served to debase or disguise the fact that God delights in human love and actually created it and created it as something good. And so the endearments found in today’s passage, and the desire to be together, are perfectly good and natural. I find it interesting that it even picks up on what we’d call ‘spring fever.’ (I doubt that many people would harbour the thought that it has a Scriptural basis.)
There is one other thing I’d take from this passage. It speaks of the awakening and nourishing of the love between two people, which surely is something most necessary and needed. The angel in speaking to the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:4) has this to say, “I do have something against you! And it is this: You don’t have as much love as you used to.” He is, of course, speaking of us and God, but can it not also apply to us humans as well. Surely, it is something that needs to be kindled and re-kindled, fed, and kept alight, day after day, month after month.
Forward notes: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone” (verses 10-11)
“One day it happened to me just like this verse describes. I heard the spirit say to my weary soul, Arise my love…and come away…winter is past, the rain is gone. So, I got up, shed my grief clothes, and I went.
“Of course, it’s not always so easy to walk away from grief. To be honest, on some days, it’s difficult to even get up out of bed and go outside on a warm sunny day.
“The accompanying letter of James in today’s readings admonishes us to be doers of the word, not merely hearers, to be people who ‘welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls’ (1:21b). It may be hard to welcome anything or anyone after a long hard winter, when life and circumstance lead us to dark nights of the soul. But it’s good to consider the possibility that it is in these times when we might stumble meekly into our deepest ‘Yes’ to a calling from God.”
MOVING FORWARD: “May God give us strength to respond to the longings of God.”