Word of Salvation – Vol. 25 No. 10 – December 1978

 

Advent – How Keen Are You?

 

Advent Sermon by Rev. W. F. Van Brussel, B.D. on Song of Songs 5:2-7

Scripture reading: Revelation 3:14-22, Song of Songs 5:2-7

Psalter Hymnal: 283:2,10; 114 (Tune 121); 70; 242; 371:1; 425:3,4

 

Dear Congregation,

People have often wondered how the Song of songs ever could have finished up becoming one of the books in the Bible. It is like a stranger among all the other sacred writings. Until we come to realise all over again that the love-relationship between a husband and his wife is one of the most beautiful gifts that God, our Creator, has given to man, His creature. The book could never have been given a more suitable name than the one it has: SONG!

Yes, this surely is a song full of the glorious joy of love, married love, unrestrained and pure. It refers most candidly to its desires as well as its delights. This is undoubtedly the very first reason why this song is part of God’s written revelation to man. Yet, there is more, and we hope that this will become clear as we proceed and consider the message of this Bible passage on this Sunday in the Advent season.

This section of Scripture tells us of one of the dreams the bride had. We find another one in Chapter 3:1-4. The one before us turned into a kind of nightmare due to the initially disinterested attitude of the bride. Her love fell short. At least in her dream she was not in a hurry to answer the door as her bridegroom was there, knocking. And by the time her desire was aroused to let him in and she came to the door, the bridegroom had left; not because he had given up loving her, but plainly to teach her a much needed lesson. She had allowed a beautiful opportunity of meeting together to slip by and she had to pay for it. For when she went out into the street to look and call for him, she met with the cruel treatment of the city’s watchmen who mistook her for a prostitute because of the way they found her, wandering in the streets in the dark of the night.

Yes, this is what happens to many marriages. After a longer or shorter stretch of time the love which was at a high at the start is not all that keen anymore. There is no marriage among men that remains altogether free from what is usually called, its ups and downs. It would pay to sit back and think about this for a while.

The beloved was at the door and was knocking. “Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one!” He could not have done better, could he? Even the best names were not good enough for the woman he loved. “His head was drenched with dew and his locks with the damp of the night”. Obviously he has been standing there for quite a while, knocking, waiting. And what was the response he received? Well, what we read in verse 3 boils down to: TOO MUCH BOTHER! After having gone through all the effort of undressing and washing her feet it was just too much to get up again, to put her clothes on and to run the risk of dirtying her feet once more. Her love was at a low ebb. She was just not keen.

In the meantime – and it is good to take careful note of this – her beloved was not in a hurry to get away. No, he extended his hand through the opening”. It is a bit hard perhaps to figure out what kind of opening this was. We are not going to waste time on these details.. What he was trying to do, evidently, was to unlock the door from the outside. Whatever he wanted to do, the bride could SEE that hand. And obviously this gesture made her come to her senses and change her mind. “My feelings were aroused for him” we read, in verse 4. All of a sudden she was ready to let him in after all. She now even felt very strongly about it. “She arose to open to her beloved”.

And then we read further in verse 5 that “her hands dripped with myrrh, and her fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the bolt”. What had happened was, that the bridegroom had brought her some myrrh which he had wanted to give to her.

But as she failed to open the door, he had just poured the myrrh over the door-handle so that as soon as she touched that handle, the myrrh would start running over her hand. By doing this the bridegroom had left her the evidence of his continuing love despite the disappointment that she had not been keen enough to let him in quickly. Obviously, to HIM love was something strong enough to cope with frustration and disappointment.

Well, how many people are there today who would really know what LOVE is? Love, is much more than being nice to somebody whom we like very much at a certain stage of our life. Love is not just that you want to embrace a person and kiss him or her. Love is not just a matter of love-making. But this is exactly what many people fail to see properly and why they get stuck with their love-relationships sooner or later.

Now we come back to that point where we said that there must be something very special about this love of husband and wife as it is portrayed for us in the context of a Biblical book. Nobody can really discover what real, genuine love is without having watched carefully the way in which GOD loves us. For the Bible is the Book of God for loveless man to show him what LOVE, real love, is like.

The best way of making this clear is to simply remind you of one particular verse in the Gospel where we find the Lord Jesus recorded as saying: “For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as ransom for many!” Love, that is SERVICE. Yes, even more. Love, that is SACRIFICE! Is not that exactly what we find here, too? Boy, was that a sad experience for the lover! Standing there knocking at the bride’s door, eager to come in… and then to hear: I CAN’T BE BOTHERED AT THIS TIME OF THE DAY!

Here we have a picture of unspeakable patience, even long-suffering on the part of the beloved. This was real love. He did not go away, because he was wild or mad. No, he did leave, but meanwhile he left behind a sure token of his continuing love. Love can wait! Love can suffer! Love can tolerate! Love is able to keep quiet and to…. persevere!

