Springtime Rhapsody - The Song of Songs

As Solomon of Old once quipped, there is a time for everything under the Sun. A time to be born, and a time to die, a time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to mourn, and a time to dance, a time to love, and a time to hate.

Well, contrary to the calendar, springtime in fact has come to the North Central Colorado mountains. And, as I have said in past articles, pilgrimages and journeys always begin in the springtime.

Winter is now past with the flowers blooming, the trees singing and clapping their hands. Love is in the air and His Majesty the King of Kings, is as they say, on the move.

We at Calvary Evergreen and Calvary Idaho Springs are now in the midst of a metaphorical springtime rhapsody, journeying through the Song of Solomon. So, irregardless of the fact that we have already had three snows here in the mountains above twelve thousand feet and the buzz about town is of an early winter this year the so called "winter of our discontent" has passed.

Pastor Craig Babcock's course of study for the next several months centers around what is perhaps the most enigmatic book of the entire Bible: The Song of Songs composed by King Solomon, ostensibly the wisest man of all time.

Solomon knew a little something about love and sex considering he acquired seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of which we believe the Shulamite maiden portrayed most vividly in this episodic poem was his first and favorite wife and princess.

It is also said that he wrote one thousand five songs and no doubt this song was his best. That's why the title of it is the "Song of Songs." It is the Song of Songs in the unique way that Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Rabbi Akiva of the latter part of the first century said that this song is the Holy of Holies, the Book of Books of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Now, Song of Songs is a story. First and foremost it's a story of the love of a man and a woman. A story of the love of a man and a woman in a garden full of henna blossoms, grape vines, apricot trees, green grass, living waters, lilies and images of feasting on raisin cakes, wine and bread. We hear of flocks of sheep being led about and fed by a good shepherd.

The setting is so dreamlike and intense that the Canticle can only be experienced as an ardent rapture of emotion and longing. It is replete with racy dialogue along with the innermost thoughts of two eager protagonists.

The physical intensity is simply delightful as you realize that just by reading this story you are being made privy to a very private love experience between a most powerful man and a most willing and beautiful woman. It's easy to understand why the rabbis still to this day advise against reading this book by anyone less than thirty years of age.

We who study this episodic pageantry are fed overt language and explicit images of sensuality and erotic desire such as Solomon comparing the woman's breasts to fawns and her chaste behavior to a vineyard enclosed by a high wall and protected to keep metaphorical foxes and other vermin out. We are thrice warned by the woman to not stir up love until it's ready.

This collection of love poetry is structured like a play with the two lead actors complete with dialogue and an audience of several young ladies, presumably the woman's closest friends who also function as the chorus.

My own research indicates a disagreement among those who say this book is to be interpreted solely as a love story. Others say it's solely an allegory of God's love for Israel or the Church or both. Yet others say it is both a literal love story of King Solomon and a Shulamite woman from a northern village in the proximity of Galilee with a concurrent story flowing beneath the story line about God's intense love for us.

I read a blog post by a traditional fundamentalist pastor who adamantly stated that those who see any allegorical interpretation are rewriting the Bible! I can't help but be amused by such nonsense.

It is so clearly both a literal love story of a man and a woman in their courtship and ensuing marriage AND an allegory or extended parable of sorts manifesting God's intense love for all humankind, especially for his Church. Like the two lovers who chose each other from among all other love possibilities, God likewise, chose us from before the foundation of the world as an itinerant preacher once proclaimed.

We see here echos of that perfect state of God with Man in the Garden of Eden. Trees figure prominently in the Shulamite's garden as they do in Eden. We likewise see living water flowing, green grass, verdant fields, fruit of all kinds plus a warning similar to what we see in the story of Adam and Eve.

In the Song of Songs the warning is not to stir up love before it's ready. In other words, do not partake of the Tree of the KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil. "Knowledge" is many times used euphemistically in scripture as sexual intimacy...we are warned in the Song of Songs not to partake of sex until it's the right time. And, as we already know from Ecclesiastes, Solomon postulated that there is a time for everything, a time that is right, a time that is ripe like sweet fruit.

