Leaning on the Beloved (Octavius Winslow)

Song of Solomon 8:5

“Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?"

That the Christian’s path should wind its way along an ascent, sometimes steep and perilous, always difficult and toilsome, should awaken no surprise and create no murmur. There is ever this great encouragement, this light upon his way, that it is a heaven-pointing, a heaven-conducting, a heaven-terminating path; and before long the weary pilgrim will reach its sunlit summit; not to lie down and die there, as Moses did upon the top of Pisgah, but to commence a life of perfect purity and of eternal bliss! 

Turn your eye, dear reader, and rest it for a moment upon the beautiful picture, which Solomon presents, to your view in his inspired song. To what is the world compared? a wilderness. What object is seen in this wilderness? the church of God. What is she doing? she is coming up from the wilderness. What company is she in? the company of her Beloved. By what is she strengthened and upheld in her journey? she is leaning upon her Beloved. And what does the sacred painter describe as the effect of this spectacle? it excites the admiration and astonishment of all who behold it, and they exclaim:— “Who is this that comes up from the wilderness leaning upon the Beloved?” To one feature of this graphic description of the Church of God, let us turn our attention, namely, the posture of the believer in his ascent from the wilderness— leaning upon Jesus. 

The object of the believer’s trust is Jesus, his Beloved. He is spoken of by the apostle as “the Beloved,” as though he would say, “There is but one beloved of God, of angels, of saints— it is Jesus.” He is the beloved One of the Father. “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; my elect one, in whom my soul delights.” “The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.” “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” If Jesus is thus so dear to the Father, what then must be the turpitude of the sin of rejecting him!— a sin, let it be remembered, of which even Satan cannot be guilty. Yes; Jesus is the beloved of God; and therefore, coming to God through him, it is impossible that a believing soul can be rejected.

But he is also the church’s beloved, the beloved of each member of that church. Thus can each one exclaim, “This is my beloved, and this is my friend. He is ten thousand times more glorious to my view and precious to my soul, because he is mine. His person is beloved, uniting all the glories of the Godhead with all the perfections of the manhood. His work is beloved, saving his people from the entire guilt, and condemnation, and dominion of their sins. His commandments are beloved, because they are the dictates of his love to us, and the tests of our love to him.” 

O, yes! you have but one beloved of your heart, dear believer. He is “white and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand;” he is all the universe to you! Heaven would be no heaven without him; and with his presence here, earth seems often like the opening portal of heaven. He loved you, he labored for you, he died for you, he rose for you, he lives and intercedes for you in glory; and all that is lovely in him, and all that is grateful in you, constrain you to exclaim— “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” 

 Such is the company in which the believer is journeying through, and coming up from, the wilderness. Was ever a poor pilgrim more honored? Was ever a lonely traveler in better company? How can you be solitary or sorrowful, be in peril or suffer need, while you are journeying homewards in company with, and leaning upon, Jesus? 

 But for what are you to lean upon your Beloved? You are to lean upon Jesus for your entire salvation. He is “made of God unto you wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption;” and for each one of these inestimable blessings, you are to depend daily upon Christ. Where can you lean for pardon but upon the atoning blood of Jesus? Where can you lean for acceptance, but upon the justifying righteousness of Jesus? And where can you lean for sanctification, but upon the sin-subduing grace of Jesus?

This leaning upon the Beloved, then, is a daily coming up out of ourselves in the great matter of our salvation, and resting in the finished work of Christ, no more, in Christ himself. We are to lean upon Jesus for a constant sense of pardon; to be coming perpetually to the blood of sprinkling, thus preserving the conscience clean and tender, and maintaining a filial, loving, and close walk with God. 

And where would you lean in sorrow but upon the bosom of your Beloved? If you lean upon his arm for support, it is equally your privilege to lean upon his heart for sympathy. Christ is as much your consolation, as he is your strength. His heart is a human heart, a sinless heart, a tender heart, a heart once the home of sorrow, once stricken with grief, once an aching, bleeding, mournful heart.

