I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
The best of the best
It is a marvellous stoop for Christ, who is “God over all, blessed for ever,” and the Light of the universe, to say, “I am a rose; I am a lily.” O my blessed Lord, this is a sort of incarnation, as when the Eternal God did, take upon Himself an infant’s form! So here, the Everlasting God says, “I am”--and what comes next?--“a rose and a lily.” It is an amazing stoop, I know not how to set it forth to you by human language; it is a sort of verbal rehearsal of what He did afterwards when, though He counted it not robbery to be equal with God, “He took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” “I am God, yet,” saith He, “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.”
I. The exceeding delightfulness of our Lord. He compares Himself here, not as in other places to needful bread and refreshing water, but to lovely flowers, to roses and lilies. What is the use of roses and lilies? They are of no use at all except for joy and delight. With their sweet form, their charming colour, and their delicious fragrance, we are comforted and pleased and delighted; but they are not necessaries of life. You are to find in Christ roses and lilies, as well as bread and water; you have not yet seen all His beauties, and you do not yet know all His excellence.
1. And first, He is in Himself the delight of men. He speaks not of offices, gifts, works, possessions; but of Himself: “I am.” Our Lord Jesus is the best of allbeings; the dearest, sweetest, fairest and most charming of all beings that we can think of is the Son of God, our Saviour. Eyes need to be trained to see beauty. No man seeth half or a thousandth part of the beauty even of this poor, natural world; but the painter s eye--the eye of Turner, for instance--can see much more than you or I ever saw. “Oh!” said one, when he looked on one of Turner’s landscapes, “I have seen that view every day, but I never saw as much as that in it.” “No,” replied Turner, “don’t you wish you could?” And, when the Spirit of God trains and tutors the eye, it sees in Christ what it never saw before. But, even then, as Turner’s eye was not able to see all the mystery of God’s beauty in nature, so neither is the most trained and educated Christian able to perceive all the matchless beauty that there is in Christ.
2. But next, our Lord is exceedingly delightful to the eye of faith. He not only tells us of what delight is in Himself--“I am the rose, and I am the lily”--but He thereby tells us that there is something to see in Him, for the rose is very pleasing to look upon. Is there a more beautiful sight than a rose that is in bud, or even one that is full-blown? And the lily--what a charming thing it is! It seems to be more a flower of heaven than of earth. Well now, Christ is delightful to the eye of faith. To you who look at Christ by faith, a sight of Him brings such peace, such rest, such hope, as no other sight can ever afford; it so sweetens everything, so entirely takes away the bitterness of life, and brings us to anticipate the glory of the life that is to come, that I am sure you say, “Yes, yes; the figure in the text is quite correct; there is a beauty in Jesus to the eye of faith, He is indeed red as the rose and white as the lily.”
3. And next, the Lord Jesus Christ is delightful in the savour which comes from Him to us. There is a spiritual way of perceiving the savour of Christ; I cannot explain it to you, but there is an ineffable mysterious sweetness that proceeds from Him which touches the spiritual senses, and affords supreme delight; and as the body has its nose, and its tender nerves that can appreciate sweet odours, so the soul has its spiritual nostril by which, though Christ be at a distance, it yet can perceive the flagrant emanations that come from Him, and is delighted therewith.
4. Once more, in all that He is, Christ is the choicest of the choice. You notice the Bridegroom says, “I am the rose.” Yes, but there were some particularly beautiful roses that grew in the valley of Sharon; “I am that rose, said tie. And there were some delightful lilies in Palestine; it is a land of lilies, there, are so many of them that nobody knows which lily Christ meant, and it does not at all signify, for almost all lilies are wondrously beautiful. “But,” said He, “I am the lily of the valleys,” the choicest kind of lily that grew where the soil was fat and damp with the overflow of mountain streams. “I am the lily of the valleys: that is to say, Christ is not only good, but He is the best; and He is not only the best, but He is the best of the best.
