Song of Songs - The Geography of Love
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Transcript
Intro
Intro
Song of Songs. The superlative indicates that this song is the best of the 1,005 musical works composed by King Solomon, author of this glorious poem of love.
After all, what else could the God who is called in EXODUS 26:33 the Holy of Holies deserve? What else can we give to the One identified in Revelation 19:16 as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, if not the Song of Songs?
Question. Solomon composed the Song of Songs, Miriam offered perfumed oil; are we giving our best for our King?
Theme of the Poem. Throughout the 117 verses that make up the Song of Songs, King Solomon narrates, magnifies, and extols the love of King Solomon and his wife: the beautiful Shulamite woman.
Interpretative Challenges. Despite its beauty, Solomon's poem presents considerable interpretative challenges. In fact, some scholars believe that the love story presented in the Song of Solomon is not real, but rather a fictional love story, and therefore the characters in the poem must be interpreted allegorically.
So, for these scholars, the Song of Solomon recounts God's love for Israel, and subsequently Christ's love for the church.
Interpreting this poem is quite a challenge:
Know, my brother, that you will find great differences in interpretation of the Song of Songs. In truth they differ because the Song of Songs resembles locks to which the keys have been lost.
Tremper Longman, III
Personally, I believe this book is essentially about love, an intense love, a love story we all want to experience.
The best interpretation of Song of Songs is that it is what it appears to be: a love song.
Duane A. Garrett
Song of Songs is the all-time classic of love.
Peter Kreeft
A love story. We will talk about love, a feeling as powerful as death. And it is love that generates the intense and pure relationship between the King and the Shunammite woman.
The love that is so beautifully described in the Song of Songs is the love for which we were truly made, and for whose consummation we continue to long.
Iain M. Duguid
Regarding this love affair between the two protagonists, it is noteworthy that there are three physical contexts, three places in which the relationship between the King and his beloved takes on different facets.
These places are not simple settings, but real places that amplify the joys, sorrows, and challenges that love brings.
Three places, three lessons about love that we can apply in our relationship with our King.
After all, this morning we are celebrating a love story.
Baptisms are a love poem, a reckoning we raise to King Jesus, a poem of devotion and obedience to him.
Sermon’s outline. Here are the three places:
The Cultivated Countryside (Song of Songs 2:11-12);
The City Streets (Song of Songs 5:7);
The House (Song of Songs 3:4).
N.1 - The Cultivated Countryside
N.1 - The Cultivated Countryside
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.
A New life. The first context in which the love between the King and his beloved is consummated is that of the Cultivated Countryside.
In this first place of love, a physical transformation occurs, a glorious transformation is underway: Spring has arrived!
Winter is over, the rains are over, the cold is gone, and what was dead miraculously comes back to life.
Those fields, once frozen and snow-covered, are now cultivated: flowers, scents, colors... new life has arrived.
In this context, the love between the two protagonists blossoms like a flower in spring. It is a rebirth, a new life. We are witnessing a new beginning!
Application. Through this baptism, we are proclaiming this miracle that occurred in Zach and Remo.
Their love for the King is the beginning of a new life; a season of scents, colors, and fullness has arrived for them.
What was dead in the cold and mud of sin has come back to life. Christ Jesus is Spring! Christ Jesus is new life:
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
In Christ, everything is renewed: the mind changes, the heart is transformed, sentiments of love and joy bloom like flowers. What once lay in the freezing winter snow have now come back to life, as in a new creation:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Questions. Do you also want to experience Spring? Do you want winter to end for your family? Are you tired of living without color and fragrance? Jesus is here to change your life. Accept the Spring that Jesus brings with him!
N.2 - The City Streets
N.2 - The City Streets
The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. They beat me, they bruised me; they took away my cloak, those watchmen of the walls!
Opposition. The second context in which the love between the king and the Shunammite woman is manifested is the City Streets.
