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Morning and Evening

May 1, Evening

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"I am the rose of Sharon." — Song of Songs 2:1 · KJV

Whatever beauty exists in the material world, Jesus Christ possesses tenfold in the spiritual world. Among flowers the rose is thought the sweetest, but Jesus is infinitely more beautiful in the garden of the soul than any rose can be in the gardens of earth. He takes first place as the fairest among ten thousand. He is the sun and all others are only stars; the heavens and the daylight look dark beside Him, for the King in His beauty surpasses everything. "I am the rose of Sharon." That was the finest and rarest of roses. Jesus is not simply "the rose"; He is "the rose of Sharon," just as He calls His righteousness gold and then adds, "the gold of Ophir" the best of the best. He is truly lovely, and supremely the loveliest. There is variety in His charms. A rose delights the eye, and its scent is pleasant and reviving; so every sense of the soul, whether taste or touch, hearing or sight or spiritual smell, finds its own satisfaction in Jesus. Even remembering His love is sweet. Take the rose of Sharon, pull it apart leaf by leaf, store the leaves in the jar of memory, and long afterward each leaf will still be fragrant, filling the house with perfume. Christ fully satisfies the most refined taste of the most cultivated spirit. The greatest connoisseur of perfumes is content with the rose; and when the soul has reached her highest pitch of true taste, she will still be content with Christ indeed, she will only be better able to appreciate Him. Heaven itself holds nothing that outshines the rose of Sharon. What image could ever set out His beauty in full? Human speech and earthly things fail to tell of Him. All the choicest charms of earth blended together give only a faint picture of His abounding preciousness. Blessed rose, bloom in my heart forever!