II. The sweet variety of Christ’s delightfulness. He is not only full of joy, and pleasure, and delight to our hearts, but He is full of all sorts of joy, and all sorts of pleasure, and all sorts of delights to us. The rose is not enough, you must have the lily also, and the two together fall far short of the glories of Christ, the true “Plant of renown.” “I am the rose.” That is the emblem of majesty. The rose is the very queen of flowers; in the judgment of all who know what to admire it is enthroned above all the rest of the beauties of the garden. But the lily--what is that? That is the emblem of love. The psalmist hints at this in the title of the forty-fifth psalm. “Upon Shoshannim, a Song of love. Shoshannim signifies lilies, so the lily-psalm is the love-song, for the lilies, with their beauty, their purity, their delicacy, are a very choice emblem of love. Are you not delighted when you put these two things together, majesty and love? A King upon a throne of love, a Prince, whose very eyes beam with love to those who put their trust in Him, a real Head, united by living bonds of love to all His members--such is our dear Lord and Saviour. The combination of these sweet flowers also suggests our Lord’s suffering and purity. Jesus when on earth, could say, “The prince of this world cometh, and Lath nothing in Me.” The devil himself could not see a spot or speck in that lovely lily. Jesus Christ is perfection itself, He is all purity; so you must put the two together, the rose and the lily, to show Christ’s suffering and perfection, the infinitely pure and infinitely suffering. In which of the two do you take the greater delight? Surely, in neither, but in the combination of both; what would be the value of Christ’s sufferings if He were not perfect? And of what avail would His perfections be if He had not died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God? But the two together, the rose and the lily, suffering and purity, fill us with delight. Of both of these there is a great variety. Jesus possesses every kind of beauty and fragrance. “He is all my salvation, and all my desire.” All good things meet in Christ; in Him all the lines of beauty are focussed. Blessed are they who truly know Him. Further, Christ is the very essence of the sweetness both of the rose and of the lily. When He says, “I am the rose,” He means, not only that He is like the rose, but that He made all the sweetness there is in the rose, and it is still in Him; and all the sweetness there is in any creature comes to us from Christ, or else it is not sweetness such as we ought to love. All good for our soul comes from Him, whether it be pardon of sin, or justification, or the sanctification that makes us fit for glory hereafter, Christ is the source of it all; and in the infinite variety of delights that we get from Him, He is Himself the essence of it all.
III. The exceeding freeness of our Lord’s delightfulness. I have been talking about my Master, and I want to show you that He is accessible, He is meant to be plucked and enjoyed as roses and lilies are. He says in the text, “I am the rose of Sharon.” What was Sharon? It was an open plain where anybody might wander, and where even cattle roamed at their own sweet will. Jesus is not like a rose in Solomon’s garden, shut up within high walls, with broken glass all along the top. Oh, no! He says, “I am the rose of Sharon,” everybody’s rose, the flower for the common people to come and gather. “I am the lily.” What lily? The lily of the palace of Shushan, enclosed and guarded from all approach? No; but, “I am the lily of the valleys,” found in this glen, or the other ravine, growing here, there and everywhere: “I am the lily of the valleys.” Then Christ is as abundant as a common flower. Whatever kind of rose it was, it was a common rose; whatever kind of lily it was, it was a well-known lily that grew freely in the valleys of that land. Oh, blessed be my Master’s name, He has brought us a common salvation, and He is the common people’s Christ I And now, poor soul, if you would like an apronful of roses, come and have them. If you would like to carry away a big handful of the lilies of the valleys, come and take them, as many as you will. May the Lord give you the will! Even to those who do not pluck any, there is one strange thing that must not be forgotten. A man passes by a rose-bush, and says, “I cannot stop to think about roses,” but as he goes along he exclaims, “Dear, dear, what a delicious perfume!” A man journeying in the East goes through a field that is full of lilies; he is in a great hurry, but, for all that, he cannot help seeing and smelling the lilies as he rushes through the field. And, do you know, the perfume of Christ has life in it I He is “a savour of life unto life.” What does that mean but that the smell of Him will save? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The best flower
We find flowers of some kind or other growing everywhere. They spring up in the sandy desert. On the tops of bleak and snow-capped mountains, where even trees will not grow, the little flowers may be seen. Travellers who have gone near the North Pole, where ice and snow last all the year, have been surprised to find in some places red snow. And when they came to examine it with a microscope, they were still more surprised to find that the colour of it was owing to an exceedingly small kind of plant, bearing a flower too little for the naked eye to see. But among all the multitude of flowers which grow on the earth, there is none like this which Solomon speaks of in the verse before us. “I am the Rose of Sharon.” This, we suppose, refers to Jesus. He is the “Rose of Sharon.” Sharon was the name of a large plain, or level tract of country in Palestine, famous for the number of flowers which grew there. And if we consider this “Rose of Sharon” as referring to our blessed Saviour, then we may well say that this Rose is the best flower.
