THE SONG OF SOLOMON & THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING
In Fall 2022, the FAI STUDIOS crew descended upon the Kentucky Bourbon Trail to film BALLADS OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON. Available everywhere now. Links to streaming platforms are available at the end of this article.
Moments before beginning the Olivet Discourse,[1] Jesus issued a verbal lashing on what we might, in today’s language, describe as the “establishment of the religious elite.” Remember that “to whom much is given, much will be required”[2] and retroactively apply Paul’s verbiage in his letter to the growing Roman fellowship and consider this: his “countrymen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, the eternally blessed God.”[3]
The echelon of leadership in the “city of the Great King”[4] had failed to “walk humbly, do justly, and love mercy.”[5] Multiple times, in multiple ways. And the civilians of the city had failed to welcome the prophetic word declared to her over centuries and generations. Jerusalem was not condemned just before the Passion because her leaders were crooks. She didn’t simply fail to meet an ethical standard. Jerusalem was condemned just before the Passion precisely for the very thing that necessitated the Passion: ongoing, outright, heart-deep infidelity since the days of Sinai.[6] Seated deep in her chest was a boulder beating in slow decay since the curse first exiled us from Eden, a scarlet letter condemning the same death we share in: disobedience, unbelief, and a profound appetite for anything God is “better” than.[7] Despite His supremacy, we have all loved sin. Jerusalem is not unique in this way.
She is, however, the “apple of His eye,”[8] His covenantal delight and bride. It is true our only point of accessing our Father on the throne is through the Word incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth. It is also quite fair to suggest we cannot come to Him through any path disconnected from Jerusalem. He is the “Great King.”[9] She is His city.[10] He is the chief cornerstone every man, woman, and child stumbles over.[11] She is the divine tripwire.[12] She is, at this stage, “the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her.”[13] And she is home to the throne David’s Son will rule from. She’s complicated.
So are you.
Zechariah, “whom [Jerusalem] murdered between the temple and the altar,”[14] once saw a vision of the covenantal nation that is as profound as it is pithy:
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?”
Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and was standing before the Angel.
Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying, “Take away the filthy garments from him.” And to him He said, “See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes.”
And I said, “Let them put a clean turban on his head.”
So they put a clean turban on his head, and they put the clothes on him. And the Angel of the Lord stood by.[15]
Generations before the Word would “take on flesh and move into the neighborhood,”[16] the One who “inhabits eternity”[17] would declare this profound measure of invincibility over the high priest, over the “establishment of religious elite,” over the nation of Israel, the lineage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s children, and over Jerusalem. Before the Accuser, the prosecuting attorney, could even get a word out (and would have plenty of material before needing to twist or invent accusations deserving death), the Judge speaks first and shuts him down: “Did I not pluck this brand from the fire?”
It’s no longer about the accusations, or even the one accused. It is about the One on the throne, and the integrity of His existing word. Truly, “if God be for us, who can be against us?”[18]
Zechariah’s vision concludes:
Then the Angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, saying, “Thus says the Lord of hosts:
‘If you will walk in My ways,
And if you will keep My command,
Then you shall also judge My house,
And likewise have charge of My courts;
I will give you places to walk
Among these who stand here.
‘Hear, O Joshua, the high priest,
You and your companions who sit before you,
For they are a wondrous sign;
For behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH.
For behold, the stone
That I have laid before Joshua:
Upon the stone are seven eyes.
Behold, I will engrave its inscription,’
Says the Lord of hosts,
‘And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one Day.
In that Day,’ says the Lord of hosts,
‘Everyone will invite his neighbor
Under his vine and under his fig tree.’”[19]
“Can a nation be born in a Day?”[20] It can if He tells it to be. “Not one word will return void,” and certainly not the “better word” that “washes” His sin-stained bride white as snow.[21] She is, indeed, “dark but lovely,”[22] and so are we. In light of this, let us return to the final words in the verbal lashing issued just before the Passion week began:
“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! See! Your house is left to you desolate; for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”[23]
Until. Only the biblically illiterate would read the above as a calloused divorce thesis. He will see her again, and He is grieved until He does. But “heaven cannot restrain Him forever,”[24] only until the time appointed by the Father to hand the scroll over to the Lion of Judah, lashed like a lamb, who has overcome and can be trusted to come on the clouds in power and glory.[25] When He does, she’ll be singing the song He quoted as He wept over her: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!”[26] In return, He’ll sing over her the song stuck in His head for eternity, the Song of all songs, the melody that leads a crippled Jacob out of the wilderness leaning on Jerusalem’s Beloved, who will come not to prove a point, but to prove Himself.[27]
The path through Gethsemane, Golgotha, and into glory was carved with a cross dragging behind a bleeding God. “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,”[28] and the prophets bore the same bloody burden to proclaim the Day when the “city who killed [them]” will be ultimately and forever known as “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.”[29]
It is that Day we beckon with the MARANATHA confession—when Jesus sings the Song of Songs over the City for which He weeps. And she will return the refrain.
How offensive the gracious, washing word of the Lord!
BALLADS OF THE SONG OF SOLOMON
GLOBAL PREMIERE EVENT
SAINT PATRICK’S DAY
03.17.2023
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] A series of teachings included in the Synoptic Gospels just before the Passion of Jesus began. See Matthew 24-25, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
[2] Luke 12:48
[3] Romans 9:3b-5a
[4] Psalm 48:2; Matthew 5:35
[5] Micah 6:8
[6] Ezekiel 36:26
[7] See Song of Solomon 5:9-16; Colossians 1:18
[8] Zechariah 2:8
[9] Revelation 19:16
[10] Psalm 48:2; Matthew 5:35
[11] Psalm 18:22; Matthew 21:42; 1 Corinthians 1:23
[12] Zechariah 12:2
[13] Matthew 23:37a
[14] Matthew 23:35
[15] Zechariah 3:1-5
[16] A paraphrase of John 1:14
[17] Isaiah 57:15
[18] Romans 8:31
[19] Zechariah 3:6-10
[20] See Isaiah 66:8
[21] Isaiah 1:18; 55:11; Hebrews 12:24; Ephesians 5:25-27
[22] Song of Solomon 1:5
[23] Matthew 23:37-39
[24] Acts 3:21
[25] Acts 1:7; See also Daniel 7 and Revelation 5
[26] Psalm 118:26
[27] Genesis 32:22-32; Hosea 2:16-23; Zephaniah 3:16-17; Song of Solomon 8:5; Zechariah 12:10; 14:3-5
[28] Revelation 19:10
[29] Jeremiah 33:16
