Arise and Come Away

​Song of Solomon 2:10-11 ~ “My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.’”
 
Surely, we are coming close to the end of the long winter of separation from our LORD. Soon our beloved Savior will speak those wonderful words—arise and come! Soon the rains will pass and the night depart and the day will break forth with the glorious sunrise of our everlasting joy. And let me ask you, dear Christian, do you long with great anticipation for the day when our LORD will call us home? I have known those who look to Jesus but not long for Him. There are some who wear His name with no desire for His presence. Let that not be said of you this day, for there is a great day coming that will shatter the night of sin and unveil the dawn of righteousness.
 
What a wonder it is that the Scripture often compares the fellowship between the church and her Savior in the terms of deep affection. Ephesians 5:22-33 compares the church and her LORD to a husband and wife. We read in Ephesians 5:32, “This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” And marriages built upon the deep affection of godly love will understand the ever-increasing desire to never be separated from one another. The longer the romance continues between husband and wife, the greater the bond between them and the more profound the mystery of love grows within their hearts until they are inseparable. And then consider the bond of love that grows between Christ and His church.
 
The very first statement of our text today is the church calling upon the LORD as her “beloved.” And as the church continues walking in faith, the love for Christ grows warmer and warmer until the whole life is consumed by the longing to be with Him. Paul understood this when he said to the Philippian church, “I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (Philippians 1:23). Our LORD Jesus longs for us to be with Him, even as He prays in John 17:24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
 
And look upon the affection of the LORD for His church as He calls her, “my love, my beautiful one.” The LORD does not look upon the ugliness of our former sins. He does not see us with the eyes of wrath and condemnation. Our Savior has washed us with His own blood and cleansed us from all our impurities. God Almighty, through the prophet Isaiah speaks of His cleansing upon us. “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18). If the LORD has pardoned us, who is left to condemn? If the Son of God has called us His beautiful ones, who could dare call the church unsightly? So let us garb ourselves in the robes of righteousness to ever magnify the love of our LORD and show our love for Him (see Revelation 19:8).
 
And then the bride—the beautiful one—hears those words that will forever close the gap of distance between Christ and His church. Someday, dear ones, we will hear our LORD say— “come away.” We heard His call to come and be at rest with Him, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). We heard His call to come and follow Him, “And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’” (Matthew 4:19). And someday, dear Christian, Christ will call upon His church and we will hear His voice call us to come and be with Him forever. “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
 
Now we are distant from Him, soon we will be with Him forever. Now we are in the winter of our separation. Let us hold on to the promise that Jesus will soon call His bride to come away, and then we will be with our LORD forever.
 
In His Grace,
Pastor Michael

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