Now, is it not appropriate to think about this in the Advent season? Jesus knew all along that people were not going to be keen when He arrived. John said it so well in that familiar verse in his first Chapter, “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” We would often say to each other when Christmas time comes around again: Ah fine, that beautiful season of joy again! Yes, but did you ever think about this from Jesus’ angle? O true, “God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son…!” but in the meantime God, both the Father and the Son, knew very well that He was not going to be welcomed. The Gospel records however: AND YET, HE DID COME!

Yes, He knew all along that people could not be bothered about the greatest effort of love ever achieved. We all know about that scene in the holy city when the wise men arrived anxious to find out at the palace of King Herod, or from the people, the leaders in Jerusalem who were supposed to know and to rejoice in it…., where they would be able to find this new-born King! True, they got the answer, but nobody appeared keen to come along with them to the city of Bethlehem to see for themselves that the Messiah had arrived; to welcome and worship Him.

And the trouble is, that this is still the same in the world today. Even in the church at times! Yes even there, one would detect a mood sometimes where people would say: ‘Oh boy, here is that busy season again with all those extra activities. I’ll be glad when it is all over again!’ You have heard people say that, have you not? Or was it YOU yourself who said that last? O yes, WE have OUR way of saying to Jesus, the Bridegroom of the Church: “I have taken off my dress, how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet, how can I dirty them again?”

Love can suffer, we said a minute or two ago. That is true, is it not? It is true in a marriage where one of the two parties has become lax and has stopped making a genuine contribution to married happiness. And IF this is not checked, it will lead to a total breakdown of the marriage-relationship with all the sad consequences of it. Please, married people, watch the condition your marriage is in, NOW!

But, how is that with Christ? HE could suffer! He DID suffer!

He came to suffer and to die for the mere reason that WE could not be bothered anymore to love God and to love our fellowman. No, we are not in such a good shape that we would welcome the Christ of God! Not by nature!. At this time of Advent we are reminded by this dream in the Song of songs of that familiar picture of Rev.3:20, “Behold, I – Jesus – stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him and he with Me.” Do you hear that knock on YOUR door? Right now, while you watch the scene of this song? Today, a couple of weeks before Christmas 1978! “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts.”

When Charles H. Spurgeon thought about this passage once, do you. know what he said? It went something like this: ‘O my heart, how base you are, how shamefully cruel, that you keep your door tightly locked to the Crucified One!!’

How about YOUR love, brothers and sisters? How about YOUR marriage? It happens in the best of marriages, even Christian marriages, that the married love cools down, reaches a terribly low ebb. In such conditions, the long-suffering of a partner’s love is being tested heavily. Married unhappiness and unfaithfulness have crept into the churches in our modern day. It seems that more and more people cannot be bothered about DOING something to prevent the worst. People separate. People apply for a divorce. They do not believe in love, the kind of love that is ready to serve, to suffer, to sacrifice….!

And yet, this is what should happen among Christians. They should, in the power of the Lord in Whom they would say they still believe, be willing and keen to give their marriage another go, with Him. Please, drop all those excuses which are only good according to man and man’s standards.

What we are saying now, we would base on that myrrh of our passage. This lover was quite willing to go a second mile. Yes, even further than that….! Even though he had left, there was this evidence for her, after her desire for him had been aroused again and she had come to answer the door after all. This evidence that ‘he had not left her in anger. On the contrary! How sorry and sad she was now, that she had not responded straight away as she should have done. How would she ever be able to make up for that? “I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and had gone! My heart went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him, but I did not find him; I called him, but he did not answer me.”

Now it was her turn for HER love to be tested. Her lover would have loved to be there, but it was better for her to take a second look at herself and her own love first. She had to pass through this crisis-situation, for her own as well as for her lover’s good. Now she could prove that she really meant it when she searched for him in the street and called for him.

Things were not easy on her in the city.

This confrontation with the watchmen was far from pleasant. Who did THEY think she was? There was only one thing she wanted with all her heart now: to see her beloved! In spite of the horrible experience she did not give up. This is what we understand when reading further in this Chapter, how she started singing about her beloved. She knew, she had the proof of it on her hands, yes, she knew that he still loved her.

This is what God wants you, and us all, to be sure of, HIS LOVE, His undeserved love in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. This is why it is Advent-time again. This why it will be Christmas again, this year. This is why we shall have the Supper of the Lord again and again, the Baptism, and the continued Preaching of the Gospel, the Good News of God’s incomprehensible love in His Son, the Baby of Bethlehem, the Man of sorrows, the Risen and Ascended Lord.

Do WE long for Jesus the way the bride, AFTER ALL, WAS keen again to see her bridegroom?

AMEN.