I. Because it will grow everywhere. This flower does not grow in the ground like other flowers. You must not look for it in the beds of the garden; nor in the fields, the valleys or the mountains. The soil in which it grows is the human heart. And when any person learns to love and serve Jesus, and is made happy by Him, then we may say that the “Rose of Sharon” is growing in that person’s heart. This flower is sometimes found growing in the hearts of very young people. And the old as well as the young--the poor as well as the rich, may have it if they will. It is growing now in the hearts of people in all the different nations of the earth. John Williams, the martyr-missionary of Erromanga, planted it in the sunny islands of the South Seas. Robert Moffat planted it far up into the southern part of Africa; and other missionaries are planting it all along the western coast. Dr. Livingstone carried it into the very centre of Africa, from the East. The great wall of separation, which kept the missionaries so long out of China, has been thrown down, and now all that vast country is waiting to receive the Gospel. The servants of Jesus are going about over the burning plains of India, and planting this best flower there. The heat is dreadful there sometimes, but still it is not too hot a climate for the “Rose of Sharon” to grow and flourish in. The Moravian missionaries have carried it to Greenland’s ice-bound shores; and that climate, even, is not too cold for it. For above a hundred years it has been blooming sweetly there. And now, this very day, it is growing and flourishing equally well in all these different countries. Oh, what a wonderful flower this is! There is no other like it in all the earth.
II. Because of its many uses.
1. It is beautiful to look at. When Jesus was on earth, most people saw no beauty in Him, that they should desire Him. But those who learn to know and love Him, find Him to be “the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely.” The greatest happiness of heaven will be to “see His face.” There is nothing in all the world half so beautiful as the sight of Jesus will be in heaven.
2. It is useful for its fragrance, as well as for its beauty. Every one knows how sweet it is to smell a beautiful rose. And we read in the Bible, that the name of Jesus is “as ointment poured forth.” This means, that it is just as pleasant to the souls of those who love Jesus to think about Him, as it is to their bodily senses to smell the sweetest flower, or the most fragrant ointment.
3. The “Rose of Sharon” bears fruit as well as flowers, and its fruit is wholesome and pleasant. It is made to be eaten, as well as looked at, and its “fruit is sweet to the taste” of those who partake of it.
4. The “Rose of Sharon” yields pure water to drink, as well as food to eat. There is a singular plant in the East Indies called “the pitcher-plant.” It has leaves, or flowers, in the form of small pitchers. Each pitcher has a lid to it, and at certain seasons these pitchers are filled with a sweet, pleasant liquid, which is very good to drink. The “Rose of Sharon” is a pitcher-plant. It is full of pitchers. These are not only always full, but they never can be emptied. The water of salvation flows into them as fast as it is taken out. And oh, it is delightful water! It is cool, clear and refreshing.
5. The “Rose of Sharon” is good for medicine, as well as for food and drink. When Jesus, who is this “Rose of Sharon,” was on earth, He opened the eyes of the blind; He unstopped the ears of the deaf; He made the lame to walk, and went about “healing all manner of sickness and disease among the people.” Then, He cured all kinds of bodily diseases. Now, He cures all kinds of spiritual diseases.
6. The “Rose of Sharon” is good for clothing. This is a very singular use to make of a flower. We often hear of people making wreaths of flowers to ornament or dress the head with. But no one ever heard of an earthly flower that was good to make clothing off The “Rose of Sharon,” however, is good for clothing. We read in the Bible about “garments of salvation”--about “robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb”--about “clothing of wrought gold--all-glorious within.” These all refer to that righteousness of Jesus, which He puts upon all His people as the dress they are to wear in heaven. Oh, the clothing which is made out of the “Rose of Sharon” is very beautiful! It is so in God’s sight. There never was any like it.
