It's a cold December day in New York City. A young man about 10 years old was standing barefoot in front of a shoe store on Broadway, peeking out the window and shivering with cold.
A lady approached the boy and said: "My young man, what do you look so insistently at the window?
"I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes," was the boy's response.
The lady took him by the hand and entered the store, asked the vendor to bring half a dozen socks for the boy. Then, he asked if I could get him a pot of water and a towel.
He brought them quickly. She took the boy to the back of the store and, taking off his gloves, knelt down, washed his feet and dried them with the towel.
By then, the salesman had returned with the socks.
Placing a pair on the boy's feet, then she bought him a pair of shoes, and tying the rest of the pairs of socks, handed them over. He gave him a pat on the head and said: "No doubt, my little friend, you will feel more comfortable now."
Upon leaving, the astonished boy took her hand and, looking at her face, with tears in her eyes, answered her with these words: "Are you the wife of God?"
We do not know the Author
There is no doubt that when we are compassionate we resemble God, because God is Compassionate. We extend our friendly and tender hand not only in December, but throughout the year.
Thus shine your light before men, so that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 5:16.
Remembering this anecdote of the wife of God, I want to talk a little about that love for his wife who is the church, a book that I love very much about the Bible is the Song of Songs.
The wife of the Song of Songs is in an ever ascending, indefatigable progress, in search of the Beloved. Driven by a burning desire of God, he performs certain movements that speak of a search and encounter dynamic. Therefore, full of desire and loving his Husband, he says: "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!".
The Song of Songs is a poem written to extol the virtues of love between a husband and his wife. Is that in the Bible love is relevant.
The poem presents marriage as God conceives and materializes in Eden: A man and a woman live and give themselves in the context of marriage, loving one another spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
The theme of the book is the love between Solomon and the Sunamite. It is a letter of romance between two people who love each other. But we also see in her the love of God for her church and for every Christian in particular.
This book is a divine allegory that represents the love between Christ and the Church of true believers, with figures taken from the relationship and affection that exists between a husband and his wife; an emblem often used in Scripture to describe the most intimate, firm, and secure relationship: see Psalm 45: Isaiah 54, 5, 6; 62, 5; Jeremiah 2: 2; 3: 1; also in Ezekiel, Hosea and our Lord, Matthew 9:15; 25: 1: see also Revelation 21: 2, 9; Ephesians 5: 27
There is no character in the Church of Christ and no situation in which the believer is placed, that can not be searched in this book, as the humble screeners will find, when compared to other passages, with the help of God the Holy Spirit, and in response to your pleas. However, much of the language has been misunderstood by the speakers and the translators.
Content.
The poetry takes the form of a dialogue between a husband, the king, and his wife, the Shulammite. The book can be divided into three sections:
The courtship, 1: 1 - 3: 5;
The wedding, 3: 6 - 5: 1; Y
Marriage at maturity, 5: 2 - 8:14.
The singing begins before the wedding, while the future bride longs to be with her fiancé, and dreams of her intimate caresses. However, she advises letting love develop naturally, in its own time. The king praises the beauty of the Shulamite, overcoming her feelings of insecurity about her appearance.
Oh, if he kissed me with kisses from his mouth! Because your loves are better than wine. Besides the smell of your soft ointments, Your name is like ointment spilled; That's why the maidens love you. Catch me; we will run after you. The king has put me in his cameras; We will rejoice and rejoice in you; We will remember your loves more than wine; They rightly love you. "(Song of Songs 1: 1-4).
This is "The Song of Songs" excellent above all others, because it is totally dedicated to describing the excellences of Christ and his love with his redeemed people.
THE CHURCH CONFIES ITS DEFORMITY.
Vv. 2-6. The Church, or rather the believer, speaks here in his character as the King's wife, the Messiah. -The kisses of his mouth signify the assurance of forgiveness with which believers are favored, filling them with peace and joy, believing, and making them abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The souls in grace are pleased to the utmost in loving Christ and being loved by Him. The love of Christ is more valuable and desirable than the best that this world can give. The name of Christ is not now as sealed ointment, but as spilled ointment, which denotes the freedom and fullness of the establishment of his grace by the gospel.
Those that He has redeemed and sanctified are here the virgins who love Jesus Christ, and follow Him where He goes, Revelation 14: 4. They ask Him to guide them by the life-giving influence of His Spirit. The more clearly we discern the glory of Christ, the more aware we are that we are unable to follow him properly and, at the same time, we are more willing to do so.
Note the prompt response given to this sentence. Those who wait at the door of Wisdom will be guided in truth and consolation. Taken to this chamber, our sorrows will vanish. We have no joy except in Christ and for this we are in debt to Him. We will remember to give thanks for your love; it will cause us more lasting impressions than anything else in this world. Love for Christ is not acceptable if it is not sincere love, Ephesians 6: 24.