To further the view that the Song of Songs, at least in part, echos Paradise we see the future groom and future King of Israel bringing the woman to the "House of Banqueting" or literally rendered in the Hebrew as the "House of Wine." What comes to mind here? Think of Jesus attending a wedding where he turns stone jars containing water for ritual purification into one hundred fifty gallons of wine. Sweet wine. The best wine according to the wedding's master of ceremonies.

In that love story we see Jesus coming to the rescue where the wine ran out but the festivities were still ongoing. In that culture, wedding festivities lasted for seven days which itself is an echo back to creation wherein God created all things within six days then rested and celebrated the marriage of himself with Man(Adam) on the seventh day. The Hebrew word for Man is "Adam."

This creation and wedding motif is ubiquitous in Scripture. Marriage itself was created by God in part to show how the Triunion of the Godhead related to each other and to his crowning achievement: humankind.

The Apostle Paul continues the story line in Ephesians when he compared the marriage between a man and a woman with the way Christ relates to his Bride...the Church Universal. He called it a great mystery. And, so it is. How a husband and wife relates to each other is certainly a mystery. 

Sexual intimacy is itself a great mystery. We know how sex affects us not just physically but spiritually as well in some esoteric and enigmatic way. Paul warned us against joining our bodies, which are members of Christ, by the way, to prostitutes by sexual intercourse because the two shall then become one flesh.

That same idea carries over in our "intercourse" with the World and it's Babylonian system. We are warned not to become unequally yoked to the World with all of its attachments and lusts.

In chapter two the future groom takes the Shulamite maiden out on a date to a banquet, a house of wine and feasting echoing the great Messianic Banquet in Isaiah chapter twenty five and in the Gospels and in Revelation. Also, read Isaiah chapter twenty four where it says that the wine dries up all over the Earth and the vine languishes as a judgement from God but later God restores the wine. Read that. The World runs out of wine. Then, in his mercy, God restores the wine. Time of judgement turns to time of celebration.  Sound familiar?

We also see here an allusion to Jesus feeding the five thousand and the four thousand.

We see Jesus taking his sheep up the mountains near Bethsaida teaching, healing and feasting with them as all reclined on the verdant green grass of springtime just before the Passover echoing the imagery of Solomon and his maiden reclining on the "green couch" under an apricot tree in the springtime.

As a sidebar, Song of Songs was read in the Synagogues at Passover in springtime in remembrance of Israel's liberation from Egypt and Sin thus becoming God's wife and living with him in the Promised Land inside the Holy of Holies within the Temple.

There is simply too much here to say this is all coincidence. I think God inspired Solomon to compose this Rhapsody with the intent to show that this is exactly how God views us. 

He sees us adorned richly, blameless and perfect as his Bride patiently waiting to consummate the relationship when he returns at the end of this Age and once and for all time gathers us together for the grandest of all feasts eating the best food and drinking the choicest wine...then to live with us for all eternity here on the New Earth, the restored Earth. God WITH us...Immanuel, walking with us in the garden in the cool of the day. Imagine that if you will!

That was always his intent from the beginning. Restoration, reconciliation and return from exile to live once again in the Promised Land. Back to the Garden of Eden. Paradise. 

As children of God that is our final destination, not as some who believe we will have a disembodied existence floating aimlessly around the nebulous, gaseous clouds of the Cosmos wearing a halo over our heads while playing harps.

What a wonderful story!

Pastor Craig brings this love story to life each Sunday morning and evening with his practical application to our lives. So, for all my Colorado peeps out there, come over to Calvary Evergreen at the top of Floyd Hill Sunday mornings at 10am and in Idaho Springs at the old Anglican Church at 14th and Colorado Sunday evenings at 6pm for explicit and sometimes graphic teaching about the mystery of love and sex with its proper context within the constraints of marriage.

As a final note, Pastor Craig's illumination of the Song of Songs couldn't have been timed any better with the upcoming nuptials to take place between me and Amy P on October 29th. You're all invited to the ceremony as well. 

I very much look forward to Pastor Craig's continued take on the best collection of love poetry ever, so see you this Sunday as we take a gander at chapter three.

Pics show Pastor Craig preaching on the Song of Songs in Idaho Springs, Worship Pastor Ben strumming his guitar and the final photo of Amy P and me taking a break while hiking to Dumont, CO.

BR Schoenbein
Amy Pettit
September 5, 2016- Monday