A husband knocks on our door (5:2-6:3)

There is only one marriage that truly satisfy (Song of songs 5:2-6:3)

Our first couple of years of marriage were difficult.  For my part I had always cultivated an image of being a nice guy, but now Caroline was close enough to see past that.  I had never had to confront my issues with anger.  My anger is not explosive, rather it withdraws.  I huff.  I stew in resentment.

They say that love is blind and that marriage is a great eye-opener.  I think that there is some truth in that.  You can hide your sinfulness if you keep people at a distance, but if they get really close they are going to see you, warts and all. 

There is a book of marriage entitled, ‘When sinners say “I do”’.  On Goodreads someone explained that ‘When sinners say “I do”’ is about encountering the life-transforming power of the gospel in the unpredictable journey of marriage.  What we need for marriage, and for our relationship with friends and family, is a clear understanding of the gospel.

We get angry because we are selfish

What we see in today’s verses is less idealistic than anything we have seen so far in the Song of songs.  The couple struggle: he seems to be inconsiderate, she seems selfish, there is violence in the neighbourhood and friends are unsupportive.

It seems to be that they have arranged to share a time of intimacy.  She has washed her body, and has now waited for hours.  Finally, she gives up and goes to bed.  Then he turns up and knocks at the door.  He doesn’t give an apology or an explanation, only some sweet talk.

She describes the scene: ‘I slept, but my heart was awake.  A sound!  My beloved is knocking.  “Open to me my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one, for my hand is wet with dew, my locks are wet with the drops of night”’ I had put off my garment; how could I put it on?  I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them?’ (2-3). 

She is annoyed with him, and she doesn’t let him in.  She couldn’t be bothered, and lets him stand wet outside the door.  If he is inconsiderate, she is lazy and selfish.  So, he heads off into the night. Douglas O’Donnell writes, ‘couples might argue about money, sex or in-laws (all externals).  But I have found that the root problem in marital conflict and the greatest obstacle to intimacy is selfishness.’

Don’t forget to see your spouse as special

But something changes.  ‘My beloved put his hand to the latch, and my heart was thrilled within me.  I came to open to my beloved and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt’ (4-5).  One commentator suggests that there was an eastern custom of anointing a door handle as a way of saying you were there.  It left a fragrance.  A bit like leaving flowers for her.  But when she opens the door he is gone.

The tragedy is that the one who was meant to protect her has left her vulnerable.  The city’s watchmen mistake her for a loose woman and beat her.  When she asks her friends to tell him that she is sick with love they ask, ‘What’s so special about your man?’  Then she recalls.  ‘My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten-thousand’ (10).  We might say, ‘he is one in a million.’

These words need a lot of kindness and grace if we are going to apply them to those we love—whether to our friends, wife, husband or children.  The truth is that if Caroline was to compare me to a thousand other men she would have no problem finding many that are more attractive than me.  But we are to see people in a unique way.

Daniel Estes writes: ‘In marriage it is easy to lose sight of how special your spouse is.  The inexorable duties of life can dilute the delights of intimacy, so that what used to provide excitement now evokes only a yawn.  Indifference is a lethal blow to intimacy, because it communicates that the relationship is not as valued as it used to me.’ 

One of the most attractive things about my father was how he sought to see the positive in everybody.  He was rarely critical of anyone.  He used to tell me to seek to learn one new thing from everyone I meet.  I remember one time when Munster played a really dreadful match, and when I pointed this out to him, he reminded me how hard they train.  We are not naïve about people, ‘but love hopes all things’ (1 Cor. 13:7)—often we assume the worst about someone’s motives, but love seeks to put a positive slant on the things people say and do.

The wife tells her friends about his black hair, his bright eyes, his sweet smell and his strength.  She is impressed with him.  ‘His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable.  This is my beloved and this is my friend …’ (16).  When you look for someone to be married to make sure that they will be someone who will be a really good friend.

She then seems to remember that he will be in his garden.  She goes to be with him    She declares ‘I am my beloved and he is mine’ (6:3).  She had earlier said, ‘my beloved is mine and I am his’ (2:16).  There is a mutual belonging in marriage.

