2 Chronicles 17-20: ‘We don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you’

 

As I read about Jehoshaphat I was really struck by something he prayed.  At a time of great crisis, he says to God, ‘we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you’ (2 Chronicles 20:12).  I have actually made that our motto verse for this year in church.

Who knows what the year ahead holds?  Who knows what decisions will have to be made?  Who knows what troubles we may have?  There will be plenty of times when we don’t know what to do.  But we have no reason to fear if we keep our eyes on God!

A good leader gets people to look to the Bible

Jehoshaphat was king of the southern kingdom, Judah.  I think it is best to say he was an inconsistent king.  However, he started well.  When he came to the throne he did not consult the Baals.  He ignored the folk religion and superstitions of the day.  Instead he sought God and followed God’s commands.  He sent teachers to instruct the people in God’s Word.  God blessed his rule.

A good leader looks to God to set our agenda

So, I was shocked when I read the beginning of chapter eighteen.  All was going so well under Jehoshaphat’s rule and then he makes a marriage alliance with Ahab, the king of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Ahab was not a good king, and Israel was a military and spiritual danger for Judah.  Why did he do this?  Why is he looking to them for help?  Why is not trusting God alone?

Ahab wants Jehoshaphat to join in him war and lines up a bunch of false-prophets to predict that all will go well.  Jehoshaphat does at least insist on consulting a true prophet.  Yet despite the fact that this prophet tells him it will be a disaster he goes with Ahab to war.  There Ahab dies.  Jehoshaphat cries out to God who shows him mercy.  No matter what trouble our foolish decisions have got us into God is a father who is always calling us home!

He should have let God set his agenda, not Ahab.  Who sets our agenda?

A good leader sets their eyes on God

Jehoshaphat shows his repentance is genuine by bringing the people back to God and establishing justice.  Now when a crisis comes he knows what to do.  Judah’s historical enemies, the Moabites and the Ammonites want to make war with him.  He admits his utter dependence of God and prays, ‘we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you’ (2 Chronicles 20:12).  It is not our wisdom or our strength that will deliver us from evil, it is God.

Look at how God answers him.  ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army.  For the battle is not yours but God’s’ (20:15b).  They simply praised the Lord, and when they went to meet their enemy they found them already defeated.  All they had to do was gather the plunder. 

We live in light of God’s victory.  By his death Jesus has destroyed him who holds the power of death—that is the devil—and freed us from the fear of death’ (Hebrews 2:14-15).  What’s the worst that could happen this year?  Surely the biggest crisis we could face is our own possible funeral!  God’s taken care of it.  If you are bound to Christ, you need not fear condemnation or being deserted by God or even our own death.

Conclusion

Who knows what the year ahead holds?  Who knows what decisions will have to be made?  Who knows what troubles we may have?  There will be plenty of times when we don’t know what to do.  But we have no reason to fear if we keep our eyes on God!

So, our motto verse in Limerick Baptist for the year ahead is simply this: ‘we don’t know what to do, but our eyes are on you’.  In particular our eyes are on God’s victory achieved through Christ crucified.

 

‘Beauty’ (Song of songs 6:4-8:4)

 

What do you think about human beauty? 

We all want to be beautiful.  But sometimes we don’t feel very beautiful.  Like the girl in this song we can lament our bodily imperfections—such as her sun-kissed skin—and that we have not looked after our vineyard.

We know beauty is fleeting (Proverbs 31:30) and that the Christian is to prioritise the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight (1 Peter 3:3-4). Yet the Bible is not blind to human beauty.  The Old Testament mentions the great beauty of women such as Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and Rebekah, the wife of Isaac.

We might think of very beautiful people as vain and shallow.  Beautiful people can be exclusive in their friendships and self-obsessed.  This is highlighted in a culture that is pre-occupied with celebrities. 

We are warned not to desire the beauty of the adulterous woman (Proverbs 6:25).

Human beauty is like a cut rose, explains Douglas O’Donnell—its splendour is fading and it is surrounded by thorns, and so is to be admired but treated with care.

Beauty is a significant theme in the Song of songs.  The word ‘beauty’ occurs sixteen times, four of which are in this morning’s reading.  So, as we approach this text, we will ask what we can learn about beauty and how beauty points to Jesus.

1.      See the unique beauty in people (6:4-9) 

Everyone wants to believe that they are beautiful and everybody has some trace of beauty in them.  It is good for a husband to tell his wife in what ways he finds her attractive.  It is good for a wife to tell her husband why she is drawn to him.  Our husband in these verses has no problem in praising his wife.  Some men would rather die than praise their wife, and so the joy is robbed from their marriage.  Again, he talks of her hair and teeth, and her temples (which may mean the whole side of her face) being bright and fresh like the halves of a pomegranate.

