Our tears will dry
A reflection for August 29th
First a confession. The phrase “Our tears will dry” is an absolute and unashamed pinch from someone far more articulate than I, but as always you deserve the best and the best I can offer today is this simple but profound phrase “Our tears will dry”.
This mornings first lesson is from the book called the Song of songs. If you have never read it then you should. It will only take you about 20 minutes to read. It comes with a warning though and the warning is that it is a pretty racy raunchy read. Probably MA 15 years and older. Someone cheekily said it was the sealed adult section of the bible. So if you thought that the bible had nothing to say about that marvellous intimate union between a man and woman then I am very pleased to be able to tell you that you are wrong. Check this out!
The voice of my beloved!
Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Look, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.
My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;
So here’s a bit of background.
The Songs of Songs was written in the 5th century, B.C., and is attributed to King Solomon the guy with lots of wives and concubines. It is written in a very poetic manner, and on the face of it, it is a love poem clearly showing the love, anticipation of, and of the great admiration for, the woman through whose eyes the male object of her affection is perceived.
Look, he comes,
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
“Marvellous stuff!”
There are three ways of interpreting this book:
First, it is speaking of God’s love for his People;
Secondly, it is a parable about the loving relationship between Christ and his Church.
Thirdly, it is seen as describing the love between a bride and groom. The book is intended to say how fabulous married love is in the sight of God. It is a wedding song honouring marriage, showing that human love and sex are good in God’s eyes. Sex is good because God gave it to us. But like all of God’s gifts it is not to be abused.
But I think this book speaks to another pining, another ache that is deep within us and all around.
In these times we are grieving and longing for the days of yore. We miss life as it was at the beginning on 2020. How idyllic and easy it all was back then. We grieve for the closeness of those who we cannot reach out and touch. We are also yearning for a future when all this is behind us and we want that just as surely and as potently as the bride wants her hubby in the song of songs.
The good news is that one day the flowers will blossom, our hearts will sing, we will giggle and chortle and the sense of His closer presence will be restored.
“But”, you rightly and understandably ask, “When will these things come about? When can we ditch the masks, the QR codes and the sanitiser?” My answer is that I don’t know exactly. I have scoured my diary and cannot find a single entry where this new era is scribbled in.
Mmmmm… perhaps ‘when’ is not the right question. Perhaps it is enough to know that it will be.
Remember the ache of the two parted lovers from the Song of songs?
The ache they felt for each other is as powerful as the same ache that we feel for the past and for the future. The difference is that our ache for a different time zone and reality is often about our own convenience or inconvenience. The ache of separation that the lovers feel is always about someone else, the other, our beloved. This is the same as our longing for Him, which is the same as the desire He has for us.
There will be a time when…
the winter is past,
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers will appear on the earth;
the time of singing will come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
will be heard in our land.
Spring will come again, lovers will be reunited and our tears will dry. They will dry because He will be so close to us, that He will be able to reach out and wipe our tears away. And when all our tears have been expunged and are finally dried, then we will be able to see him as He truly is. Then we will understand that He also has been crying. Crying for us and crying with us.
Our tears will dry because we will again understand and rejoice in the simple fact that we adore a compassionate, broken, wounded healer who yearns to be close to us. Our tears will dry.