The Song of Solomon is a metaphorical story about a Christian who decides to make the great ambition of their life to experience and express the fullest measure of their union with Christ as possible in this life. At the beginning of her journey, the Shulamite maiden cries out to the Lord, “Take me away with you and let us run.” The Shulamite wanted to experience the life that Jesus lives, and her passion to experience Christ as her life was filled with a sense of urgency. At the outset of her spiritual journey, she declared that she was “dark the lovely.” She was being confronted, at the beginning, with the weakness and imperfections of her humanity. As new creations, even though we are hidden in Christ, we still have weaknesses, but because we are in Christ, those weaknesses are woven into His life experience so that in our weakness, His strength is made perfect. Do we sometimes choose not to abide, allowing our imperfections to squeak out through the cracks of blood and guts daily living? Yes, but when that happens, we simply remember that we have already been forgiven and, in the next step, start abiding again, celebrating our smallness (weaknesses) because they provide the platform from which He can demonstrate His version of Christ-likeness, which is a much more authentic version than our own imitation of Christ. Our neediness throws the burden all on Him, which He cherishes because it pushes grace to the forefront.
Beginning in the Song of Solomon 2:9 – 5:2, five different times, Solomon (the Jesus type in the story) refers to us as “my sister, my bride.” The bride thing we can all understand, but why does he refer to us as his bride and His sister? The answer is simple, the bride that He has chosen is human, and He identifies with our humanity and embraces us in our weaknesses. Jesus is the only one who is right to fall in love with someone who is needy and wed them, convinced that he is the solution to their brokenness. He doesn’t just believe he can fix us; He believes that He is our fix. After calling us His sister and bride for the 5th time in chapter 5:2, He says that we are “His perfect one.” He considers us in our humanity as His perfect partner. He took us as his bride with His lovesick eyes and ravished heart wide open. The member of the Trinity, who though always God is forever human, married us in our humanity. How greatest salvation!