Proverbs 1:20-22, “Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy street she cries out… ‘How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?’”
At first it seems strange that Wisdom would speak to people in the “noisy streets” and “markets” and bustling of the city. Isn’t the noise and busyness and constant distraction of the big city something that would dull our ears and eyes to Wisdom?
One answer to this question comes as we consider what Wisdom is saying in these busy, noisy, stimulation-saturated environments….She is saying, “how long….” How long will you go on like this? How long will you live for this? How long will you continue down this path….eating as bread what is not bread, drinking as water what is not water….In the midst of the busyness and bustle of life, Wisdom cries out “how long?”
With that it mind, I wonder if it might not be that the cry of Wisdom is heard in the “noisy streets” precisely in the emptiness of the busy and that distracted lifestyle….precisely in the negative spaces, in the empty spaces. The hollowness of a life lived in the sway of doing the next thing IS itself the cry of Wisdom to our soul, the cry that says, “How long will you live like this?”
And what is the “shape” of that hollowness? What is the “shape” of the negative space carved out and left void by the constant stimulation of a distracted life? What is the “shape” of the True Feast of bread and wine to which Wisdom calls the wandering and foolish heart (Prov.9:4-6)? It is the shape of the crucified Jesus who is risen. HE is the shape of True Wisdom (1 Cor. 1:24), True Satisfaction (John 6:35), True Rest (Matt. 11:28), and True Life (John 14:6, 17:3). The name and satisfaction of every longing within us is Jesus Christ.
The aching recognition that, despite all this, I am empty….THAT is the cry of Wisdom to our soul saying, “How long?”. And the “shape” of the space left empty by our distracted life is—if we look at it—the shape of Jesus Christ. The name and satisfaction of every longing within us is the crucified and risen Son of God.
Of course, if we are honest, we will realize that our entire existence is part of the empty space that must be filled up with Christ….Wisdom eventually brings us to the place of recognition that it’s not just a “void in our hearts” that Jesus fills, but that our entire being is a “void” that must be filled up with Him. We are and have nothing apart from Him.