7. And then the “Rose of Sharon” is good to make people rich. Nobody ever thinks of feeling rich because he has a rose. Why, you may have a bunch of roses; yes, a whole garden of roses, and yet not be very rich. Sometimes we hear of a king making a present of a golden rose to one of his friends. Yet that would not make him rich. But every one who has the “Rose of Sharon” is rich. Nobody can tell how rich Christ makes His people. “They shall inherit all things.” What more could they have?
III. Because it makes people happy when nothing else can. What a dreadful thing it must be on board a burning ship, far off on the ocean! We all heard about that dreadful calamity--the burning of the steamer “Austria. She was full of passengers. The fire spread almost like lightning. Could anything make persons calm and happy on board that burning vessel? Yes, there were some there who loved Jesus, who had the “Rose of Sharon with them and that made them happy.
IV. Because it never fades. Its beauty never decays. Its leaves never fall off. Winter never comes in heaven. The flowers are blooming all the time there. And chief among them is this beautiful “Rose of Sharon.” Ah! my dear children, if you want to love one who never dies and never changes, then love Jesus. He is the “Rose of Sharon,” and this is the best flower, because it never fades.
V. Because its beauty is always increasing. There never was another flower known of which this could be said. You take a small rose-bud and look at it. How beautiful it is! As it grows larger its beauty increases. Every day it swells to a greater size. You see more and more of its lovely crimson colour- Presently the bud begins to open. You can almost see its leaves expanding as you stand and gaze upon it. How interesting it is to watch it! Gradually it unfolds itself, till all its many leaves have opened themselves, and now it stands before you a fragrant, blushing, beautiful, full-blown rose. How sweetly it looks! Can anything in the world be more delightful? But now it’s all over! You have seen all there is about the rose worth seeing. Very soon it will wither away, and you won’t care to look at it any more. But it is very different with the “Rose of Sharon.” This will be always growing and always blooming. And its flowers will be always increasing in beauty. I do not mean that some of its flowers will die, and others, more beautiful, come out upon it. Not one of its flowers will ever die. But they will all go on increasing in beauty continually. Oh, wonderful plant! How glorious it will be, if we get to heaven to look on and to watch its increasing beauty to all eternity! (R. Newton, D. D.)
The rose and the lily
It is our Lord who speaks: “I am the Rose of Sharon.” How is it that He utters His own commendation, for it is an old and true adage, that “self-praise is no recommendation”? None but vain creatures ever praise themselves, and yet Jesus often praises Himself. How, then, shall we solve the riddle? Is not this the answer, that He is no creature at all, and therefore comes not beneath the rule? For the creature to praise itself is vanity, but for the Creator to praise Himself, for the Lord God to manifest and show forth His own glory is becoming and proper. Our Lord, when He thus praises Himself doubtless does so for an excellent reason, namely, that no one can possibly reveal Him to the sons of men but Himself. No lips can tell the love of Christ to the heart till Jesus Himself shall speak within. Christ must be His own mirror; as the diamond alone can cut the diamond, so He alone can display Himself.
I. First, I shall speak upon the motives of our Lord in thus commending himself. I take it that He has designs of love in this speech. He would have all His people rich in high and happy thoughts concerning His blessed person.
1. Doubtless, He commends Himself because high thoughts of Christ will enable us to act consistently with our relations towards Him. The saved soul is espoused to Christ. Now, in the marriage estate, it is a great assistance to happiness if the wife has high ideas of her husband. In the marriage union between the soul and Christ, this is exceedingly necessary.
2. Moreover, our in aster knows that high thoughts of Him increase our love. If we are to love Him at all, it must be with the love of admiration; and the higher that admiration shall rise, the more vehemently will our love flame forth.
3. A high esteem of Christ, moreover, as He well knoweth, is very necessary to our comfort. Beloved, when you esteem Christ very highly, the things of this world become of small account with you, and their loss is not so heavily felt Get but delightful thoughts of Him, and you will feel like a man who has lost a pebble but has preserved his diamond; like the man who has seen a few cast clouts and rotten rags consumed in the flames, but has saved his children from the conflagration. You will rejoice in your deepest distress because Christ is yours if you have a high sense of the preciousness of your Master.
