There are two characteristics of spring that strike us, I do not say as wrong, but as more belonging to human than Divine character. The first of these is its changeableness, the second its extravagance.
I. Even in climates better than our own we know the changeableness of spring, but in our spring scarcely a single day is true to its beginning. But when we look closer, such change belongs naturally to the first rush of life, not only in spring but in all things. (1) It paints our own youth only too faithfully. Our outer life flits from interest to interest, from friend to friend, from love to love, as the winds of purpose, interest, and impulse blow. As to our inner life of feeling and thought, it is never at rest for a single moment. To cherish this changeableness is wrong. But as long as it belongs to youth we have no right to be too hard on it. Our business is to accept what is natural in it, and to guide its eager life into noble ways. (2) We may learn another bit of wisdom from the changeableness of spring. It is caused by the last struggle of winter against the warm gusts of life. It images the struggle in a heart which has come out of the far country of sin, near to God its Father. The life of God and the glowing of His love have begun to move within, to clothe the barren soil with the flowers and the blossoms that promise fruit. But the old deathfulness still lingers; habits of evil, not yet overcome of good, raise themselves again, and conquer for a time; the storms of trial that resistance to sin causes are so violent as to exhaust for a season all spiritual strength, and we seem to die. Take comfort from the spring. Life is stronger than death, goodness than sin, noble joy than base sorrow. Day by day the attacks of evil will lessen, day by day they will be easier overcome, and a summer of righteousness will be yours at last.
II. The extravagance of the spring. Much more than is apparently needful is produced. There is the greatest prodigality, even waste; of a hundred flower-shoots not half come to perfection; of a cloud of blossoms many altogether fail. The analogy to this in our youth is in itself sad enough. But when we ask ourselves in what the changeableness and prodigality of spring ends, the analogy ceases to be true, and the rebuke and warning of nature is given to our youth. God's end for spring is the fulness of summer and the harvest of autumn. There is no other end also than that for youth; richness of nature in oneself and a plenteous harvest for the world.
S. A. Brooke, The Fight of Faith,p. 337.
I. Life, love, joy what are these in their tale to the spirit, as spring sends them flowing into our hearts? They are a revelation of the Being of God. (1) Its first attribute is infinite life. In this world of decay and death, where sorrow and apathy and dulness play so large a part in us, it is unspeakable comfort to know that there is above us and in our God an eager, unwearied, universal life. (2) This life is love love in God, the same as goodness. That there is such a thing as creation; that life and joy come out of death and pain; that the wonder of the spring is born out of the travail of the winter, is proof enough to those who feel how impossible creation is to evil, that it is goodness goodness that streams forth as love; love that is life in all things, that is the spirit of the universe. (3) If life and love be one in the being of God, that being must also be joy infinite, self-exultant, varying through every phase of quiet and of rapture. Words would fail to paint one moment of its triumphant fulness: joy is the glory of God.
II. We take the same thoughts, and bring them to touch on our own life. Spring is the image of our youth, and the lesson we should learn from it is, that our youth should be life and love and joy, and that these are its natural companions.
S. A. Brooke, The Fight of Faith,p. 324.
References: Song of Solomon 2:11; Song of Solomon 2:12. W. P. Balfern, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xv., p. 237. Song of Solomon 2:11-13. W. Sanday, Expositor,vol. iii, p. 240; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Waterside Mission Sermons,2nd series, p. 97. Song of Solomon 2:11-14. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. viii., p. 205.Song of Solomon 2:12. J. N. Norton, The King's Ferry Boat,p. 8; Sermons for Boys and Girls,2nd series, p. 230; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 115.Song of Solomon 2:14. Homiletic Magazine,vol. ii., p. 518.