A husband knocks at your door

‘The incomplete satisfaction sex gives is intentional.  Sex is not god.  Rather it is a blessing from and a bridge to God (O’Donnell).’  Jesus teaches that there will be no marriage and no sex in heaven.  We won’t even desire marriage and sex there.  Why?  Because we will fully know and be known by Christ, and to know him so fully is to need nothing else.  Marriage and sex will have served their purpose.  The intimacy and enjoyment that they imperfectly point to will be ours for ever.

Singleness can be lonely.  Marriage can be a struggle.  But there is a perfect husband who knocks at our door.  He is not late, and he is certainly not inconsiderate.  Jesus invites us saying, ‘behold I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with me’ (Rev. 3:20).  Our relationship with him in this life will still be prone to frustration because we do not yet see him face to face.  But one day we will share in the wedding feast of the lamb (Jesus).  We will delight that this lamb was slain on a cross so that we could be dressed before him in white. 

Naked and unashamed (Song of songs 4:1-5:1)

 

It is hard to stand before someone naked.  I don’t mean physically naked, but emotionally naked—to let your guard down and be real with people, to take off the mask and reveal your insecurities.  In his book and marriage, Tim Keller explains that to be loved but not known is nice but superficial, to be known and not loved is our worst nightmare, but to be fully known and totally loved is the gospel.

You can stand naked before God and be unashamed because God has covered your shame with the blood of his Son.  On the cross Jesus removed all our spiritual blemishes.  Because he has washed you need never fear his rejection.

As a church this sort of grace needs to be our atmosphere.

1.       Wasf—love celebrates

Along the Ennis Road there is a beauty clinic called Wasfi.  Wasfi is a Arabic term meaning ‘one worthy of praise.’  Related to this is a Wasf—an Arabic love poem where the lover describes their beloved from head to toe.  That is the sort of thing we have in our reading.  The one man looks at his new wife and praises her.

She has kept her virginity for their wedding night, and now stands before him with very little on—a veil, a neckless and her hair.  His job is to tell her how beautiful she is.  Sadly, some men would rather die than praise their wife, and as a result the love slowly drains from their marriage.

Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold you are beautiful (1).  Her hair is like a flock of goats—think of a flock of black goats weaving their way together down a mountainside.  Her teeth are like shorn ewes—over time a ewe’s out coat will become discoloured, but when it is shorn it is lovely and white.  None of her teeth have lost their young—they each have the matching one, none are missing (a rare thing in the age before dental care).  Her cheeks are like pomegranates cut in half—in other words they are red and healthy.

He sums up by declaring, ‘there is no flaw in you’ (7).  Remember that earlier in the song she had complained about her skin being darkened by the sun and that she had not kept herself will (she had neglected her vineyard), but he sees her through the eyes of grace.  He calls her ‘my sister’—possibly because he feels like he has always known her.

Dane Ortland says that, ‘it is better to offer too much praise, with the possibility of making a person pride, than giving them too little with the possibility of discouraging them.’  Think about how the apostle Paul affirms the Christians he writes to: ‘We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ' (1 Thess. 1:2-3).

Love is exclusive

The consummation of their marriage lies at the exact centre of this song.  In the Hebrew the song has a title, then one hundred and eleven lines, then the description of their becoming one flesh (4:16-5:1) and then another one hundred and eleven lines.  Sex in marriage is to be celebrated.  In fact, those in the community encourage the new couple in their love life—‘eat friends, drink and be full of love’ (5:1).

He acknowledges that she has kept her body exclusively for him.  ‘A garden locked up is my sister, my bride’ (4:12).  Remember that she had told her friends not to awaken their sexual love.  Now on her wedding night the time has come to ‘awake’ (4:16).  She invites him into ‘his’ garden.  Nine times he uses the word ‘my’ in the first verse of chapter five—they belong to each other.  ‘I come into my garden’ (5:1).

But is Christ exclusive, after all he loves all of his people?  We must remember as we read the song of songs that the bride of Christ is a people, not individual people.  In other words, there is one bride of Christ, one people of God, the true church of all those who know and love him.  There isn’t one people of God called Hindus, and another called Muslims, and another people called Buddhists.  There is one people of God, the true church of God, not all who call themselves Christians, but those who have allowed themselves be washed by Christ’s death and are living in the power of his resurrection.

