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!