Songs 2:3 As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight… St. Bernard takes this as telling of the Passion of Christ, and especially of the time when, as he hung on the cross, there was "darkness over all the land." Now, it does not mean this, but rather, as the whole context of the verso tells, of the cool shelter from the sun's fierce heat and glare which the speaker enjoyed beneath the o'erarching of the boughs of the tree under which she had seated herself. Hence it tells of "the shadow of the Almighty," of which Psalm 91 so fully speaks. Therefore let us take this - I. ITS TRUE MEANING. "Man is born to trouble;" he needs shelter continually. The sun smites him by day; the fierce heat of life's cares and distresses often make him faint and weary. Now: 1. There are other shelters which men often choose. The world offers many. (1) Its riches. Men think, if they can only get these, they will be protected from all harm, both they and theirs. Hence men struggle after them incessantly. (2) Its friends. If we can gather round us a sufficient number of these, and of the right kind, we sit down under that shadow with great delight. (3) Its pleasures also. Men plunge into them as into some leafy covert, where they can hide themselves from the darts of all kinds of pursuing pains. But are not all these what the prophet calls "walls daubed with untempered mortar;" or, as in another place another prophet speaks, "battlements" which are "not the Lord's"? 2. But what harm they do us! They are short-lived, and when our sorest need comes these Jonah gourds have all withered. And at the best they are but imperfect. They can for a while affect our circumstances, but the soul, the true seat of all trouble, they cannot better, but only make worse. For they do us this wrong also - they come between us and man's only true Shelter, "the shadow of the Almighty." They hinder our seeing and our seeking it, and then, sooner or later, do assuredly fail us themselves. Under the image of "cisterns, broken cisterns, which can bold no water," and for the sake of which men in their folly forsake the fountain of living waters, Jeremiah mourns the same infatuation. 3. But the Lord is alone man's true Defence. The failure of others, the unvaried protection that this affords, is proof incontestable. This blessed shadow, whilst Israel rested in it, sheltered them from all evil; and it does so still forevery one that "dwelteth in the secret place of the Most High" - every one, that is, who abides in the trust of him of whom the secret place told. That secret place was the inner chamber in the tabernacle which was known as the most holy place, and which was emphatically secret, for it was never entered but once a year, and then by the high priest alone. But it told of man's need of God's grace, and of that grace provided for him. To trust, then, in that God was, and is, to dwell "under the shadow of the Almighty." May that happy lot be ours! II. THE MEANING IT HAS SUGGESTED. The shadow of the cross, the shadow into which our Lord entered during his Passion especially. 1. It was his shadow. See the agony in the garden; hear the cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast," etc.? Read Psalm 22., which tells of those dread hours. We read, once and again, in the Gospels of his being troubled, of his sighing, of his tears. Anticipating his death, he said, "Now is my soul troubled." Yes, what wonder that he feared as he entered that dark shadow! 2. But we may sit under it "with great delight," and its fruit is sweet to our taste. (1) For that shadow has flown away. The cross is taken down. In its special form the Passion is past. Now, "on his head" is not the crown of thorns, but the "many crowns" of his people's love. With great delight do they think of this. (2) And dark as that shadow was, it was the background on which shone out resplendently the love of the heart of God. Man had never really seen that love but for that shadow. (3) And because of all that has come forth from that shadow. Who can reckon up in order or number the sweet fruits of that tree on which the Saviour hung? Have they not been, are they not, and will they not yet more be, blessed for man? What of redeeming force for all men was not set in motion by that act of redemption? Well, therefore, may even those who look not upon our Lord as we do, nevertheless sing, "In the cross of Christ I glory." 3. But his shadow may, will, must, be ours. For we also are to take up our cross and follow after him. We have to "know the fellowship of his sufferings, and to be made conformable to his death." "All that into God's kingdom come Must enter by this door." In some this fellowship with his sufferings has been manifest to all in that which they have been called upon to endure. In others, outwardly, there may not have been much, if anything, to tell of such fellowship. But there is the spiritual cross, as real, as sharp, as heavy, as repellent to our nature, as the outward and visible one. And who may escape that? But: 4. We may sit under such shadow with great delight. (1) Men have done so (cf. "I glory in tribulations also"). And St. Paul again, throughout the Epistle to the Philippians, whose keynote is joy. Yet he was in prison and in peril of his life all the while. And his experience has been that of "a great multitude which no man can number, out of," etc. (2) Why is this? Because it has been his shadow. The reason of suffering is the measure of its power over us. Does the fond mother, watching night after night by the bed of her fever-stricken, darling child, think much or complain of her sufferings? Does she not glory in them if they can but help her child? And so if our shadow be his shadow, that which he has bidden us bear, then because it is his we shall "sit down under it with," etc. St. Paul sprang towards it, counted all things but loss that he might attain to the excellency of its knowledge; so he speaks of it with almost rapture, with certainly no complaint. He was one of those who "sat down under... to his taste." Then let it be our sole care to see that the shadows which draw over all lives, and which will darken ours sometimes, be his shadow, and then all will be well. - S.C. Parallel Verses KJV: As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. |
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