This reminds us of the importance of loving the church that Christ loves.  It means that a true Christian will be attached to a local expression of Christ’s bride.  It means that one of the ways we love Christ is through loving his people, one of the ways we receive the love of Christ is by being loved by his people.  While in isolated parts of the world a Christian may have to live in isolation from other Christians, the New Testament knows nothing of solitary Christianity.

Love is rooted in grace

You might not have kept your garden locked, you might not have kept your fountain sealed.  You might not be able to offer virginity to your marriage.  Indeed, everyone approaches life and marriage with some level of sexual failure.  In his book about porn Ray Ortland writes, ‘I love my wife, I don’t watch porn, but I am a sexual sinner.’  Many of us would say the same.

But we take comfort in the fact that Jesus was a friend of sexual sinners.  He spoke of the highest degrees of purity, but offered the absolute promise of forgiveness.  He is the one who can restore virginity.  To those with difficult sexual pasts he can say, ‘there is no flaw in you’ (4:7).  You can stand naked before God and be unashamed because God has covered your shame with the blood of his Son.  On the cross Jesus removed all our spiritual blemishes.  Because he has washed you need never fear his rejection.

I want to finish by reading you a great article called ‘My wife has tattoos.’

‘My wedding day was last week and I didn’t marry the girl of my dreams.  If you told me, when I was a teenager, that my wife would have seven tattoos and a history of drug and alcohol abuse …   I would have laughed at you … It wasn’t my dream to marry a complicated girl.  I never dreamed I’d sit on a couch with my future wife in premarital counselling listening to her cry and tell stories of drunken nights … confessing mistakes made in past relationships.  That wasn’t my dream …

Many people wouldn’t have put Taylor and me together.  In High School we probably wouldn’t have been friends.  She probably would have thought I was a nice, boring, judgemental Christian kid.  I probably would have thought she was a nice, lost, party-scene girl who guys like me were supposed to avoid …

But everything changes when people meet Jesus … Right in the middle of the mess of life, Taylor met Jesus, and he placed his flag in her life … this is how I see Taylor.  She is completely new, completely transformed and completely clean … He took all her sins, placed them on his Son and gave her Jesus’ righteousness to wear like a perfect white wedding dress. 

In reality, Taylor’s story is my story as well.  As she walked down the aisle towards me, I was reminded of how much I don’t deserve the precious gift she is to me.  I’ve spent my life singing a self-centred siren song.  Nothing in my life cries for blessing … yet god dressed me in white, put my sins on his Son, and gave me a heart that loves him.

Hide and seek (Song of songs 3:1-11)

This Christmastime I have felt the dark more than usual.  It's not that my mental health has been particularly bad, but the evenings have seemed to turn to night so early.  It feels a little oppressive.  I have been longing for the days to start stretching.  I have thought about the fact that at Christmas we celebrate the light of Jesus stepping in to the darkness of a hopeless world. 

For centuries Christians have associated darkness with a feeling that God is absent.  We sometimes refer to 'the dark night of the soul.'  Have you ever felt God's absence even as you reach out to him?  I remember as a student going through a time of crippling anxiety, but no matter how I prayed heaven seemed silent.   The psalmist complained, ‘Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?’ (Psalm 10:1). 

1.      Why does Christ seem absent in our pain? (1)

At this stage in the Song of Songs our young girl is experiencing her own dark night.

'All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves, I looked but did not find him’ (1).  If this young man is a picture of Jesus then why would he hide from us?

Maybe we have allowed our faith become dry and formulaic.  Maybe we are just going through the motions.  Maybe we have allowed ourselves drift.  So, Jesus stands at a distance and seeks to wake us up.  As Alina said in our small group, ‘sometimes when I allow myself walk from God he kick’s my butt to get my attention.’  It could be that Jesus is allowing us pass through a time of pressure to lovingly bring us to our senses and cause us to depend on him again.  Whatever the reason for the pressures we face, pain should always cause us to seek our comforter.

I do think that we sometimes accuse Jesus of hiding when he is not.  We allow our circumstances and feelings dictate how we think about him, and in our pain fail to see that he is actually standing with us and holding us in his arms.  Afterall, ‘the Lord is close to the broken-hearted and lifts up those who are crushed in spirit’ (Ps. 34:18). 

