My Song is Love Unknown (ELW 343)
1 My song is love unknown,
my Savior’s love to me,
love to the loveless shown
that they might lovely be.
Oh, who am I that for my sake
my Lord should take frail flesh and die?
2 He came from his blest throne
salvation to bestow;
the world that was his own
would not its Savior know.
But, oh, my friend, my friend indeed,
who at my need his life did spend!
3 Sometimes we strew his way
and his sweet praises sing;
resounding all the day
hosannas to our king.
Then “Crucify!” is all our breath,
and for his death we thirst and cry.
4 We cry out; we will have
our dear Lord made away,
a murderer to save,
the prince of life to slay.
Yet cheerful he to suff’ring goes
that he his foes from thence might free.
5 In life no house, no home
my Lord on earth might have;
in death no friendly tomb
but what a stranger gave.
What may I say? Heav’n was his home
but mine the tomb wherein he lay.
6 Here might I stay and sing—
no story so divine!
Never was love, dear King,
never was grief like thine.
This is my friend, in whose sweet praise
I all my days could gladly spend!
Text: Samuel Crossman, 1624–83, alt.
Devotion
Samuel Crossman’s original hymn text included an additional verse between our third and fourth verse.
“Why, what hath my Lord done?
What makes this rage and spite?
He made the lame to run,
He gave the blind their sight,
Sweet injuries! Yet they at these
Themselves displease, and ’gainst Him rise.”
The hymn author takes us into the story of Jesus. He points to the contrast between God’s actions through Jesus and our actions in response.
We don’t recognize our Savior. Jesus, God’s Son, becomes human and is willing to die to save us.
Jesus, our King, leaves his powerful throne, but we can’t see or comprehend what God is doing through him.
Fickle humans can praise God in one day and curse him the next. Christ’s love is consistent and graceful.
Jesus heals people, yet the crowds then and we now respond to God’s grace with rage, spite, or, maybe worst, indifference.
Prayer
Dear God, transform our spite and rage. Inspire us to trust in wonder, gratitude, and praise for your Son’s passionate and gracious love. Amen.