March 20, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"My beloved." — Song of Songs 2:8 · KJV

This was a golden name that the ancient Church, in her most joyful moments, was accustomed to give to the Anointed of the Lord. When the time of the singing of birds had come, and the voice of the turtledove was heard in her land, her love-note was sweeter than either, as she sang, "My beloved is mine, and I am His; He feedeth among the lilies." Ever in her Song of Songs she calls Him by that delightful name, "My beloved!" Even in the long winter, when idolatry had withered the garden of the Lord, her prophets found room to lay aside the burden of the Lord for a little while and say, as Isaiah did, "Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching His vineyard." Though the saints had never seen His face, though as yet He was not made flesh, had not dwelt among us, and no man had beheld His glory, yet He was the consolation of Israel, the hope and joy of all the chosen, the "beloved" of all who were upright before the Most High. We too, in the summer days of the Church, are accustomed to speak of Christ as the best beloved of our soul, and to feel that He is very precious, the "chiefest among ten thousand, and the altogether lovely." So truly does the Church love Jesus and claim Him as her beloved that the apostle dares to defy the whole universe to separate her from the love of Christ, and declares that neither persecution, distress, affliction, peril, nor the sword has been able to do it; nay, he joyfully boasts, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us." Oh, that we knew more of You, ever-precious One! My sole possession is Your love; in earth beneath or heaven above I have no other store; and though I pray with fervent suit and importune You day by day, I ask You nothing more.