The Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon) is a beautiful and intriguing collection of love poems which can be found in the Old Testament. Compiled around two and a half thousand years ago, it has sparked a huge amount of debate among both Jews and Christians as to whether it should be included in the Bible: it has also inspired many Jews and Christians in their faith as well as many poets and painters in their art. The poems within the Song of Songs focus on the relationship between two lovers, a man and a woman, reflecting the relationship between God and his people. Similarly, Christians later interpreted the love story which is the Song of Songs as reflecting the relationship between Jesus Christ and his people. The Song of Songs is full of love, beauty, passion and pain, but mainly love and beauty. Compiled in a world where relationships were shaped within strong hierarchies, the two lovers radically demonstrated a loving mutuality where neither controlled the other but both worked for the flourishing of the other. Indeed, the flourishing of the one depended on the flourishing of the other. The Song of Songs encourages loving mutuality in relations between God and humanity, between human beings and between humanity and creation.
Christmas is a love story. The well-known Christmas carol ‘It came upon a midnight clear’ says as much when it describes God’s message announced to humanity by the angels as a love song:
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.
The miracle of Christmas is God loving the world so passionately that he was willing to become vulnerable and be born as a human being so that we may live and flourish as fully as possible. The birth of Jesus Christ modelled a loving mutuality between God and humanity. It is when we are open to God’s love that the darkness that surrounds us in the world (which is currently apparent in Ukraine, Gaza, Magdeburg in Germany, Syria and within the UK) and the darkness which may be invading our lives (for a whole host of reasons) does not trap us in a mood of negativity and hopelessness. At the same time, being open to receiving God’s love will encourage us to challenge the darkness in order that others flourish. As the Song of Songs shows, the key to our personal flourishing lies in the flourishing of others.
While there are many similarities between the love story in the Song of Songs and that of Christmas Day, there are also differences. One of the lessons we learn from the Song of Songs is ‘Love is as strong as death.’ Whereas what we come to learn from the life of Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day, is that love is stronger than the forces of negativity and even death itself.
May you be particularly aware of God’s love this Christmas, a love which will always be there.
Bishop Brian Castle 