2.     How do we seek Christ when he feels absent? (2-5)

I have been reading a really good book by a Christian psychiatrist called John White.  He talks about the complexity of our mental health.  There can be biological as well as circumstantial reasons as to why we feel the way we do.  Sometimes it is not the pastor we need to call but the doctor.

When we seek Christ we need to be seeking one we love.  Look at how this young woman loves the man who is absent.  ‘… I sought him whom my soul loves … have you seen the one my soul loves …’ (1-3).

Our pain presents us with a fork in the road.  We will either seek more of the Christ we love or we will grow to resent him.  You must not let your circumstances cause you to grow cold. 

Note the continued repeating of ‘sought’, ‘seek’ and ‘did not find’ in the opening two verses.  Don’t stop seeking Jesus when he seems absent.  Don’t let discouragement defeat you.  One of the ways we grow is through God's delays, as he teaches us to persist in prayer.

Share.  The watchmen were responsible for guarding the city at night.  As the girl heads out into the night she asks the watchmen if they have seen the one that she loves.  Involve others in your search for Christ.  John White speaks of an occasion when his son was anxious and confused.  They had a chat and his mood lifted.  My friend Brenda, a psychologist teaching in Maynooth University, says that the most important thing in counselling is the therapeutic alliance—that is how comfortable you feel with the counsellor.  Find people who are compassionate listeners and wise speakers, and tell them how you are finding it hard to sense Jesus.  They might point you in his direction!

3.       What should you do when you find him? (4-11)

The girl finds her man.  ‘Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one whom my soul loves’ (4).  The puritan, Richard Sibbes, writes, ‘he cannot find it in his heart to hide himself long from us.’  Although that will not always be the case.

Now she praises her man.  ‘Ladies, think about Solomon coming to town with all its grandeur and gladness.  Well, my love is greater than Solomon in all his glory’ (O’Donnell).  Jesus tells us that he is greater than Solomon (Matthew 12:42).  So, when God enables us to see beyond our circumstances and know his presence then we should sing, celebrate and be glad about Christ.

In love what are called the Psalms of Lament.  In these psalms the write cries out to God honestly in their pain.   They ask God questions like, 'how long must I wrestle with my thoughts all day long?  Will you forget me for ever?'  And yet, with no apparent change in the circumstances, they move on to praise.  'I will speak of the God who has been good to me.'  Sometimes as we pray a light shines into our darkness and a confidence in God's goodness grows. 

In 1851 the missionary Allan Gardner lay dying beside his shipwrecked boat.  He was at the southern tip of south America.  He wrote with a weakened hand in his diary.  He described the terrible hunger.  But one on his last entries, written in a feeble scrawl, exclaimed, ‘I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God.’   Christ was close to him in his pain.

Conclusion

The truth is that Christ is always close to his people.  He cannot forsake us.  He has promised to be with us to the end.  He dwells within us.  The reason we will never be forsaken by him is that he felt forsaken for us.  On a cross he cried out, 'my God, my God why have you forsaken me?'  He did this taking the punishment of our guilt.  He experienced the ultimate darkness so that we could live in the reassurance of  God's love and light.

This Christmas may Jesus enable us to see light when darkness surrounds us!

Morning encouragement

 

This morning I woke up a little blue.  I told God about it and he sent me the following story.  As I was getting mum up I read from John White's book on Nehemiah:

'Years ago in a daily prayer meeting missionary prayer-letter files were passed around.  One morning my file contained a letter from a missionary in the Philippians.  In it she described her hospitalisation in Manila for spinal tuberculosis.  Her condition was serious and at that time called for a prolonged period in a sanitorium in a body cast.  Unexpectedly (for the woman was a stranger to me) I was not only profoundly shaken but found myself virtually insisting the God heal her right away.

My prayer was remarkable in that I did not believe such healing was possible, and so I was both astounded by the content of the prayer and the urgency of my own prayer.  I suppose you could say that the Holy Spirit was allowing me to "see" two realities--the need of the young missionary, and God's power to do something my theology and medical experience told me was impossible.  To the astonishment of her physician, this woman in the Philippians was miraculously healed that same day and soon after became my wife.'    

‘Christ’s pursuit of us' (part 1) – Song of songs 2:8-17

C. S. Lewis writes about how he was found by God:

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.  That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.  In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England … The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy.  The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.”

