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Song of Solomon
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-"Arise,
my love, my fair one, and come away. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the covert of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Catch us the foxes, the
little foxes, that ruin the vineyards—for our vineyards are in blossom.’ My
beloved is mine and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies. Until
the day breathes and the shadows flee turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or
a young stag on the cleft mountains."-Song of Solomon 2: 13-17
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Alright, forgetting all the innuendo that is in this
passage (consider the vineyard imagery!), this is
actually one of the more tame passages from the Song of
Solomon. Most of the book is dedicated to the poetic
interplay of two lovers, a male and female, who long and
pine for each other while detailing the finer points of
the others' body. It is not the sort of thing most
people imagine to be in the Bible. Yet there it is.
But why? This is the primary question, and one for
which there is no obvious answer. But one answer that
has persisted for millenia is that the Song of Solomon
is an allegory. That means everything in it stands for
something else. Thus for Christians, the male figure is
Christ, and the female is his Church, or the individual
believer.
What this means is that, for thousands of years Jewish
and Christian scholars alike have felt comfortable with
the idea that the Bible uses lurid erotic poetry to
point us toward the relationship between God and
people. Consider that for a moment! Consider also what
this means if it is true. It means that every sexual
encounter, every sexual thought, every sexual idea has
the potential, the potential mind you, to orient us back
to God. We often don't think of God and sex in a
positive relationship. Most of the time we consider
that God doesn't really want us having or thinking about
sex, but the Song of Solomon takes a potentially
different position. It infers that our sexual desires
can actually draw us closer to God. Wouldn't that be
something!
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Prayer: Holy God, thank you for loving me, and for
calling me to love you. Help me to love you with my whole being,
and guide me in my relationship with you, that our love for one
another might be obvious for all to see. I pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
[Phil Blackburn, First Presbyterian Church] |
