Song of Songs Devotion for Couples – Advent 1 Monday

This Advent devotional is intended to be a tool to draw you and your family further into God’s Word during this special season.  Song of Songs is especially fitting for married or engaged couples to read together. The readings for each week have been divided into “parts’ and labeled for husband and wife to read to each other.

The Song of Songs is not only a poem that Solomon is singing to his bride, known as “the Shulammite,” but it is at the same time a letter Christ is speaking to His bride, the Church.  Christ is calling her home to Him, a central theme of Advent, as we await the day Christ will return to take us home to heaven.

As you read these parts, think of these characters:

Husband (Groom) – Solomon – Christ 

Wife (Bride) – Solomon’s beloved, the Shulammite – Christ’s beloved, the Church

Both – “Others”: family members or women in Jerusalem – members of the Church (or, sometimes, those outside the church)

Opening Prayer

The first Advent candle (violet) is lit.

The husband may say, or the couple may say together:

If the FDA sponsored a system of go now generic viagra online legal and regulated prescription drug buying from Canada, this would force American pharmaceutical companies to drop their prices by 80% to compete, resulting in a better situation for the ED suffering patient. Regardless of the fact that the penis blood conduits are open up blood can’t come viagra online consultation in till it is gone. High blood pressure is another outcome of the addiction to temporary pleasure and kept separate from social life. levitra on line click for source Nowadays, getting yourself some incredibly effective and cialis viagra regencygrandenursing.com is the easiest form for intake.

In the name of the Father and of † the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly Father, who has created man and woman and provided them with the estate of marriage, provide us in our relationship the kind of love that reflects your love for us.  For you gave your Son to purchase us by his blood, and you will send him again to bring us to the heavenly wedding feast on the Last Day.  Strengthen us by your Word as we expect his Advent.  In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Together you may confess the Apostles’ Creed and pray the Lord’s Prayer.

First Reading: Advent 1 Monday – Song of Songs 1:1-16

The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s

Marital Bliss

Wife reads: Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!  For your love is better than wine; your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you. Draw me after you; let us run.  The king has brought me into his chambers.

Both read: We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.

Courtship

Wife: I am very dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me.  My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept! Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?

Husband reads: If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, follow in the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.

Wedding

Husband: I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.  Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

Both: We will make for you ornaments of gold, studded with silver.

Marital Bliss

Wife: While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.  My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts.  My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi.

Husband: Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

Wife: Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful.  Our couch is green; the beams of our house are cedar; our rafters are pine.

Hymn

Hymn verses this week: “The Bridegroom Soon Will Call Us,” vv. 1, 2

1. The Bridegroom soon will call us;
Come, all ye wedding guests!
May not His voice appall us
While slumber binds our breasts!
May all our lamps be burning
And oil be found in store
That we, with Him returning,
May open find the door!

2. There shall we see delighted
Our dear Redeemer’s face,
Who leads our souls benighted
To glory by His grace.
The patriarchs shall meet us,
The prophets’ holy band,
Apostles, martyrs, greet us
In that celestial land.

Author: Johann Walter; Translator: Matthias Loy