Song of Songs 3:6-11 speaks of wedding preparations. I spent from July 2014 to September 2015 involved in the wedding preparations of my son and his fiancée. On the agenda included venues and menus, table decorations, reception room decorations, photographs, music boards, seating plans, flowers, outfits, backdrops, table covers, party favours, party games, music, registrars, hen & stag events and service preparation. It was a hectic time with minute attention to detail which culminated in a fantastic day!
Song of Songs 3:6-11 shows us Solomon’s preparations for his wedding and acts in some ways as a prophetic description of the preparations for another wedding still to come, that of Christ to the church. Solomon’s wedding preparations focus attention on the groom; we do well to gaze daily on Christ, to inhale His aroma and to allow our eyes to dwell on His majesty (that crown of thorns has been replaced by another one of gold, see Rev 14:14). Solomon’s carriage was made of the cedars of Lebanon; we do well to ponder that heavy beam carried by Christ on which He hung in order to save us from our sins.
Solomon comes out of the desert, and for many of us, we have to acknowledge the barrenness of our own lives and of our culture and society before any spiritual progress can be made. Solomon was accompanied by ‘sixty mighty men armed against the terrors of the night‘, and we too have to be prepared to engage in spiritual warfare, relying on the Word of God as the sword of the Spirit (see Eph 6:10-20, Ps 149:6, 2 Cor 10:4-5). Prayer involves the Word of God; we need to be soaked in this word and ready to use this vital weapon, for one reason the marriage celebration has not taken place is because there are still people to be saved. Only as we take our part in this battle for souls through prayer and witness can we help to speed the coming of the day of the Lord (see 2 Pet 3:12).
Charlie Cleverly says of this passage ‘May we leave the wilderness having been thoroughly trained through it. May we come out of it leaning on the Beloved, perfumed with Christ-like character. May we be armed in prayer – may we play our full role in the wedding!’ (‘The Song of Songs’, P 132)
My involvement in my son’s wedding was a once-in-a-lifetime privilege. I long to be as involved in the preparations for the wedding of the Lamb as I was in those other preparations. I long to see the Church, Christ’s beautiful bride, meeting her Groom face to face (see Rev 21:2-4), all shame and guilt and sin removed by the sacrifice of Christ. We were chosen in Christ before the creation of the world ‘to be holy and blameless in His sight’ (Eph 1:4). May all our preparations have this goal in sight.
