his and hers

He: O you who dwell in the gardens,

with companions listening for your voice;

let me hear it.

She: Make haste, my beloved,

and be like a gazelle

or a young stag

on the mountains of spices.

Song of Solomon 8:13-14

Lovers want to be with one another. And the Song of Solomon ends with the couple, Solomon and his lovely bride, singing out their longing for being together. It is romantic opera. The last verses of this grand love ballad casts the bride in a garden with her friends, awaiting with excitement for the arrival of her love. Solomon sings out asking for her to join him so he may hear her voice in the garden and quickly make his way to her. She encourages him in answer to make haste to come to the fragrant mountains of their love where they can finally be together.

The one clear theme repeated all throughout Song of Solomon is longing. And it is fitting that the book ends with one more expression of the longing for love. Love has at its root an aching need to care, to be with, to hold what is loved. The lover craves the beloved. And both Solomon and his bride constantly express this longing to be together all throughout the song. To love is to long. To be loved is to be wanted with an aching, passionate need.

The Lord Himself said at creation: “It is not good for man to be alone.” And when Adam first set eyes on Eve, he knew what God meant. So love and marriage between a man and his God-given wife is a good and holy thing. The love of a caring family is a good and holy thing. The need to love and to be loved is made in us by God and He gloriously created sexuality and marriage so we might know it, and be satisfied in His creation, and celebrate it all well. Love is worth singing about.