When first becoming a believer, I heard about a small book in the Old Testament called the Song of Solomon. It was described as “scandalous” due to its evocative language surrounding love and marriage – a book that wouldn’t offer much to a single girl like me in her twenties. Fast forward a decade later and I’m just now realizing how much this made both the contents of the book and its broader purpose in the Bible nearly impossible to understand or at best irrelevant, even to someone now married. 

But recently, along with twenty other fellow believers, I’ve been taking a Biblical Theology class at my local church. Each week we approach a different genre of Scripture, seeking to understand how it illuminates Christ and his suffering (Luke 24:25-27). Last week, we looked at the five books of the Old Testament that comprise “wisdom literature” which to my surprise includes the Song of Solomon.

We read Chapter 2 in class, which is about a man going to great lengths to get to his bride. In verse 8 we read, “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills.” You feel the groom’s thrill in pursuing and moving toward his soon-to-be wife, displaying a longing and eagerness that refreshes the reader as we imagine ourselves in her place. It bids us to imagine “if only someone pursued me in that way.” But remember! This is a letter that is reflective of Jesus and the church, a love letter God wrote to his people. Instead of reading it as a how-to guide, or an old-fashioned story about traditional marriage, we get to read this as Jesus’s traveling at great lengths to get to his church, that is, this is the story of God’s very pursuit of you. Jesus didn’t bound over literal mountains and hills – he bound the chasm of heaven itself. He leaped down to earth to die for you to bring you back into his unending, never-breaking love.  

This passage could be re-written in a manner that depicts Jesus all the clearer:

The voice of my love, here he comes. Leaping over the greatest chasm, from heaven to earth, to be with us. He is full of grace, the perfect man. He has arrived and he is calling my name. 

He says to me, Get up, my love, the one I delight in, and come to me. For all the deadness of your winter has passed, it’s been nailed to the cross. And now, through my resurrection, life springs forth from the earth. Restoration of all creation is knocking at the door. The time to worship God forever is now here. Get up, my love, the one I adore, and come away with me. Do not hide, for there is no longer shame, but instead, come out in the open. I long to see your face, to hear your voice. 

I am yours and you are mine.

As I reflect on that truth, I think back to my twenty-something-year-old self and wish this was the picture someone would’ve painted for me, instead of telling me this book was off-limits until marriage. In that moment it felt as if I wasn’t worthy to read the book, when instead that is far from the truth! This book is a beautiful display of God’s intimacy toward his people and how sex is an illustration, not the fulfillment or purpose of love. Now, as someone who is married, this book bids me to see how marriage can’t be my God because my husband will not satisfy or fulfill the desires only God can fulfill. Marriage, and the Song of Solomon, is a reflection, pointing to a far more intimate and satisfying relationship, which is in Christ alone.