I am very dark but lovely . . .

Song of Songs Series, Part 3

Photo by Larisa Birta on Unsplash

I am very dark, but lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.
Do not gaze at me because I am dark,
because the sun has looked upon me.
My mother's sons were angry with me;
they made me keeper of the vineyards,
but my own vineyard I have not kept! (Song of Songs 1:5-6)

When we imagine Jesus thinking of us with great love, affection, and positive regard, it can trigger thoughts like, “But I am so unworthy of Him!” The Shulamite bride seemed to have a moment like that too when feelings of inadequacy surfaced.

She tells the daughters of Jerusalem that her tan is as dark as the black goat-hair tents of the nomadic Arab tribe, Kedar. Her need to draw attention to this fact feels very familiar. It’s typical of what women do when we feel insecure. We think that if we show others that we’re aware of our flaw, they will perhaps be more forgiving.

“Please don’t stare at me because I’m so dark,” she says, knowing she doesn’t meet the beauty standard of her society, which prizes lighter complexions that signal leisure and nobility rather than manual labor. (This beauty standard was common in many urban courts of the day—Egyptian, Canaanite, and later Greco-Roman.)

Then she says, “My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards.” It’s her explanation for why she hasn’t been able to take better care of herself. Do you relate to her need to explain herself? I sure do. Excuses are a good strategy to head off any potential judgment. How often I’ve said, “Bad hair day!” to explain why I’m wearing a hat to someone.

And yet, even though she saw herself as dark, it seems that she believed what Solomon said about her. Hadn’t he told her over and over that she was beautiful? No wonder she was able to say, “I am very dark but lovely.”

In the same way, we acknowledge: “I am very dark because of sin; I don’t meet the moral standard of God’s perfection, yet in the eyes of my Heavenly Bridegroom who died to pay for my sins, I am lovely.”

Recently I listened to an interview with an elderly man who was giving advice about marriage. He said that if a young man marries a woman just for her appearance, what will he do when she is old and no longer attractive—her face “scarred” with wrinkles, her body carrying extra pounds, her mind feeble? Will he still see beauty? The old man then went on to share that as his wife lay dying—emaciated, her body wrecked—he still saw her soul and felt she was simply beautiful. The interviewer was so moved, tears sprang to his eyes, and words would not come, so the two sat in silence for a long moment.

The elderly man’s story is a touching example of how true love sees beyond the superficial. And we have such a bridegroom. He looks past our unattractive sin-darkness and sees a beautiful new creation (note II Corinthians 5:17). So, we too, like the Shulamite bride, can say, “I am very dark, but lovely.” What a wonderful thing it is to find our identity in Jesus.