Wedding Night

By John Blase

There have been attempts, over the years, to try and unearth the Song of Songs—to take it out of the realm of flesh and blood and sex and love, and place it in some super spiritual realm of heady disembodied thought. For the life of me, I have never understood such attempts. They just seem weird, and sorta sad.

Song of Songs chapter 4 presents The Man at the height of his focused powers, giving full attention to The Woman. And although I’ve no doubt he appreciated her wit and intelligence and sense of humor, this chapter is more about the curves of her body and the spicy contours of her flesh. This is essentially John Mayer singing “Your Body Is A Wonderland.” Don’t think so? Read it again. He engages in a literal head-to-toe cataloguing of her physical features, listing with increasing poetic energy everything from her fragrance, to her smile, to her neck and her breasts. Yeah, so much for thinking disembodied thoughts, right?

The beautiful thing here is that this is a wonderful Scriptural affirmation of what both The Man and The Woman enjoyed on their wedding night—one another’s bodies. Are there spiritual realities afoot when a man and woman come together like that? Absolutely. But do those spiritual realities somehow exclude the possible physical pleasures? Not in Song of Songs chapter 4. Those two aspects are wedded, and it appears God is quite pleased with it all.

It is not lost me that the partner doing most of the talking in this chapter is The Man. That’s not to say that The Woman doesn’t take a turn, for she does in chapter 5. But in this chapter we hear from his voice. And what we hear is a husband painting a verbal portrait I’m willing to bet most women would kill to hear. Sadly, many never do.

Sure, most of us are not the lyrical type. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t take a few cues from The Man and risk complimenting our wives on their physical beauty. I say “risk” because while her body is a wonderland, it can also be a minefield of past wounds and possibly even abuse. So be gentle.

What’s the best way to start? The Man gives us a great opening line: You are so beautiful!

Written By John Blase