Notice that he sees her as unique (6:8-9).  In his eyes there is no other woman like her.  Remember that your spouse is to be your standard of beauty.  One of the ways to protect your heart against adulterous thoughts is to see the beauty of the one you are married to.  We need to see that beauty with grace and not demand perfection. 

When I was first married I used to look at other couples who seemed to get on better than we did, and I was discontent.  I am not sure what has changed, but now I am just happy to be married to Caroline even with our imperfections.

2.       Beauty is to be celebrated appropriately (6:10-7:13)

The girl’s friends join in in praising her beauty.  They refer to her as the Shulamite.  What does that mean?  Shulamite might refer to a place called Shulam.  It is the female form of Solomon.  I like the fact that the root of this name is ‘Shalom’—peace.  Matched to her physical beauty is the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.  In the last chapter she declares, 'I have become in his eyes like one bringing contentment' (8:10).  It literally is, 'I have become in his eyes like one bringing shalom.'  Be someone who fosters peace in your relationships!    

Her husband praises the parts of her body that, in that culture, would have only been his to see —her navel, waist and breasts.  We need to be appropriate in how we celebrate human beauty.  The human heart can quickly move from admiration to lust.  He talks about them enjoying the intimacy of sex.  The writer of Hebrews teaches us that, ‘marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral’ (Hebrews 13:4).  If you flirt with someone else’s spouse you are dishonouring their marriage and acting with the heart of an adulterer.  If you are pursuing sex outside marriage you are in danger of the judgement of God.

3.      Beauty is to be treated with care (8:1-4)

‘If only you were to me like a brother, who was nursed at my mother’s breasts!  Then if I found you outside I would kiss you, and no one would despise me’ (8:1).  That culture forbade physical displays of affection, even between husband and a wife.  Although a brother could kiss his sister in public.  She wishes that he was like a brother whom she could kiss in public.  See the strong desires that are attached to human beauty.  That is why, for the third time, she says to her single friends, ‘do not arouse are awaken love until it so desires’ (8:4).

Remember that physical beauty is like a cut rose—its splendour is fading and it is surrounded by thorns.  Be careful!  All this talk of romantic love may awaken strong feelings if you are single.  It may awaken feelings of pain and discontent if you are living in a marriage that is cold.  Bring it all to Jesus—the great lover of our souls.  Jesus, the only one who can bring true peace and contentment.

Conclusion—Jesus, the creator of beauty

In Romans the apostle Paul teaches that the whole of creation reveals the power and nature of God (Romans 1:19-20).  We also know that all things have been created by Jesus.  One of the reasons I could never be an atheist is that it is hard to believe that all this beauty simply evolved without any designer.  What an incredible God our God is that he could create an eye or a mouth and not just make them functional but also make them beautiful!

Yet when Jesus stepped into his creation we read that he had no beauty that we should desire him (Isaiah 53:2).  His earthly beauty was all on the inside.  In fact, on the cross he was so disfigured that people turned their faces away from him.  He lost his beauty so that we might be made beautiful in him. 

Now he endows his people with splendour (Isaiah 60:9).  He may have given us some physical beauty, but there are no limits to the inner beauty he wants to create in us.  Then one day he will return, we will see him in all his eternal beauty and he will give us immortal bodies that will have a splendour that will never fade.  No longer will our beauty be like a cut rose surrounded by thorns.

‘Yahweh is salvation saves’ (Isaiah 1:1-20)

 

One of the keys to understanding the book of Isaiah is to remember the prophet’s name.  Isaiah means ‘Yahweh is salvation.’  But who is Yahweh and what does it mean to say that he saves?  Yahweh is the God of the Bible, and this passage is going to show us what it means to be saved.

You might have grown up in a church, or going to camps, where people talked about being saved.  You may have been asked by someone ‘are you saved?’  It might all make sense to you, but the truth is that most people in Castletroy have a faulty view of who God is and don’t know what being saved is all about.

Being saved is for those who know that they are in trouble. 

Being saved is for those who know that they are in trouble (1-9)

In the Old Testament God had a special relationship with the descendants of a man called Abraham.  He had made them into a nation, and outsiders were to be welcomed to become a part of that nation.  That nation was given a land—the Promised Land, the land of Canaan.  But those people continually disobeyed God.  So, he let the nation be divided in two.  Through Isaiah God is speaking to the southern part of the divided nation, the kingdom of Judah, whose capital was Jerusalem.