Thus disciplined and trained, Jesus knows how to pity and to succor those who are sorrowful and solitary. He loves to chase grief from the spirit, to bind up the broken heart, to staunch the bleeding wound, and to dry the weeping eye, to “comfort all that mourn.” It is his delight to visit you in the dark night-season of your sorrow, and to come to you walking upon the tempestuous billows of your grief, breathing music and diffusing calmness over your scene of sadness and gloom. When other bosoms are closed to your sorrow, or are removed beyond your reach, or their deep throbbings of love are stilled in death,— when the fiery darts of Satan fly thick around you, and the world frowns, and the saints are cold, and your path is sad and desolate, and all stand aloof from your sore,— then lean upon the love, lean upon the grace, lean upon the faithfulness, lean upon the tender sympathy of Jesus. 

That bosom will always unveil to welcome you. It will ever be an asylum to receive you, and a home to shelter you. Never will its love cool, nor its tenderness lessen, nor its sympathy be exhausted, nor its pulse of affection cease to beat! You may have grieved it a thousand times over, you may have pierced it through and through, again and again,— yet, returning to its deathless love, penitent and lowly, sorrowful and humble, you may lay within it your weeping, aching, languid head, depositing every burden, reposing every sorrow and breathing every sigh upon the heart of Jesus. Lord! to whom shall I go? yes, to whom would I go, but unto you! 

What more appropriate, what more soothing truth could we bring before you, suffering Christian, than this? You are sick,— lean upon Jesus. His sick ones are peculiarly dear to his heart. You are dear to him. In all your pains and languishings, faintings and lassitude, Jesus is with you; for he created that frame, he remembers that it is but dust, and he bids you lean upon him, and leave your sickness and its issue entirely in his hands.

You are oppressed,— lean upon Jesus. He will undertake your cause, and committing it thus into his hands, he will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your judgment as the noonday. 

You are lonely,— lean upon Jesus. Sweet will be the communion, and close the fellowship which you may thus hold with him, your heart burning within you while he talks with you by the way. 

And when you are dying, O! lay your languishing head upon the bosom of your Beloved, and fear not the foe and dread not the passage, for His rod and staff they will comfort you. On that bosom, the beloved disciple leaned at supper; on that bosom the martyr Stephen laid his bleeding brow in death; and on that bosom, you, too, beloved, may repose, living or dying, soothed, succored, and sheltered by your Savior and your Lord! 

“Jesus can make a dying bed 
Feel soft as downy pillows are, 
While on his breast I lean my head, 
And breathe my soul out  sweetly there.” 

Thus leaning ever on Jesus, how sweet will be your song in the night of your pilgrimage. “Blessed be the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplications. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped! therefore my heart greatly rejoiced, and with my song will I praise him.”

“Holy Savior, friend unseen, 
Since on your arm you bid me lean, 
Help me throughout life’s varying scene, 
By faith to cling to you! 
“Blest with this fellowship divine, 
Take what you will, I’ll never repine; 
E’en as the branches to the vine, 
My soul would cling to you. 
“Far from her home, fatigued, oppressed, 
My soul has found her place of rest; 
An exile still, yet not unblest 
While she can cling to you. 
“Without a murmur, I dismiss 
My former dreams of earthly bliss; 
My joy, my consolation, this— 
Each hour to cling to you. 
“What though the world deceitful prove, 
And earthly friends and joys remove; 
With patient, uncomplaining love, 
Still would, I cling to you. 
“Often when I seem to alone tread 
Some barren waste with thorns overgrown, 
Your voice of love, in tenderest tone, 
Whispers, “Still cling to me.” 
“Though faith and hope awhile be tried, 
I ask not, need not, anything beside; 
How safe, how calm, how satisfied, 
The soul that clings to you. 
“They fear not Satan, or the grave, 
They feel you near, and strong to save, 
Nor fear to cross even Jordan’s wave, 
Because they cling to you. 
“Blest is my lot, whatever befall; 
What can disturb me, what appall, 
While as my rock, my strength, my all, 
Jesus! I cling to you!”

Octavius Winslow, "Midnight Harmonies"

http://www.gracegems.org/

Psalms 28:7

“The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.”