May 1

Morning

His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers. — Song 5:13

Lo, the flowery month is come! March winds and April showers have done their work, and the earth is all bedecked with beauty. Come my soul, put on your holiday attire and go forth to gather garlands of heavenly thoughts. You know where to betake yourself, for to you “the beds of spices” are well known, and you have so often smelled the perfume of “the sweet flowers,” that you will go at once to your well-beloved and find all loveliness, all joy in Him. That cheek once so rudely smitten with a rod, oft bedewed with tears of sympathy and then defiled with spittle—that cheek as it smiles with mercy is as fragrant aromatic to my heart.

You did not hide Your face from shame and spitting, O Lord Jesus, and therefore I will find my dearest delight in praising You. Those cheeks were furrowed by the plough of grief, and crimsoned with red lines of blood from Your thorn-crowned temples; such marks of unbounded love cannot but charm my soul far more than “pillars of perfume.” If I may not see the whole of His face, I would behold His cheeks, for the least glimpse of Him is exceedingly refreshing to my spiritual sense and yields a variety of delights. In Jesus I find not only fragrance, but a bed of spices; not one flower, but all kinds of sweet flowers. He is to me my rose and my lily, my heart’s-ease and my cluster of camphire. When He is with me it is May all the year round, and my soul goes forth to wash her happy face in the morning-dew of His grace, and to solace herself with the singing of the birds of His promises. Precious Lord Jesus, let me in very deed know the blessedness which dwells in abiding, unbroken fellowship with You. I am a poor worthless one, whose cheek You have deigned to kiss! O let me kiss You in return with the kisses of my lips.

Evening

I am the rose of Sharon. — Song 2:1

Whatever there may be of beauty in the material world, Jesus Christ possesses all that in the spiritual world, in a tenfold degree. Among flowers, the rose is deemed the sweetest but Jesus is infinitely more beautiful in the garden of the soul—than the rose can in the gardens of earth. He takes the first place as the fairest among ten thousand. He is the sun and all others are the stars; the heavens and the day are dark—in comparison with Him, for the King in His beauty transcends all.

“I am the Rose of Sharon.” This was the best and rarest of roses. Jesus is not “the rose” alone, He is “the Rose of Sharon.” Just as He calls His righteousness “gold,” and then adds, “the gold of Ophir” that is—the best of the best. He is positively lovely, and superlatively the loveliest.

There is variety in His charms. The rose is delightful to the eye, and its scent is pleasant and refreshing; so each of the senses of the soul, whether it be the taste or feeling, the hearing, the sight, or the spiritual smell—finds appropriate gratification in Jesus. Even the recollection of His love is sweet. Take the rose of Sharon, and pull it leaf from leaf, and lay the leaves in the jar of memory, and you shall find each leaf fragrant long afterwards, filling the house with perfume.

Christ satisfies the highest taste of the most educated spirit to the very full. The greatest amateur in perfumes is quite satisfied with the rose and when the soul has arrived at her highest pitch of true taste, she shall still be content with Christ; nay, she shall be the better able to appreciate Him. Heaven itself possesses nothing which excels the Rose of Sharon. What emblem can fully set forth His beauty? Human speech and earth-born things, fail to describe Him. Earth’s choicest charms added together, feebly picture His abounding preciousness. Blessed Rose, bloom in my heart forever!