Wednesday • 10/19/2022 • Proper 24

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 38; Song of Songs 2:1-7; Revelation 8:1-13; Luke 10:17-24

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 11 (“The Third Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 60:1-3,11a,14c,18-19, BCP, p. 87); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 16 (“The Song of Zechariah,” Luke 1:68-79, BCP, p. 92)

An audio or video version of this devotional can be found here: Apple Podcast, Spotify Podcast, YouTube

For our Old Testament reading this week and the next two, I am treating the Song of Songs instead of the lectionary’s choice, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Ben Sirach). Together, I hope we are discovering or rediscovering some of this “Best of Song’s” enchantment. Today’s portion is Song of Songs 2:1–7. 

Love’s “already” and “not yet” in the Song of Songs. The best way to take today’s verses in Song of Songs, I think, is as a dreamlike reverie. Our female singer recalls an exchange of compliments between herself and her beloved: he has compared her to a lily among brambles, she has compared him to a fruit-bearing tree among plain forest trees that bear no fruit. She recalls his having set a lavish place for them in his “house of wine,” where he has even hung a banner proclaiming his love for her. As the RSV rightly renders 2:4: “He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.” She recalls the overwhelming sensory delight of the food and of the wine … and of being held in his arms. 

But at the moment he is absent, though the text does not explain why. Nevertheless, the text takes us inside the ache that love’s touch has awakened in her. And she speaks to her female companions—whether literally or in her reverie: “By the heavens (“gazelles” and “wild does” are terms that in Hebrew look like euphemisms for “mighty ones” who make up the “army of hosts” of the Lord of hosts), don’t awaken love before its time.” 

This last note—this plaintiff, poignant yearning for love—becomes a theme in the Song of Songs. It will be sounded twice more in the Song of Songs—here at 2:7, and then also at 3:5 and 8:4. Each time, love’s yearning is answered by the arrival of the beloved (2:8; 3:6-7; 8:5). 

Jewish and Christian interpreters alike have found themselves irresistibly contemplating the “already” and “not yet” dynamic of God’s relationship with his people in these verses. The Targum (an Aramaic translation of the Bible) suggests that the “lovesickness” expressed in the Song refers to the longing of displaced Jewish people for their homeland; even so, sings Diaspora Israel, “I received the banner of His commandments over me with love.” For their part, Christians have known an Incarnate Lord who has healed the leper and the lame and the blind and the dead. Jesus has allowed his own body to be raised on a cross as a banner of God’s love. Now, even in the absence of his physical presence, he has promised to be nonetheless present by his Spirit at the Eucharistic Banqueting Table, where believers proclaim his death “until his coming again” (1 Corinthians 11:26). 

There is perhaps no better juxtaposition of love’s “already” and love’s “not yet” than in the pairing of today’s Gospel reading with today’s reading from Revelation. 

Love’s “already” in Luke. In Luke, the seventy whom Jesus has sent out return with such amazing reports of God’s healing power that they have seen demons submit to them. Jesus tells them that while they were ministering, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” (Luke 10:18). And it’s altogether telling that Jesus reminds his disciples that the greater blessing by far is that their names are written in heaven—a place at the Table of the Messianic Banquet is more important than the level of power they manifest in this life. “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!” Here is love’s “already”—the kiss from heaven. “For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it” (Luke 10:23b-24).

Love’s “not yet” in Revelation. In Revelation 5, Jesus Christ, portrayed as the Lion of Judah who has been slain as a Lamb, comes forward as being the only one who is worthy to unroll the scrolls of history. In chapters 6 & 7, he unrolls the first six scrolls; and they tell a tale of judgment. That brings us to today’s reading of Revelation 8. In this chapter, there is a pregnant pause as Jesus opens the seventh seal: “there was silence in heaven for about a half an hour.” 

Something extraordinary happens during this half an hour. Judgment will continue; that is why seven trumpets are distributed to seven angels. But just then, before the blowing of the trumpets, an angel with a golden censer appears before the altar:

he was given a great quantity of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth; and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake (Revelation 8:3b-5).

Ever since Revelation 6:10, the martyred saints have been crying out “How long?” before the Lord metes out justice on the earth. “How long” must the “not yet” of our redemption go on? Now, here in Revelation 8, we see that the prayers of the saints accompany the trumpets of judgment. In our further reading in Revelation, we shall see that God is sovereignly at work. He intends to bring final judgment against all that is evil and to bring Christ’s Bride through it all. And at one and the same time, what God is sovereignly and, I would submit, lovingly doing toward that end, he does in response to our prayers, rising upon the incense. 

Worship, once again, takes center stage for us. In the context of the Song of Songs, our participation in the Eucharist is a celebration of love that has already been shown us in Christ. In the context of Revelation, our participation in the ministry of prayer is an anticipation of love’s conquest of evil and the preparation of the Marriage Feast of the Lamb. 

Be blessed this day,

Reggie Kidd+