The Song of songs is a love song about a young man and a young woman who are getting married.  But as Christians, who believe all of the Old Testament points to Jesus, we also see here a picture of Christ’s pursuit of his people, the church.  If you are a part of that body then you can take comfort in his continued pursuit of you.  He sought to make you his own.  He continues to seek you every day of your life.

I have three points:

            1.  Prayer is resting in the presence of someone who sees you as beautiful.

2.  We must get rid of everything that spoils intimacy in our relationships.

3.  We should seek to find our delight in Jesus.

Prayer is resting in the presence of someone who sees you as beautiful

Does it feel like no-one thinks you are special?   Maybe your parents never pursued your heart.  Has your husband stopped seeking intimacy?  Does your wife no longer want to be close with you?  Do you struggle to make friends?  If you are a Christian then Jesus sees you as the apple of his eye!

The young man comes seeking his beloved.  ‘Leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills’ (8).  He calls her to be with him, ‘Arise my darling, my beautiful one.  Come to me’ (10).  Their love is pictured as being like spring, ‘See!  Winter has past, the rains are over and gone’ (11).  ‘Arise, come, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me’ (11b).

Jerry, a student, was having a quiet time, but it was a struggle.  They had been studying the Song of songs in his church.  Then he thought of those words, ‘Arise, my beautiful one, come with me’.  He realised that Jesus wanted to know him more.  Christ was pursuing him.  Prayer isn’t just about presenting a list of requests to God.  It’s resting in the presence of someone who sees you as beautiful.

Get rid of everything that spoil healthy intimacy

But there are so many distractions that get in the way of my spending time with Jesus.  Facebook, Instagram and other social media are God’s way of telling us that it is not true when we claim that we are too busy to pray. 

‘Catch the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom’ (15).  Remove those things that spoil healthy intimacy.  Be in control of your social media, your reading and your television and do not let them control you.

There can be little pestering foxes in our relationships with people too.  That resentment you have never let go.  That laziness where you would rather be on your own than be with those you love.  That pride that stops you from letting your guard down.  ‘Catch the little foxes that ruin the vineyards.’

She has been hiding from him.  He says, ‘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’ (14).  Jesus loves to hear your voice.  It gives him pleasure to listen to you.  He wants to look us in the face.  He delights when we lift our heads from the screen and think about him.

Seek your delight in Jesus 

The psalmist writes, ‘In your presence there is fullness of joy’ (Psalm 16:11).  That doesn’t describe my prayer times, does it describe yours?  Can we slow down and put our distractions aside for long enough to start enjoying speaking to him and thinking about him?  What about turning the radio off at times in the car and talking to him?  Can we aim for growing intimacy with Jesus?

Look at how the teenage girl responds to the pursuit of her lover.  'My beloved is mine and I am his …’ (16a).

Which is more amazing, that we belong to Christ or that Christ belongs to us?  Jesus takes us into his family and calls us friend.  He sees us as sister or brother.  He thinks of us as a lover.  He also gives himself to us, so that we can say ‘he is mine’.  The creator of this universe in some way belongs to me.

This is a challenge for all our relationships.  The apostle Paul wouldn’t have shocked the world of his day when he taught that a wife’s body belongs to her husband, but then he also taught that husband’s body belongs to his wife.  So, we are to give ourselves to each other (1 Corinthians 7:4-5).  Are you more ambitious for your career than on improving your marriage?  What about your friendships, do you take more pleasure from your hobbies than spending time with people? 

Conclusion

Jesus taught that people don’t seek him by nature, they run from him.  They might like the thought of Jesus as a good teacher, selectively picking from his teachings, but they do not want him as their only Saviour from our guilt (the Christ of the cross) who demands we give him our lives (the Christ who calls us to take up our cross).  If you find that you are becoming interested in the Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible, then that is the work of the Holy Spirit pursuing you.  Don’t resist him.  Surrender to his love!

If you have surrendered to his love then remember that he sees you as beautiful.  All your moral filth is washed away by his blood.  He sees you as clean.  He has given you his Holy Spirit, he delights to see the change that he is making in you.  He loves to hear your voice.  He enjoys seeing your face.  Find your joy in that love.