What happens in the streets is nothing short of terrible: in the darkness of the night, the king's beloved wife is ridiculed, then beaten, left wounded, and finally stripped.
The guards of that city do not understand this love, and they attack the Shunammite woman, seriously wounding her. All this because her love for the king is not accepted.
Application. The love we are celebrating this morning is a love that brings with it challenges and responsibilities.
Dear Remo and Zach, the relationship with Jesus will not always bring the warmth of the spring sun that dissolves all doubt and fear.
You will indeed be called to live this love on the streets of this world, in the alleys of a society living in the darkest night.
Because of this love you feel for King Jesus, you will be stopped by "guards," perhaps even ridiculed at work or in your family.
This is a dangerous love: you will be persecuted, perhaps even bullied, because of your love for Christ. Perhaps they will strip you of your dignity because you are bound to the King of kings by a true and pure love.
300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon The Story of Marcus Arethusus (Romans 8:17–18; 2 Timothy 2:3, 12)
When Marcus Arethusus was commanded by Julian the Apostate to subscribe toward the rebuilding of a heathen temple that his people had pulled down on their conversion to Christianity, he refused to obey. And though he was an aged man, he was stripped naked, and then pierced all over with lancets and knives. The old man still was firm. If he would give only one halfpenny toward the building of the temple, he could be free. If he would cast in only one grain of incense into the censer devoted to the false gods, he might escape. He would not countenance idolatry in any degree. He was smeared with honey, and while his innumerable wounds were still bleeding, the bees and wasps came upon him and stung him to death. He could die, but he could not deny his Lord. Arethusus entered into the joy of his Lord, for he nobly suffered with him.
Unfortunately, because of suffering and persecution, many believers have broken their relationship with Jesus.
These have remained on the streets, intimidated by the threats posed by the Name of Jesus. My prayer is that your love for the King will not be interrupted on the streets of this world, but will grow strong despite difficulties and threats:
The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.
Questions. Perhaps there are some today who, unlike the Shunammite, have failed to continue their relationship with the King, ending their relationship with Jesus.
Too much fear, too much discouragement, and now you are on the streets, alone and ashamed of having denied true love.
Yet there is hope for those who remain on the streets of the city. In one of his last parables, Jesus mentions the story of a king who invites his subjects to the royal banquet.
The king sends his servants to invite everyone, even those left in the streets:
So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’
N.3 - The House
N.3 - The House
Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my heart loves. I held him and would not let him go till I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the room of the one who conceived me.
The inner rooms. The final context concerns the Home, the inner rooms. It is in the home that the love between the King and his bride is magnified.
It is in the House that the King reveals his intense love for his bride and his care for her.
Only when the bride opens her home, we can see her love for her groom grow, mature, and intensify. In the home, the relationship between the two lovers is solidified and fulfilled.
Application. This morning, Remo and Zach are making a commitment to live their faith, their love for Jesus, not only in public, when they are in church, or on the streets, or in the company of other believers, but above all in their home, especially in their private lives.
We cannot delegate to Sunday worship the responsibility of growing our relationship with the King of kings. Indeed, it is when we are at home that our desire to be in communion with Jesus truly emerges and manifests itself.
Reading the Bible, praying to the Lord in our bedroom to see God work in us:
But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Questions. Is your home the place where your relationship with God grows the most? Are you opening your home to prayer, are you opening your bedroom to meditation on the Scriptures?
Today we have two people who have decided to give, to open their home to their King, Christ Jesus the Lord. Both desire to proclaim what the soldier Joshua affirmed:
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
Stronger than death. Finally, there is one last context in which this love manifests itself: death, the tomb.
For Solomon, however, love could be as strong as death, but not stronger than death.
However, this morning we can say that this love, this relationship, this faith we have in King Jesus is stronger than death, because Jesus has defeated death!
With Paul, we can proclaim that this love is stronger than death:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
This love is our Springtime!
This love will be persecuted!
This love grows and matures first at home!
This love is stronger than death.
