Songs 2:14 O my dove, that are in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice… My text contains a parable. The parable is one easy for us to realize. There rises somewhere in the Jewish land a mountain of rock, and it rises precipitously. Looked at from beneath it would seem as if its peak were inaccessible. Yet to the cragsmen of the district it is an oft-trodden path. They rise from ledge to ledge of the rock as by a natural staircase, and they pause and rest in its grottoes and caverns, and find refreshment in the ascent. To one at least this is a well. known spot. Again and again he climbs its height, and he has entered into familiar intercourse with one of those making their homes in the cleft of the rock. There dwells a dove that he has tamed, one who knows his voice, one who in his sight is unequalled in comeliness, one the sound of whose note is as the sweetest music to his ear. And as he climbs the mountain ascending to where the dove dwells, he cries, "O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice: for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely." Such is the parable. What is its interpretation? — at least to Christian men? To us the Song of Solomon comes as a beautiful poem, revealing to us the conditions of Christian life as lived in the love of Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the cragsman typified of old! He draws nigh to His Church, as at this Lenten season; He speaks to His dove, His undefiled one, in the words we are considering now. And this is His cry — God grant that it may be answered by you, my brothers, at this Lenten Season, "Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice: for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely." A dove is a type of innocence, I know, but not a type of sinless innocence. It is a type of innocency recovered by contrition. Ezekiel is our teacher here. Be sees Israel escaped from bondage and restored to her fatherland, and thus describes her dwelling there. He shall be like the dove on the mountains, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity. There is no sound so peaceful and so plaintive as the note of the dove. Peaceful, for contrition is a state of peace. Yet, after all, mouruful is his plaintive note, because in the contrite, true sorrow co-exists with peace and joy. And this is the call of Jesus Christ at this time — that we will lift to Him the countenance that is marked with tears of penitence; that we will lay at His feet in the consecrated songs of the Church our misereres for forgiven sin. Always in the Church's worship, in the worship of the individual creature, blended with the voice of loud thanksgiving must be the wailing note of the dove. It is this truth, I am sure, that we need to recognise — that contrition is of necessity a feature of Christian life, because that Christian life is lived by those who are not wholly free from sin, As we go on our way day by day we are conscious of shortcomings. Nay, nay, happy is he .who is not conscious from time to time of deliberate deviation from the law of righteousness. And even beyond that, whatever is wrought out in us by the great crisis of conversion, it does not break that link of personality which links us to our sin-stained past. We who live in the Divine peace and love and obedience now are they who sinned in the sin-stained past. We cannot, if we are wise or true, act as though there were no link linking us to that past. Our life, therefore, of necessity, must be a life of contrition for sin, and all the more intense just because that sin is forgiven. How, then, is this contrition to be ours? God gives the answer in this season of Lent. Lent is one of the seasons of our Divine education. Christ has created by His Spirit this season of Lent in the Catholic Church, in order that He may teach us how to live a contrite life. Well, how? In varied ways. Sometimes this contrition is awakened or deepened within us by a revelation of the reality of God, as it was to Isaiah. Sometimes by strange Divine interpositions in the ordinary course of life, as it was to Simon Peter by the lake. Sometimes in the course of deep, engrossing study, as it was with the Magi. Sometimes by a Divine call meeting us in the path of our duty, as it was when Matthew was called from the receipt of custom. Yet, mainly, Jesus educates us into contrition by the revelation of Himself as the crucified Lord. It was thus when the 3,000 were brought to contrition. And so it has been all down through the ages, as the testimony of the history of the Church bears witness. And so it is to-day, as every evangelist will bear testimony. Generally men are brought to contrition, generally men are maintained in contrition, generally men advance in contrition through the revelation of Jesus to the sinner as the crucified, by the power of the Holy Ghost. Nor is it difficult to see why this is. Contrition depends upon conviction of sin. It begins in our conviction of sin; it grows with the deepening of conviction of sin; and this conviction of sin is ours through the revelation of the Cross of Christ. As we recognize the connection between man's sins and the Redeemer's sorrows, and see what sin is in its exceeding sinfulness; our eyes are opened to judge of sin aright, and our judgment expresses itself in self-condemnation. Again, contrition implies not only conviction of sin, but the knowledge of God's love. A knowledge of sin's exceeding sinfulness, unless it is followed by a revelation of Divine love, would result in despair and death. But God, who sees our position of danger when we are convicted of sin, reveals unto us Jesus Christ crucified, as being the unveiling of Himself as the God of Love. He bids us see in the eyes of love which look down upon the world from the cross, eyes that are lit up with the very love of God Himself. And yet once more. If in the vision of the cross there is given to us a revelation of the greatness of sin, and then of the greatness of the love of God speaking to the sinner in his sorrow, and giving to him the kiss of reconciliation, there comes to us a revelation of what a sinner's life should be as lived under this conviction of sin and in this vision of the love of God. It is to be a life of humility as the sinner kneels at the loving Father's feet and breathes out in acts of devotion his own sorrow for sin. It is to be a life of zeal, as he rises to show this sorrow for a wasted past by devotion to the service of God in the living present. It is to be a life of patient conformity to the Divine discipline, as he recognizes in the sorrows of life God's blessed living purgatory in which His own children are purified and educated according to His will. So, then, if you would go forth and really live with God during this season of Lent; if you would have your Lent life a reality and not a mere ecclesiastical sham, let it be a Lent spent at the feet of Jesus Christ, your crucified, your enthroned Redeemer; give yourselves up to Him in whole abandonment, and in the spirit of prayer. Call upon Him in the power of His Spirit, to give you deeper conviction of sin, a grasp of Divine love, a stronger purpose to live a life of firmer humility, of zeal, and patience. Above all, remember this — there is no living the life of contrition unless it is lived in the Divine peace. How wisely we learn this from the order of the Church's seasons. Shrove Tuesday is not in Holy Week, nor is its teaching assigned to Easter Eve. It is not first Lent, and then forgiveness; it is first forgiveness and then Lent. Through Shrove Tuesday we pass by the door of Ash Wednesday into the Lent of contrition. And so it is, believe me, in our Christian life. If we would really mourn before God for sin with a generous and unselfish mourning; if we would sing the song that he longs to hear, we must sing it in the clefts of rock. It is only as we surrender ourselves to Christ for forgiveness of the past; only as we cling to Him in love and faith and hope for acceptance in the living present; only as we entrust ourselves to Him for the future that awaits us; in a word, it is only as we live in realized union with Him as our Redeemer, that we can ever offer Him the contrition that He craves. (Canon Body.) Parallel Verses KJV: O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely. |
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