One night, in a hotel in Manhattan, David Suchet, who is famous for playing Agatha Christie’s Poirot, found that for the first time in his life he had an overwhelming desire to read the Bible.  He knew that the Gideon’s left Bible’s in hotel rooms, but there was none there.  So, he went out onto the street to find a bookstore that might still be open.  When he got back to his room he opened it and read: ‘For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor demons, nor anything else in all of creation, will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus’ (Rom. 8:38-39).  Those verses brought him to faith.  God had found him.     

'Self-image and the delight of Christ' (Song of songs 1:5-2:7)

What aspects of your body are you unhappy with?  I thought of that and came up with a depressing number of things.  We can be self-conscious.  There are things about our appearance that we don't like.  Writing about this morning's verses Tom Gledhill states, 'In these verses we are brought face to face with problems of our own self-image.  How do we view ourselves?  When we look in the mirror, do we like what we see?  Can we accept ourselves as we really are, with all our quirks, idiosyncrasies and limitations?'

Of course it is not just the exterior that we worry about.  What about your temperament?  Maybe people find you highly-strung.  You fear that people think you are too serious.  You worry that they find your humour annoying.  You have been made feel stupid.  You are not popular.  You fear you would not be popular if people got to see beyond your crafted image.  You are shy.  You are giddy..  We are self-conscious.

Then there is our soul.  It feels like there are stains on our conscience.  We have both sinned and been sinned against.  What if they knew what I am really like?  We have regrets.  We feel dirty.  There are dark blotches that we want to remove.  There are secrets that we fear being exposed.  There are memories that haunt us.  There are wrongs we want set right.  There is shame.  We are self-conscious.

In our reading we encounter a self-conscious teen and her encouraging lover.  We know these verses point us ahead to Jesus, so we will hear his delighting words for his bride, the church.  I have called this talk, 'self-image and the delight of Christ.'  I pray that it will be healing for us.    

We feel insecure because we are so flawed

The girl begins, 'I am dark but lovely' (5a).  She knows that she has good looks, but she is also self-conscious.  In that culture a pale complexion was considered desirable.  Tanned skin spoke of someone who worked outdoors.  The cultured women of that day made great efforts to keep their skin from being sun-kissed.  'Do not gaze on me because the sun has looked upon me' (6a).

She then goes on to mention her mother and brothers (or step-brothers).  There is no mention of her father.  Perhaps he is dead.  Her family has forced her to keep the vineyards, '... but my vineyard I have not kept' (6).  She has not had time to look after her appearance.

She wants to go and be with her lover at noon, the time when the men rested.  

Are we people that others can be real with?  Do people feel safe with us?  Will we listen to their pain?  Will be point them to God's grace?  Will we take their hurts seriously?  Reading these verses reminded me that God cares about all the small things that cause us to be anxious.  He even takes our self-consciousness seriously.

In Christ we are made perfect

Now the young man speaks.  'I will compare you to a mare among Pharoah's chariots' (9).  It may be that she is dressed up and looks impressive.  'Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with a string of jewels' (10).  

We will see in this song the back and forth between the two.  'I love you'.  'I love you too.'  How hard it is when we declare our love for someone only to be greeted by their indifference!  That is not the case here.  He calls her beautiful, she calls him handsome and charming.  He sees her sun-kissed skin, that she is so self-conscious about, but he sees her with loving grace.   

Marriage is the union of an imperfect man to an imperfect woman.  We are flawed both physically and morally.  We need to view each other with grace-filled vision.  If you are married let your spouse be your standard of beauty.  Don't compare them with others.  If he is short, then you are into short men.  If she is blond, you are into blonds, and if she is brunette, you are into brunettes.  If she is petit, then that is beauty for you.  If she is curvy, then that is your preference.    

It is the same if you are single and looking to meet someone.  It will be impossible to enjoy a real relationship with a real person until you shed the demand for perfection.  Surely you long to be accepted with all your flaws, then you need to be willing to embrace someone who is also flawed.

But what about Jesus, my perfect lover?  Does Jesus speak like this about me?  Does he see me as beautiful?  He sees his people as more than beautiful: he sees us as spotless.  In Isaiah God promises, 'though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool' (Isaiah 1:18).  In the New Testament we read, 'the blood of Jesus goes on cleansing us from all sin' (1 John 1:7).  If you have brought your sin to Jesus and entrusted your life to his loving rule, if you have confessed a failure and wretched deeds and laid them down before him then he does not want you to go on wallowing in your shame.  It does not honour him to keep on bringing him your past.  He calls you to be free.