4. Our Lord would have us entertain great thoughts of Himself, because this will quicken all the powers of our soul. I spoke to you just now of love receiving force from an esteem of Jesus, I might say the like of faith, or patience, or humility.
5. High thoughts of Jesus will set us upon high attempts for His honour. When the grand thought of love to God has gained full possession of the soul, men have been able to actually accomplish what other men have not even thought of doing. Love has laughed at impossibilities, and proved that she is not to be quenched by many waters, nor drowned by floods.
II. Whatever may be the commendable motive for any statement, yet it must not be made if it be not accurate, and therefore, in the second place, I come to observe our Lord’s justification for this commendation, which is abundantly satisfactory to all who know Him. What our Lord says of Himself is strictly true. It falls short of the mark, it is no exaggeration. Observe each one of the words. He begins, “I am.” Those two little words I would not insist upon, but it is no straining of language to say that even here we have a great deep, “I am” hath revealed Himself unto thee in a more glorious manner than He did unto Moses at the burning bush, the great “I AM” in human flesh has become thy Saviour and thy Lord. “I am the rose.” We understand from this, that Christ is lovely. He selects one of the most charming of flowers to set forth Himself. All the beauties of all the creatures are to be found in Christ in greater perfection than in the creatures themselves. He is infinitely more beautiful in the garden of the soul and in the paradise of God than the rose can be in the gardens of earth, though it be the universally acknowledged queen of flowers. But the spouse adds, “I am the rose of Sharon.” This was the best and rarest of roses. Jesus is not “the rose” alone, but “the rose of Sharon,” just as He calls His righteousness “gold,” and then adds, “the gold of Ophir”--the best of the best. Our Lord adds. “I am the lily,” thus giving Himself a double commendation. Indeed, Jesus Christ deserves not to be praised doubly, but sevenfold, aye, and unto seven times seven. Earth’s choicest charms commingled, feebly picture His abounding preciousness. He is the “lily of the valleys.” Does He intend by that to hint to us that He is a lily in His lowliest estate, a lily of the valley? The carpenter’s son, living in poverty, wearing the common garb of the poor, is He the lily of the valleys? Yes; He is a lily to you and to me, poor dwellers in the lowlands. Up yonder He is a lily on the hilltops, where all celestial eyes admire Him; down here, in these valleys of fears and cares, He is a lily still as fair as in heaven. The words, having been opened up one by one, teach us that Christ is lovely to all our spiritual senses. The rose is delightful to the eye, hut it is also refreshing to the nostril, and the lily the same. So is Jesus. Go anywhere where Jesus is, and though you do not actually hear His name, yet the sweet influence which flows from His love will be plainly enough discernible. Our Lord is so lovely, that even the recollection of His love is sweet. Take the rose of Sharon, and pull it leaf from leaf, and lay by the leaves in the jar of memory, and you shall find each leaf most flagrant long afterwards, filling the house with perfume; and this very day we remember times of refreshing enjoyed at the Lord’s table still delightful as we reflect upon them. Jesus is lovely in the bud as well as when full blown. You admire the rose quite as much when it is but a bud as when it bursts forth into perfect development: and methinks, Christ to you, my beloved, in the first blush of your piety, was not one whir less sweet than He is now. Jesus full blown, in our riper experience, has lost none of His excellence. When we shall see Him fully blown in the garden of paradise, shall we not count it to be our highest heaven to gaze upon Him for ever? Christ is so lovely that He needs no beautifying. Let the roughest tongue speak sincerely of Him in the most broken but honest accents, and Jesus Himself is such a radiant jewel that the setting will be of small consequence, He is so glorious that He is “Most adorned when unadorned the most.” He is so lovely, again, that He 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 I should think that no man of taste will ever be able to criticize the lily, and cavil at its form. Now, 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. Dwelling for another minute on thin subject, let me remark that our Lord Jesus Christ deserves all that He has said of Himself. First, in His Divine glory. The glory of Christ as God, who shall write upon it? Nothing is great, nothing is excellent but God, and Christ is God. O roses and lilies, where are ye now? Our Lord deserves these praises, again, in His perfection of manhood. He is like ourselves, but in Him was no sin. “The prince of this world cometh, but hath nothing in Me.” Throughout the whole of His biography, there is not a faulty line. He deserves this commendation, too, in His mediatorial qualifications. Since His blood has washed us from all our sins, we talk no more of the red roses, for what can they do to purify the soul? Since His righteousness has made us accepted in the Beloved, we will speak no more of spotless lilies, for what are these? He deserves all this praise, too, in His reigning glory. He has a glory which His Father has given Him as a reward, in the power of which He sits down at the right hand of God for ever and ever, and shall soon come to judge the world in righteousness, and the people with equity. View the Lord Jesus in any way you please, all that He Himself can say concerning Himself He richly deserves, and therefore glory be unto His name for ever and ever, and let the whole earth say, Amen.
