AMAZING LOVE

In the late spring of 1990, the world looked to the skies for the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. It also witnessed the tragic and untimely death of creative genius Jim Henson. On a sunny week in May on the north shore of Lake Huron, my attention was attuned to my cabin mates at the week-long Christian camp I was attending for the first time,  the Gospel of Mark, and the diversity of worship music I was experiencing anew. As a young believer – or at least a newly-growing one, thanks to a college ministry on my small Wisconsin campus – most of the basic elements of the life of a Christian were new to me: a daily quiet time for prayer and study, evangelism as a way of life, and living as the kind of worshiper who engaged with the Lord in full-bodied devotion musically, physically, spiritually. When I began attending our chapter’s weekly large group meetings, I was very quickly transitioned into the role of pianist/sometime worship leader. As the legend goes, the reports went as follows: ‘We’ve got this girl, loves to play, does a great job…not so sure she’s a Christian, but she sure knows her way around a hymn’.

And so I found myself a not-quite-reluctant worship leader, wondering if I’d ever fully believe, or at least understand.  the songs I was leading.

Thank heavens (quite literally) for the long tradition of the singing of historic hymnody in my local chapter, and at this regional camp. For every contemporary worship song we sang, full of simple chord changes, lyrics about the songwriter’s feelings about God, and liberal use of the first-person pronoun, there was an equal  or higher- number of historic hymns taught and sung from actual hymnals, not from screens. And as this was still the era when most people were exposed to music in school, the hymn singing was robust and highly valued.

After one such worship service connected to a concert of prayer for persecuted Christians (we really did cover a lot of ground at camp!), my small group left for our assigned work detail: setting the table for dinner for about 200 staff and campers. Just before departing, we sang the incomparable Charles Wesley text, “And Can It Be”.  As I circled the tables in the dining hall and mindlessly sang the extraordinary words, “Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night/Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light”, Tim, my staff worker, walked past me and asked me what it was about that text that had stuck with me. To the rhythm of the forks being placed on the round wooden tables, I considered his words. Why had this Wesley text floated to the top of mind to sing instead of the more contemporary and, arguably, more easily memorable and singable songs I had learned that same day? 

‘Every line and verse of this hymn tells me something about God’s character?’ I guessed, with an obvious question mark at the end of my statement. 

‘Go on,’ Tim said.

And so, line by line, verse by verse, with my memory prompted by Tim’s cues, Hymn #88 leapt off the page and took root in my heart in a stone-of-remembrance moment.

And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood?
Is it possible that I can receive a benefit from what Jesus has done?

Died he for me who caused his pain, for me who him to death pursued.

Separated from God by my sin, my plight moved him to give up even his life for my sake, and for the sake of those who crucified him.

Amazing Love, how can it be, that thou, my God, shouldst die for me.

I marvel at this kind of love - this generous, life-bringing, sacrificial love.

‘Tis mystery all, the immortal dies, who can explore his strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries to sound the depths of love divine.

The immortal one put on flesh, and knew death so we wouldn’t have to. This is love! 

Tis mercy all, let earth adore, let angel minds inquire no more.

After a fashion, it is not ours to know — it is ours to believe.

He left his father’s throne above, so free, so infinite his grace,
Emptied himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race.

These two lines are a perfect picture of Philippians 2, which describes the one who made himself nothing to give his people everything. 

‘Tis mercy all, immense and free, for oh, my God, it found out me.

God’s mercy found me when I was far away from him, and when I didn’t know I needed to be found. Every wall and mask that I had built and created to protect myself fell away in the light of his mercy and grace.

(By this point, the tables were set, and I was seated on a couch in the room next door, taking in the rest of the astonishing verses of this hymn).

Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature’s night.
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray, I woke, the dungeon flamed with light.
My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed thee.              

This verse is my testimony. This verse comes straight from the early church as the Holy Spirit intervened to free the imprisoned apostles that the message of the gospel might not be silenced. This kind of freedom leads directly to obedience and following without question.

No condemnation now I dread, Jesus and all in Him is mine,
Alive in him, my living head, and clothed in righteousness Divine.
Bold I approach th’eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own.

This verse sets the Christian free to live in the fashion of Romans 8, with no fear, no dread, and no condemnation. No matter how you fare in the measures laid out in the previous verses, freedom is free to us, one and all, by the accomplished work on the cross. All of Jesus is mine. I’m clothed in his righteousness. I can approach the throne of grace with boldness!

And so, verse by extraordinary verse, I was hooked. Challenged by Tim and other leaders like him, I began to experience God with a Bible in one hand and a hymnal in the other. Every night before bed, I would memorize hymn texts - and I can’t tell you how often those texts I memorized in my college years have come to bear in the ensuing decades. 

Later that same week, along the shores of Lake Huron, Tim prayed with me at a well—worn picnic table, gulls crying overhead, the open water splashing against the rocks, that I might love Jesus more fully and live in more faithful obedience. In the over 35 years since that prayer, God has been faithful to his promise;  over and over again, his eye has diffused a quickening ray of light to the darkened corners of my life, bringing freedom and release. The chains that have continued to hold me fast in sin have instead become fetters of goodness, holding me ever closer to his heart. And each day, I am one day closer to claiming my crown through Christ my own, when all I’ll really want to do is lay my own at his feet. 

Amazing love, how can it be?