Dec. 27: Searching for the Beloved

The Twelve-Year-Old Jesus in the Temple from the seriesThe Life of Christ, Carl Bloch, 1865–79. Oil on copper, 104.14 x 60.96 cm. Frederiksborg Castle, Hillerod, Denmark. Public Domain.

“I Sought Him But Did Not Find Him” from the album To Awaken Love. Performed byYamma Ensemble. Ancient Love Poem text taken from the Song of Solomon.

Poetry:

from “How Beautiful the Beloved”
by Gregory Orr

If somewhere in us
Love lurks,
The beloved
Will find it.

If hope hides
In the smallest
Cranny,
The beloved
Will pry it out.

Demands it.
Won’t take no
For an answer.

His poem
Luring it
To the surface.
Her song
Calling it forth.

SEARCHING FOR THE BELOVED

I love this week between Christmas and the New Year. It’s a liminal space, an in-between; festivities have passed, the year is ending, and we look ahead to the next celebration and new beginning. These few days become a deep breath between what has been and what will be.

This liminal space, this in-between, brings natural pause for reflection. And in our reflection, we might find that we, like the Shulamite maiden and like Mary, have been searching and seeking and searching for the Lord, our beloved (Psalm 63:1-3).

I am struck by the desperation of that seeking and searching in our passages today. The Shulamite maiden searches the city’s streets and squares, begging the watchmen, “Have you seen him?” When she finds him, just past the watchmen, she will not let him go. She holds on for dear life.

And Mary, searching for Jesus… It had been three full days since anyone had seen her twelve-year-old boy. Why wasn’t Jesus with his cousins, aunts, and uncles? Didn’t heknowthat they were leaving Jerusalem? And when she finally, finally finds him in that temple, we hear her shock, her distress, her fear flowing through her rebuke: “Why did you do this to us? Didn’t you know that we would be devastated to find you gone?”

In many biblical stories, three days symbolizes divine intervention and restoration after a period of trial: we might remember Abraham’s three days of travel to sacrifice Isaac on Moriah (Genesis 22), Israel’s three days of preparation to meet with God at Mount Sinai (Exodus 19), Jonah’s three days in the belly of the great fish (Jonah 1).

Perhaps this moment, for Mary, foreshadows the three days that were to come, three terrible days in which her boy would lay in the tomb. I can imagine Mary seeking and searching after God himself in those dark, confusing hours to make sense of Jesus’ life and death. “We have searched for you anxiously,” said Mary to twelve-year-old Jesus, the Greek here indicating a level of mental and spiritual distress akin to physical torment.

Luke’s commentary on Jesus’ response to his mother is telling: “They did not understand.”

Sometimes (often), the Lord I love moves in ways that I do not understand. Loving, they say, involves this kind of risk. To love another involves a dialectic of engaging with another in an active posture of openness and presence, of moving toward and “letting be,” and in that dialectic coming to a deeper understanding, a deeper knowing.

For the Shulamite maiden and for Mary, love becomes both a seeking after and a “letting be,” of not foreclosing too quickly on what was assumed must be true. Love became a tension of seeking and searching alongside watching, waiting and discerning, until deepened knowing, deepened understanding, and deepened relationship came.

Sometimes, like the Shulamite maiden, I search and seek, and our Lord is not where I think he ought to be. Sometimes, like Mary, I think I understand what is or what ought to be, and I come to discover that I don’t. I do not always see that Jesus is actively, also, seeking after me and those around me, desiring that we see more clearly, know more truly, love more deeply. Sometimes, I don’t necessarily feel lost or wandering––or do I? Sometimes, like Mary, I think I know exactly what ought to be; and in my certainty I’m wandering in darkness…until I’m found––past the watchmen––by the one who has been earnestly seekingme.

Prayer:
Lord, in this liminal space between the old and the new, between what has been and what will be, we search and we seek; we watch, we wait, and we discern. May we trust that you are working, even if in darkness, for our full and complete restoration. May we trust that since “somewhere in us / Love lurks, / The beloved / Will find it.” May we trust that since “hope hides / In the smallest / Cranny, / [You] The beloved / Will pry it out.”
Amen

Dr. Lisa Igram
Assistant Professor of Theology
Rosemead School of Psychology
Biola University

For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, please visit our website via the link in our bio.