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The Song of Solomon, also known as “Song of Songs,” is a book of love poetry with two main characters: The female lover and the male lover. Their expressions of human love are meant to reveal the presence of God in all of life, even the most personal and intimate of encounters. Still, the Song is controversial. “The poem describes two young lovers aching with desire,” writes Lisa Miller in Newsweek. “The obsession is mutual, carnal, complete.” The man studies his lover’s eyes, hair, neck and breasts, until he arrives at “the mountain of myrrh” (Song 4:6). “You are altogether beautiful, my love,” he says; “there is no flaw in you” (Song 4:7). The female lover responds in kind. “My beloved thrust his hand into the opening,” she says, “and my inmost being yearned for him” (Song 5:4). “Biblical interpreters have endeavored through the millennia to temper its heat by arguing that it means more than it appears to mean,” writes Miller. “It’s about God’s love for Israel, they have said; or, it’s about Jesus’ love for the church. But whatever other layers it may contain, the Song is on its face an ancient piece of erotica, a celebration of the fulfillment of sexual desire.”
Some Jews and Christians have objected to the book, even seeking to remove it from the Bible. But the Song of Solomon is not a dirty book. Instead, the passionate longings of its characters give us important insights into the nature of human desire and the nature of God’s desire for us. Our Lord does not simply tolerate us, weak and fallible creatures that we are. Instead, God has a passion for each one of us, and a hunger to be intimately involved with us. This song is filled with vivid descriptions of the human body, intimate relationships, and sensual love. “The voice of my beloved!” says the female lover. “Look, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Look, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows” (Song 2:8-9). You can hear her desire and her admiration. Then her beloved speaks and says to her, “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone” (Song 2:10-11). It is springtime, and this young man’s thoughts are turning to love. The flowers are appearing on the earth, the time of singing has come, the fig tree is putting forth fruit, the vines are in fragrant blossom (Song 2:12-13). Such a sensual scene: Bright flowers, sweet songs, succulent fruits, and fragrant vines. The richness of life and love could hardly be more obvious or desirable. “With springtime,” says biblical scholar Renita Weems, “comes belief in new adventures, new possibilities, and, most of all, a new outlook on life.”
These are the promises of the Song of Solomon, including both the sensual and the spiritual. When we dare to open this book, we discover new adventures, possibilities, and outlooks. First, adventure. In the book of Genesis, Abraham sends a servant back to his homeland to find a wife for his son Isaac. The servant travels many miles, and at the well of a city he prays that a young woman will offer him water. When Rebekah appears and does this, the servant knows that his prayers have been answered (Gen 24:42-49). He asks for the permission of Rebekah’s family, and then he takes her home, where Isaac takes “Rebekah, and she became his wife; and he loved her” (Gen 24:67). The journey of God’s people, from the book of Genesis onward, has always included the adventure of entering new territory, seeking and finding partners, falling in love and building a family.
Next, possibilities. Jesus knew that many religious people have a problem with the sensual parts of life. But he was no ascetic — he ate and drank with friends, and enjoyed the pleasures of touch, taste, smell and sight. When his critics saw him eating and drinking, they said, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matt 11:19). But Jesus understood that there were possibilities for connections across dinner tables, so he practiced radical hospitality, eating with outcasts so that they could discover God’s desire for a relationship with them. God did not send Jesus into the world to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17). The Song of Solomon is a colorful picture of healthy human connections — physical, emotional and spiritual.
Finally, a new outlook on life. When we imagine Christ leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills, we see a Messiah who has a burning desire to be with us. When we read of a servant crossing a desert to find a wife, or a Savior reaching across a table to welcome us, we understand that our God is doing everything that can be done to make a connection with us. The result is a new outlook on life, one in which we see ourselves as people who are desired by Jesus Christ and Almighty God. Not just accepted, but deeply desired. We are their love, their fair one, the one they invite to “come away” and enjoy eternal life. This passage from the Song of Solomon is one of the Bible’s greatest hits because it beckons us with the words, “Let me see your face, let me hear your voice” (Song 2:14). We are invited to show ourselves, speak, and spend our life with God. The Lord wants us to surrender to this desire and to live with God forever.
Questions:
1. How does human desire reflect God’s desire for us?
2. What is the importance of adventure in the life of faith?
3. Where do you see new possibilities in your relationship with God?
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