The daughters of Jerusalem can be professors not yet firm in the faith. The wife was black, like the tents of Arab nomads, but beautiful as the magnificent curtains of Solomon's palaces. The believer is black, by contamination and sinner by nature, but beautiful to be renewed by divine grace in the holy image of God.
It is still deformed with residues of sin, but beautiful because it is accepted in Christ. It is often low and despicable for the estimation of men, but excellent in the eyes of God. The blackness was due to the harsh treatment suffered. The children of the Church, their mother, but not God, their Father, were angry with her. They had made her suffer hard things that made her leave the care of her soul.
Thus, under the emblem of a poor woman, made the chosen spouse of a prince, we are led to consider the circumstances in which Christ is accustomed to find the objects of his love. They were miserable slaves of sin, in hard labor, afflicted, exhausted and very burdened, but how great the change when the love of Christ is manifested to their souls!
Episode 2
1 I am the rose of Sharon,
And the lily of the valleys.
2 Like the lily among the thorns,
This is my friend among the maidens.
3 Like the apple tree among the wild trees,
This is my beloved among the young men:
Under the shadow of the desired one I sat down,
And its fruit was sweet on my palate.
4 He took me to the chamber of wine,
And his flag over me was love.
5 Sustain me with flasks, corroborate me with apples;
Because I'm sick with love.
6 Your left is under my head,
And his right embraces me.
THE MUTUAL LOVE OF CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH.
Believers are beautiful because they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ; and fragrant, to be adorned with the graces of his Spirit; they bloom under the refreshing rays of the Sun of justice. The lily is a very noble plant in the East; It grows at considerable height, but it has a weak stem.
The Church itself is weak, but it is strong in the one that sustains it. The bad ones, the daughters of this world who have no love for Christ, are like thorns, worthless and useless, harmful and harmful. The corruptions are thorns in the flesh, but the lily that is now among thorns, will be transplanted to that paradise where there are no weeds or thorns. The world is a barren tree for the soul, but Christ is the fruitful one.
When the poor souls are parched under the conviction of sin, with the terrors of the law, or the problems of this world, tired and heavily laden, they must find rest in Christ. It is not enough to go under his shadow but we must sit under it. Believers have liked that the Lord Jesus is good; its fruits are all the precious privileges of the new covenant purchased by his blood, and communicated by his Spirit; sweet promises for the believer, and also the precepts.
The pardons are sweet and the peace of conscience, sweet. If our mouths are bitter for the pleasures of sin, divine consolations will be sweet to us. Christ leads the soul to seek and find consolation through his ordinances, which are like a banquet house where his saints celebrate with him.
The love of Christ, manifested by his death and by his word, is the flag that He unfolds, and the believers turn to Him. How much better it is for the soul to be sick of love for Christ than when it is satiated with the love of this world! Although Christ seemed to have retired, it was still a very present help.
All his saints are in his hand, which tenderly holds his aching heads. Finding Christ so close to her, the soul takes great care that her communion with him is interrupted. We easily contaminate the Spirit with bad tempers. Those who have consolation, fear to sin and lose it.
THE CARE OF CHRIST FOR THE CHURCH, FAITH AND HOPE OF HER.
The Church is the dove of Christ; she returns to Him, as to her Noah. Christ is the Rock, the only one in whom she can feel safe and secure, like a turtle dove in the hole of a rock, when she is attacked by birds of prey. Christ calls her to come directly to the throne of grace, having there a great High Priest, to say what his request is. Speak freely Do not be afraid of rejection or contempt.
The voice of prayer is sweet and acceptable to God; those who are sanctified have the best beauty. The first dawn of sinful thought and desires, the beginnings of futile searches that waste time, trivial visits, small detours of truth, whatever admits something of conformity to the world, all these, and many more are foxes small ones that destroy their graces and consolations, and crush the good beginnings.
What we find is a hindrance to us in what is good, we must do it aside. He fed among the lilies; this shows the graceful presence of Christ among the believers. He is kind to all His people. It is up to you to believe this, when you are abandoned and absent, to be able to reject temptations.
Conclusion:
The communion between God and men finds its definitive fulfillment in Christ Jesus, the Bridegroom who loves and is given as Savior of humanity, uniting it to himself as his body. He reveals the original truth of marriage, the truth of the "beginning" and , freeing man from the hardness of the heart, makes him able to fully realize it.
This revelation reaches its definitive fullness in the gift of love that the Word of God makes to humanity by assuming human nature, and in the sacrifice that Jesus Christ makes of himself on the cross for his Spouse, the Church. In this sacrifice the design that God has printed in the humanity of man and woman since its creation is revealed entirely; the marriage of the baptized thus becomes the real symbol of the new and eternal Covenant, sanctioned with the blood of Christ. The Spirit that infuses the Lord renews the heart and makes man and woman capable of loving each other as Christ loved us. Conjugal love thus reaches the fullness to which it is internally ordered, conjugal charity, which is the proper and specific way in which the spouses participate and are called to live the same charity of Christ that is given on the cross.
