Bible
Study: Songs 2, 8 to 14. And Luke 1, 39 to 45.
At the
very heart of our celebrations at Christmas is the fact of God’s love for us
collectively as a human race and individually as his own children. Take it or
leave it, the most popular verse in the bible still remains John 3, 16. “For
God so loved…”
No wonder
then, our first reading today comes from the Songs of Solomon, a book not very
easy to understand unless it is read with the right context. The songs are not
about a man and a woman otherwise everything in there would be out rightly
impossible. The whole book of Songs is indeed a commentary of John 3, 16. God
himself is the lover and man the loved.
Now, to
assist us with a correct interpretation of the entire book of Songs, let us
just juxtapose our two readings for today.
“The voice
of my beloved, behold he comes leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the
hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold he stands behind
our wall gazing in at the windows… My beloved speaks and says to me: Arise…”
“In those days, Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country.” Do you
see a connection here? The feet of Mary carrying God in her womb moving with
haste to the house of Elizabeth becomes that of the lover leaping upon the
mountains, bounding over the hills. “And she entered the house of Zechariah and
greeted Elizabeth.”
Mary is
pregnant with Jesus who is God and love itself, and behold she is standing in
front of the house of Elizabeth and she calls out in greeting. Mary’s voice
becomes that of Jesus himself, being a young stag calling out in love. Her
voice becomes the voice of the beloved spoken of in the book of songs. Her
voice brings great joy and Elizabeth who is unable to hold herself responds:
“For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the child in my
womb leaped for joy.”
There are many
many, even millions of stories about love but I dare say none is as beautiful
and everlasting as the love of God for man. We waste too much time and energy
looking for love or giving away love in places where we never stop getting
disappointed. There is only place where true love is found; it is right where
it originates from – God. Yes, God whose real name is Love.
The greatest
difficulty we often encounter in spiritual life is the difficulty of accepting
the fact that God loves us deeply in a way that no one else and nothing else
can ever love us. We only begin to grow in spiritual life when we start loving
God by longing for his voice as the Songs of Solomon depicts.
In the
end, Christmas is a love story, a meeting of love taking flesh just to be with
and save the beloved. You and I are the beloved. Question is, do we even
appreciate this love? What are we going to do about it henceforth?
Let us
Pray: Lord Jesus, I love you, deepen my love for you daily. Amen.
Be Happy. Live Positive. Have Faith.
It is well with you. God bless you.
Fr. Abu.
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