I have really felt God challenge me recently.  You see, I don't always feel loved by God.  I don't always feel love for God.  So I thought that I might be a fraud if I went on about how loving he is and how much he loves me.   But sometimes our feelings have to follow our faith.  We are called to hold on and believe that God loves us.  We are called to repent of our unbelief in his care.  We are called to live in the light of the love he has for us, a love that we might often doubt.  We are to declare it as true, because it is true, even when it feels unreal.

We should delight in each other as Christ delights in us

If you are married, have you let the romance drain out of your marriage?  This song tells us not to awaken love before its time, but if you are married that time is always now.  You need to stir the embers of your love.  In your friendships do you let people know how much they mean to you?  In your faith do you devote solid time to simply be with Jesus?

She thinks that she is ordinary.  'I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.' (2:1).  Roses of Sharon were nice, but there were loads of them.  Same with lilies of the valley.  He says she is a special lily.  'A lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women' (2:2).  Remember that she is your standard of beauty!  The great early theologian Augustine explained that 'God loves each of us as if there is only one of us.'

She too sees him as special.  'As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among young men' (2:3).  Everything about him refreshes her.  He is good for her.  She delights to be in his presence.

Then comes one of the most famous verses in this song: 'He brought me to his banqueting table, and his banner over me is love' (2:4).  I was at a school's rugby match, and I noticed that some of the girls had made a banner.  It read, 'We love Reuben.'  Imagine running onto the pitch and reading that.  Imagine the courage it would give you.  Imagine the determination it would leave you with.  Imagine what it might feel like to know that Jesus holds a banner declaring his love for you!  How life transforming it is to see his passion for us.

I was having coffee with one of the people of this church.  I asked them if they knew that God delighted over them.  They asked me how I could say that.  So I showed them this verses from Zephaniah: 'he will rejoice over you with singing' (3:17).  That truth made tears run down their cheek.  'For the Lord takes delight in his people, he crowns the humble with victory' (Ps. 149:4).  The apostle Paul wrote of the Son of God who, 'loved me and gave himself for me' (Gal. 2:20).  

Conclusion

We began by looking at an insecure teenager who was worried about her sun-kissed skin.  The solution to all our anxieties is to be kissed by the Son.  As pray for each other that we might see that Jesus delights in all who have given him their life.  We too should seek to encourage each other, in particular when we can see that God is doing a work in someone's life.

Douglas O'Donnell writes, 'some men would rather die than praise their wives.  But this is their own funeral, the deadly chill of their once warm marriage.'

Dane Ortland advises, 'better to offer too much encouragement creating the possibility of pride, than too little, creating the possibility of discouragement.'

Finally, Tom Gledhill says, 'the phycological effects of praise and affirmation are beneficial to our well-being .... Surely this is an important part of any relationship.  It is the oil that makes the machinery of everyday life run smoothly.  It is the added fill-up on grey days.'

Love one-another as Christ has loved you.

Reasons not to be afraid (Psalm 23)

We live in a fallen world.  It is a world of chaos.  It is a world of threat.  It is a world that ends in death.  Yet we are to fear no evil.  The word translated 'evil' in this Psalm ('ra'), is a word that includes ideas of disorder, distress and injury.  But we are not to be afraid.   We are to fear no evil because of the person, path and promises of God.

1.  The person of god

In your Bibles you might see that the word LORD is spelt with capitals.  That is a translation of YHWH - which we might pronounce Yahweh or Jehovah.  Yahweh bookends this psalm, being at both the beginning and the end.

Yahweh is the covenant name for God.  It is explained to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14).  God tells Moses to tell the people that he is 'I am that I am.'  He is to explain that 'I am has sent me to you'  Yahweh comes from the verb, 'to be'.  Dale Ralph Davis explains that God is saying, 'I will be present with my people to be whatever they need me to be.'  Yahweh is the only God, and He is the God we need in this life.