III. I shall now conduct you to a third consideration, namely, the influence of this commendation upon us. Think of the ruin of this world till Christ came into it! Methinks I see in vision a howling wilderness, a great and terrible desert, like to the Sahara. Christ is the rose which has changed the scene. If you would have great thoughts of Christ think of your own ruin. Yonder I behold you cast out an infant, unswathed, unwashed, defiled with your own blood, too foul to be looked upon except by beasts of prey. And what is this that has been cast into your bosom, and which lying there has suddenly made you fair and lovely? A rose has been thrown into your bosom by a Divine hand, and for its sake you have been pitied and cared for by Divine Providence, you are washed and cleaned from your defilement, you are adopted into Heaven’s family, the fair seal of love is upon your forehead, and the ring of faithfulness is on your hand--a prince unto God--though just now you were an orphan, cast away. O prize the rose, the putting of which into your bosom has made you what you are! Consider your daily need of this rose. You live in the pestilential air of this earth: take Christ away, you die. Christ is the daily food of your spirit. Think of the estimation that Christ is had in beyond the skies, in the land where things are measured by the right standard, where men are no longer deceived by the delusions of earth. Think how God esteems the Only Begotten, His unspeakable gift to us. Consider what the angels think of Him, as they count it their highest honour to veil their faces at His feet. Consider what the blood-washed think of Him, as day without night they sing His well-deserved praises with gladdest voices. Remember how you yourself have sometimes esteemed Him. Have there not been moments when the chariots of Amminadib seemed but poor dragging things, compared with the wheels of your soul when Jesus ravished your heart with His celestial embrace? Estimate Him to-day as you did then, for He is the same, though you are not.
IV. I shall close by asking you to make confessions suggested by my text. I am sure you have all had falls, and slips, and shortcomings, with regard to Him. Well, then, come humbly to Jesus at once. He will forgive yon readily, for He does not soon take offence at His spouse. He may sometimes speak sharp words to her, because He loves her; but His heart is always true, and faithful, and tender. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Rose of Sharon, and the Lily of the Valleys
Jesus calls Himself first, “the Rose of Sharon,” and then, “the Lily of the Valleys.” Let us consider what He means.
I. The Rose of Sharon. Of all the flowers that God has made, the rose, take it all in all, is the loveliest and the sweetest. It has three things in perfection--shape, colour, and fragrance. Indeed, we may call it the queen of flowers. Now, it is in its sweetness especially that the rose reminds me of the Lord Jesus Christ. His character was marked not only by manliness, but also with what we may call “sweetness,” for he had all the firmness of a man and all the tenderness of a woman. I will give you another reason for the comparison of Christ to a rose. The rose is the most common as well as the most beautiful of all the flowers. You find it wherever you go,--in all countries and in all places. In fact, it is the universal flower: it belongs to everybody. And in this respect it resembles Christ, for Christ is the common property of all--of the peasant as well as of the prince; of poor as well as of rich; of the child as well as of the full-grown man. He belongs to all nations, too--to the dwellers in north and south and east and west; arid there is no one, whatever he may be, or wherever he lives, who cannot say, “The Lord Jesus Christ is my Saviour, and I claim Him as my own.”
