Song of Songs 2:10-12, “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come…”
I came across this verse back when I was reading through SOS, but I wanted to save the picture for near Easter time. I wasn’t sure if it would be specifically for Easter or not, and its ended up being a fitting follow up to the sequence of images I put together for this past weekend (with the crown of Christ’s suffering / love / glory being placed on the head of His bride in this image).
As I mentioned when posting the last SOS picture, I think its fitting to read the Song as a poetic expression of marital love as well as a picture of God’s love for His people (in fact, if you see it as speaking of marital love at all, then it must be also and more fundamentally speaking of God’s love for His people since marriage is an “incarnate” parable of Christ’s love for the Church). So, when I read these verses I couldn’t help but hear echoes of Revelation 20 and 21.
What an awesome hope we have! All of us who are trusting in Christ–together with His people from all ages and places–WILL hear these words spoken to us from the throne of the universe…In light of that truth, what weight and wonder are bound up in those words, “winter is past…” Glory to God! Cancer is past, deformity is past, abuse and envy and anger and pettiness and self-absorption and nerve gas and sorrow and loss is past…….what a word that will be….
And even now the winter of sin and death have passed in part…with the resurrection of the Son, the icicles have begun to melt, the rivers are filling, the air is tinged with fresh warmth….but the day is coming when it will be over and gone once and for all and our Lord Himself will lead His Bride (from all nations, languages and tribes) into an eternal Spring of intratrinitarian joy. May it be soon!
