This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

The bride is in bed, likely
waking from a dream.

She looks over to where her beloved should
be sleeping, only to find that he is gone.

Immediately, she leaps out
of bed, runs out of the house,

and starts searching for him
frantically in the city streets.

But twice, we hear this disheartening refrain,
“I looked for him but did not find him.”

She goes to the watchmen, the guards of the city, whose job
it is to see who is roaming the streets and going in and out.

But they are no help.

She runs past them and
finally finds her groom.

She holds him and will not let him go
until they are back together in bed.

As before in the song,
at the height of passion, the bride turns to her unmarried

bridesmaids and warns them not to give themselves over
to sexual intimacy until they too are married.

And the next song we hear
is about the bride’s wedding.

She compares her husband,
walking down the aisle,

to the grandest army of the
grandest king of Israel: Solomon.

The groom is like Solomon who rides in a chariot
made out of the most luxurious materials.

Then, almost as if they are his vows, the
groom gushes over the beauty of his bride.

He praises her beauty from head to toe.

He concludes that she is altogether beautiful
with not one single flaw.

The song builds to its highest point when both husband and
wife invite each other to finally consummate their marriage.

The bride’s frantic nighttime search for
her absent husband is a picture of how our

hearts feel when those we love
deepest are far away from us.

We will do anything to hunt them
down and be with them again.

Somewhat surprisingly, Jesus seems
to quote the bride while talking to

the crowds in Jerusalem
about his identity and authority.

He says, “You will look for
me, but you will not find me.”

He is talking about how, after his resurrection, he will
ascend back to heaven and his disciples will miss him.

Like the bride in the streets, we are longing
and waiting for Jesus to return.

But Jesus does something for us
that the bride’s husband did not do.

He gives us the presence
of God in the Holy Spirit.

Just as the bride holds onto the groom, the Holy Spirit holds
onto us until he brings us home to be with Jesus our groom.

Jesus will return with far more
splendor than Solomon or any king.

His return will be like a wedding day.

He will be the groom
and we will be the bride.

Jesus will look at us from head to toe,
through heart and soul, and find no flaw in us.

We will be dressed, not in a wedding gown of
our own making, but in the beauty and goodness

of Jesus himself, who bought our spotless
dress through his death on the cross.

I pray that the Holy Spirit would open your eyes
to see the God who comes to his searching bride.

And that you will see Jesus as the coming
groom who has made us perfectly beautiful.