A Storied Love
Human relationships, love, and passion have remained throughout history topics weighted with emotion and opinion, topics that birth great insight into the cries of the human heart. Even one as intellectually venomous and stoically minded as Bertrand Russell once remarked that love was an unfulfilled area in his life. In fact psychologists have long noted that love is simply a human need.
Perhaps more significantly than we often realize, the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation is a love story. It is the story of a sovereign, almighty God wooing his people to the ends of the earth. The Song of Songs is in some regards a strange book to find in the midst of that story, never actually mentioning God itself. The book is a poetic dialogue between a man and a woman; an ardent declaration of devotion remains unbroken throughout its chapters. Yet its passionate descriptions of romantic love have for centuries been the source of controversy and concern. Responses to the Song of Songs seem to be generally characterized by either blunt rejection or profound devotion. Charles Templeton quoted the Song of Songs as he referred to the Bible as one of the most vulgar pieces of literature he has ever read. Bernard of Clairvaux felt quite differently, writing 83 sermons on the first three chapters alone. To Saint Bernard, the Song of Songs was "the epitome of biblical truth."
For Bernard and many of the early church fathers and mothers, every word of passion in that descriptive book describes the passion of a soul that has met its creator, which is the intention of the love story God continues to tell. And although today theologians vastly agree that the Song of Songs depicts the love between a man and a woman, we do well to discover for ourselves the passionate excitement with which the early Christians pursued intimate relationships with the living Christ, the beloved bridegroom. For we live in a world for which the pursuit of pleasure is the most celebrated passion, and yet, our own restlessness in the midst of this boundless pursuit testifies to the timeless truth Augustine once declared: God has made us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee. In his candid manner, G.K. Chesterton declared similarly, "A man knocking on the door of the brothel is knocking for God."
That the Song of Songs is included in the canon of Scripture is an affirmation of the goodness of human love and pleasure. But, like all expressions, it too has limitations. Pleasure for pleasure's sake alone can become devoid of meaning. Boundless pleasure can in fact become binding. Yet in its given context, human love and pleasure can point us to the triune God who in his very being is the source of all love. In the same way, our love for one another can point the world to the loving God. “Dear friends, let us love one another,” writes John, “for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7-8).
The love uttered in the Song of Songs indeed bears witness to the God who created us to love, the God who not only loves but is love Himself. It is not by coincidence that God's chosen imagery to characterize his relationship with his people is the covenant of marriage. It is this profound romance that so captivated the early saints, even as it continues to pursue hearts today. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing” (Matthew 23:37).
The love story of the Father is one in which we have been invited to actively participate. May you increasingly know today that God's vow to you is real, God’s love for you is unconditional, and God is longing to bring you home.
Jill Carattini is senior associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.
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