Yahweh is my shepherd.  In the Ancient Near East the shepherd was everything to the flock.  There is a lovely picture of the shepherd in the book of Isaiah: God 'tends his flock like a shepherd.  He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart, he gently leads those who have young' (40:11).

One of the things that convinces me of the divinity of Jesus is how many of the titles of Yahweh he takes for himself.  Jesus declared, ''I am the the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep' (John 10:11).

In the last two verses the scene changes from a shepherd to a host.  One commentator suggests that what we are being told is that God shepherds his people with the generosity and kindness as the most lavish of hosts.  In that culture it was not the host who prepared the meal for his guests, but a woman or a servant.  Yet our God takes this role upon himself.

While the flock is always assumed, notice that the focus is on each of us as an individual sheep.  The LORD is 'my' shepherd.  If we are in Christ we declare with the apostle Paul that we have faith in the Son of God, 'who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20).

The path of God

Shepherds in that culture did not drive the sheep but led them.  We read that the shepherd 'makes me lie down in green pastures.'.  You actually can't make a sheep lie down.  Sheep only lie down when they are well fed and feel safe.  It would be better to translate these words, 'he settles me down.'

The shepherd leads the sheep to green pastures.  It is very interesting that in Mark's account of the feeding of the five thousand Jesus directed the disciples to get the people to sit on the 'green grass' (Mark 6:39).  Jesus is showing us that he is the good shepherd.

The still waters are literally 'waters of rest'.  Sheep can't drink from lapping waters and need the water to be calm.  Rest is a key theme in the Bible.  The Promised Land of the Old Testament was referred to as God's rest.  Jesus invites us to come to him for rest (Matt. 11:28) and we look forward to an eternal rest (Rev. 14).

Ken Bailey makes the suggestion that restoring my soul, is actually better seen as 'he causes my soul to return.'  In our restlessness we are prone to wonder.  Yet we think of the good shepherd coming for the lost sheep.  We stray, but God creates a discontent within us until we know that the best place for us to be at home with the lover of our souls.

On of the right paths that the shepherd leads us through is the 'valley of the shadow of death'.  Valleys had to be travelled through but they were a nigh-mare for the sheep.  The valleys had steep and unstable sides.  They were a place of snakes, flooding and wild animals.  Yet they are not afraid because the shepherd is with them.

The valleys are passed through not settled in.  When we are going through a hard time it can be important to remind ourselves that 'this too will pass.'  At the other end of the valley is the banqueting table.  How true this is for those who are in Christ.  After we pass through the valley we will arrive at our ultimate place of rest.

David Watson was a great Christian leader who died in the 1980s.  He was terminally ill and wrote about his impending death.  He explained that he didn't fear evil because Jesus had already passed through the valley of the shadow of death for him and could be trusted to bring him through to the other side.  Jesus told his disciples that while he was going aware he would come back and take us to be with him (John 14;3).

The promise of God

In Hebrew poetry the poem often gravitates around the centre.  The centre of this psalm, both structurally and theologically are the words 'you are with me.'  That promise the ultimate reason that we are not afraid.  Jesus is our Immanuel, 'God with us.'  We look forward to a new heaven and a new earth where the dwelling place of God will be amongst his people (Rev. 21:3).  As we pass through this valley of death our shepherd hold a rod and staff, to protect us and discipline us.

In his beautiful book on this Psalm, David Gibson points out that when we read of goodness and mercy following us all the days of our life it would be better translated that they 'pursue' us.  Then he says, 'He is moving forward, and they are behind him.  Sometimes, only when we look back on events will we ever be able to see the goodness and the steadfast love of the Lord in them.  If you cannot feel it now, the Lord is still with you in the valley.  He will still walk with you without fail all of your days, and one day it may be that you will look back on the worst experiences, the most dreadful time, the deepest of dark valleys, and you will be able to say, "I see it now: God's goodness and God's mercy never left me, even then."'

Conclusion

Not all of life is green pastures.  Not all of life are dark valleys.  Christians can be assured that they will dwell with the Lord for ever, and that goodness and mercy now pursue us.

'The green pastures may be the normal place, the valley of the shadow of death may be the fearful place, in front of the enemies the dangerous place, and the house of the Lord the abiding place' (Dale Ralph Davis).

What tempts you to fear?  Remember the person, path and promise of our good shepherd.