The special status these people had is seen in the fact that he says that they were children of God.  ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me’ (2b).  ‘They have forsaken the LORD, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged’ 4b).  To God there is no greater tragedy in the universe than watching people he has loved rebel against him.  ‘What wounds the heart of God is that we are as rebellious against him as we are blessed by him’ (Ortland).

Have you been blessed by God?  A man called Paul explained to a bunch of people who did not know God that ‘he has shown you kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy’ (Acts 14:17).  God is the one who has given us every breath we take and every good thing that we enjoy.  We owe him our very lives, but we have not spent our life thanking him for his goodness and living for his glory.

These people ‘have forsaken Yahweh, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged’ (4b).  One Bible expert explains that explains that ‘theft, murder, terrorism, and other outward sins are mere fleabites compared with the mega-sin of forsaking and despising God’ (Ortland).  Each one of us has been guilty of forsaking God.

Yet no matter what God does to discipline these people and bring them to their senses, they ignore him.  The problem is that they think that they are healthy.  Jesus would later explain that ‘it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’ (Luke 5:32-33).

The truth is that all of us are more wicked than we realise.  That is why we need saving.  We need to be rescued from God’s judgement on the fact that we have lived lives characterised by ignoring and disobeying him.

Empty religion cannot save you (10-17)

How could these people who despised God not see that they were sick?  This might surprise you, but they taught that all was well with them because their nation was prosperous and they were religious.  Yes, it is possible to be religious and not love God.  It is possible to like the rituals and ceremonies and familiarity of church and not know God. 

Their religion centred on a temple in Jerusalem, and they actually followed the instructions God had given them for how to carry it out, but it didn’t please God.  In fact, their religion angered and wearied God.  God tells them that he will not listen to their prayers unless they change—he calls them to repent (which in the Bible means that you change your mind and show your changed mind with a changed way of living). 

The big change they are to make is how they treat people who are vulnerable.  The Old Testament has a lot to say about how we should love those who are in need.  In particular, God shows special care for widows, migrants, the fatherless and the poor (the must vulnerable people in that culture).

Empty religion cannot save you, James, a half-brother of Jesus, explains that ‘religion that god the Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and keep oneself from being polluted by the world’ (James 1:27).

Jesus is the one who saves us (18-20)

There is an empty religion that God despises and there is a religion that God accepts.  However, even heartfelt and sincere religion is not what saves us.  Living a changed life is actually a response to the fact that we have been saved.

You see the heart of Yahweh has always been to forgive wicked people who have come to realise that they need to be saved.  God says through Isaiah, ‘Come now, let us reason together, says Yahweh: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.  If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Yahweh has spoken’ (18-20).

Note that to be saved is to be rescued from God’s righteous judgement.  He is holy and he will not tolerate evil.  He loves vulnerable people too much to act like their mistreatment does not matter.  But it is his nature to save those who have come to recognise that they have despised God by our ingratitude, our self-righteousness, our empty religion and our lack of concern for the needy.  He saves us by forgiving us.  He saves us in order that we might become different.

The language of being cleaned brings us to the person of Jesus.  One of Jesus’ closest friends, John, wrote, ‘if we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth has no place in us.  But the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:6-7).  On the cross Jesus died to save us.  He took the punishment we deserve so that we could receive the blessing he deserves.

Conclusion

It is my desire that each of you would know personally the God who saves you.  As those who have been saved we should be the most grateful of all people.  We then honour God by remembering his forgiveness.

One theologian, Thomas Watson, reminds us that we are to throw our sin into the ocean of God’s love as if they were a lead pipe and not a cork top.  A cork bobbles around on the service.  A lead pipe drops to the bottom never to be seen again.  Once you have let God forgive you don’t keep going back to remind him about it, but be delighted that he has taken your scarlet-red sin and through the death of Jesus made it as white as snow.

When sinners say 'I do' (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.’

Isn't the same with our relationship with Jesus?  When people ask what's so special about him aren't we reminded of his beauty?  When people treat him as ordinary don't we want to tell then he is unique?  Notice that when she declares his beauty they want to see him too.  May god enable us to speak about Jesus that others will want to gaze on him.

Applying these words to the normal people we love takes a lot of kindness and grace—whether they be of our friends, wife, husband or children.  One in a thousand?  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.  Notice there is no chiding.  They are glad again to be with each other.  They are not going to let the little foxes bitterness spoil their intimacy.  We need to be people who are easy to be reconciled to.  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!

What a lovely statement in verse 3, 'I found the one my soul loves'?  My friends Ian and Naomi have a lovely picture frame with these words written in it.  Human love is a great thing, but the love of Christ is infinitely better.

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.'