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The Song of Songs is one of the most unexpected books of the Bible that is spiritually connected to the mystery of Christmas Day.
Our imagination this time of year is almost entirely filled with nativity scenes and pictures of Baby Jesus.
Yet, the Church also invites us to open the door of our heart to Jesus Christ the Bridegroom, who is also coming into our lives.
Jesus the Bridegroom
Dom Prosper Gueranger highlights this spiritual theme in his book, The Liturgical Year:
The Church aspires also to the second Coming the consequence of the first, which consists, as we have just seen, in the visit of the Bridegroom to the Spouse. This Coming takes place each year at the feast of Christmas, when the new birth of the Son of God delivers the faithful from that yoke of bondage, under which the enemy would oppress them. The Church, therefore, during Advent prays that she may be visited by Him who is her Head and her Spouse.
He reiterates this connection in his reflection on Christmas Eve, quoting the Song of Songs (Canticle of Canticles):
At this very hour, thou art knocking at the doors of Bethlehem and who is there that will take thee in? Thou sayest to my soul in the words of the Canticle, "Open to me, my sister, my beloved, for my head is full of dew, and my locks of the drops of the night." Ah sweet Jesus, thou shalt not be refused here. I beseech thee, enter my house. I have been watching and longing for thee. Come, then, Lord Jesus, come!
The story of Christmas is in fact a "love story," where God professed his love for humanity by becoming one of us and entering into our world.
He may have come as a child, but he also came as a Bridegroom, "wooing" his bride.
God loves us in a deeply personal way and Christmas is the day when he burst into our lives in a radical way.
If you want to experience Christmas in a new way, read the Song of Songs and recognize Christ as the Bridegroom who is coming to you.
The sound of my lover! here he comes
springing across the mountains,
leaping across the hills.
My lover is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
See! He is standing behind our wall,
gazing through the windows,
peering through the lattices.
My lover speaks and says to me,
“Arise, my friend, my beautiful one,
and come!
