Valley Lilies

1) Valley lilies, meek and lowly,

Let me hear your message sweet,

Tell of Christ the pure and holy,

Bending as to touch His feet.

2) Snowy lilies of the valley,

Speak again your message rare;

Testify to me of Jesus,

Heaven's Lily, wondrous fair!

3) Valley lilies, golden hearted,

Love's sweet mission you fulfill,

For you tell in perfumed language,

how He wrought His Father's will.

4) Valley lilies, cups inverted,

Still the Master you proclaim:

Empty of all pomp and glory,

To redeem the world He came.

I don't have any music today.  I have no idea how these words sound in song, but Flora Kirkland lyrics do remind me of Jonathan Edwards.  I remember reading that Edwards argued for exegeting creation.  So, as I recall Andy Stager saying during my roommate's reading group, Edwards would not only look at the way a butterfly would flap its wings in order to understand the butterfly, but he would also want to know what the butterfly flapping it's wings says about God.  Here, Kirkland is looking at the lilies to see what they say about Jesus.

Assuming Kirkland was inspired from a lily passage outside of Song of Solomon (though I could be wrong looking at the third stanza), I would guess Kirkland was either drawing from Luke or  Matthew which give an account of Jesus trying to calm anxieties. Luke 12:27 says, "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."  In Matthew  6:28, Jesus states, "And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." It's helpful in exegeting creation when Jesus does it for us.  Lilies are beautiful flowers (I had to look them up).  Yet they don't labor as we do to maintain beauty.  They just are beautiful.  Solomon, who had more money than anyone, could not dress himself in a more beautiful fashion than this simple flower.  God takes care of His creation, and in doing so, He takes care of us.  We should give our anxieties to Him.  It is something I have trouble doing.  But as you look at this flower, you see that God's hands are far more capable than mine.