Song of Solomon 5:1-8. More of God's love poem to us (I keep getting the Song of Solomon lately! I think he's reminding me how much he loves us!). Sometimes, in the Song of Solomon, I find it difficult to tell who is speaking, the man (God) or the woman (us), because they are both so much in love and use the same kinds of evocative language. This passage begins with the man coming into his garden, gathering and eating honeycomb and honey, spices, wine and milk. He encourages all to eat and drink deeply in his garden, calling us his lovers. He sleeps, then, but his heart is awake. Then we switch to the woman who is in her house having already prepared for sleep. She hears her beloved knocking and saying "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one," but she hesitates thinking "I had put off my garment, how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet, how could I soil them?" So the man tries the latch, not knowing why she does not open the door. Her heart is thrilled at the sound, and she overcomes her hesitancy in her excitement to see him. She rises to open the bolt, her hands dripping with myrrh, her fingers liquid with myrrh upon the handles of the bolt. But she is too late, he has already gone. Then her soul fails and she leaves the house seeking him. She wanders about the city calling for him. The watchman find her and beat her. She finishes by begging the daughters of Jerusalem "if you find my beloved, ... tell him I am sick with love."

This is all so evocative! You can feel the love, the excitement, and the desire when you read this! Here we have the man - God, Jesus, our Savior - inviting all of us to eat and drink deeply in his garden (his creation). He calls us his lovers! He sleeps, but his heart is awake - that is, he never forgets his love for us, even as time is passing seemingly without his presence in our lives. When he awakes and comes to us, knocking on our door ("Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." Revelation 3:20). But the woman hesitates - she is already undressed and bathed for the night. So he is knocking persistently, asking her to open, calling her his love, his perfect one, and she does not answer! Then he tries to latch and it is locked! Her lover feels unwelcome, unwanted (She would not let him in! She did not want him with the same urgency he had for her!) and he leaves. But she is reminded of her love for him when she hears him try to latch, and is crushed to find him gone.

How often do we do this? We know he is right there, knocking at our door, we hear him, but we have other priorities - we are comfortable and don't want to get up to let him in right now. Our hearts are a bit locked against him. But then something happens and we remember how much we want and need and love him. Will it be too late? Will he still be at the door? Or will we then have to go into the streets searching for him?

He does not wait at the door forever. But if he seems to leave us in our indifference to him, we can always seek him out. We will suffer as we find our way back to him, because we have given up the easy way to get to him by just letting him in. We will encounter the watchmen of this world who will try to beat us into conformity. But hope is never lost, the bride will seek out and find her beloved. Unfortunately, though, there is a period of heart-sickness to get through first.