II. But the Saviour calls Himself in the text The Lily of the Valleys, and we have now to consider what this second title is intended to teach us. Supposing that “the Lily of the Valleys” is the flower which we know by that name--you all remember how graceful it is, with pretty little white bells ranged in a row on a tapering stalk, and how it appears to hide itself modestly under the shade of its broad green leaves. Now, why is it thus chosen? Partly because the lily is of a beautiful white colour, and represents purity. And you know how pure the Lord Jesus Christ was. Never at any time did He think, or say, or do anything that was wrong. As a child, as a boy, as a man, He was absolutely free from fault. But the lily of the valley--because it has a drooping head, and retires behind the shade of its broad green leaves, instead of thrusting itself forward--may be taken as an emblem of lowliness or humility, and so will serve to remind us of the Lord Jesus Christ.
III. We will try, in conclusion, to apply the subject to ourselves, So that we may be the better, by God’s blessing, for having talked about it and thought about it. We have the example of the Lord Jesus Christ proposed to us. He is perfect, and we can never hope to be perfect. But we may become, by the kind help of His Holy Spirit, more and more like Him every day. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)
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The rose and the lily
I have taken a text, chiefly because it is generally supposed that a sermon cannot be preached without a Bible text. But I only want those two words--Rose, Lily; and I take those two because they may be regarded as the chief and the representative of the midsummer flowers. But how can we learn from the rose and the lily concerning God? In this way. Everything a man does or makes embodies and expresses himself. The Bible tells us that is true even of children. “Even a child is known by his doings.” Somehow children and men always stamp themselves on everything they make and everything they do. And this is one of the chief ways by which we come to know God. We look at the things He makes, and when we find out what character they bear we may say, God is like this, only infinitely better. If He made this, the possibility of making more and better than this must be in Him. If God made the rose and the lily, what must He be?
1. Now the first thing that comes to our thought, when we notice the exquisite form of the rose and the stately grace of the lily, is--How beautiful God must be. What beautiful thought He must have to have designed such forms, and what a beautiful touch to mould such forms, and so how beautiful He Himself must be.
2. Looking again at the rose and the lily we are reminded of their fragrance, we feel their fragrance--that sweet scent of the rose, that rich and almost overpowering odour of the lily. Then it strikes us that they are not merely beautiful to look at, they are scattering blessings continually--pouring forth their treasures to enrich the air, and to give us pleasure and health, filling the summer sky with balmy breath, spending themselves to do others good, to make others glad. And so they tell us what God is. For in God’s thought they were filled with that fragrance, and in breathing it out they fain would tell us of Him of whose eternal sweetness they partake. What must the fragrance of God be who put such fragrance into His flowers? And this we can feel to be true of God manifested in Christ. The fragrance of Christ’s life on earth is its greatest charm. It was a life of self-denials, generosities and charities; crowded with thoughtfulnesses and helpfulnesses, exemplifying His own words, “It is more blessed to give than receive.”
3. Then, again, we are struck with the colour of the rose and the lily--that creamy whiteness of the lily, that tinted whiteness of the rose. We feel purity in colour, more especially in white flowers, but it is the characteristic of them all. God made these pure white flowers, then what must His purity be? We are often touched with God’s wonderful and exhaustless power of making pure things--clear waters, white snows, woolly clouds, new leaves, blue sky, and the exquisite pale tinting all about the summer sunset. Moses had a vision of the surroundings of God, and under His feet was a paved work of a sapphire stone, and, as it were, the body of heaven in His clearness. This purity is characteristic of God manifest in the flesh. Jesus was clothed in white all through His life, and on His beautiful garments one stain never came.
4. So the leaves and petals of rose and lily become leaves of a Bible to us, from which we may learn of God. The flowers say, “We come to tell you that God lives, that God loves, and that God wants your love.” The roses say, “Love and serve the good and beautiful God, who may be served by everything that is kind and lovely.” The lilies say, “Love and serve the pure and righteous God, who may be served by everything that is holy and true.” And all the other midsummer hewers, gathering round their king and queen, seem to join in one great chorus, and to say, “We love and serve the One, the living God--the Wonderful, the Beautiful, the Pure, the Good--and you should love Him too.” (R. Tuck.)