This Sunday in worship we focus on the Savior of humanity saving a couple from public shame at their wedding. Jesus reveals himself as true God in his first miracle of changing ordinary water into wedding wine.
The Hymn of the Day is #714 – Jesus, Your Boundless Love to Me.” The hymn’s author is Paul Gerhardt. Gerhardt is considered the greatest hymn writer Lutheranism every produced. He wrote over 130 hymns in his lifetime. 22 of those hymns are included in our new blue Christian Worship hymnal.
Gerhardt’s life was filled with hardship, but his faith remained firm. The texts of his hymns are powerful and poetic; deep and doctrinal.
Gerhardt’s original hymn has 16 verses. Our hymnal includes four of those verses.
The first verse: “Jesus, your boundless love to me No thought can reach, no tongue declare. Dwell in my heart eternally, And reign without a rival there. To you alone, dear Lord, I live; Myself to you, dear Lord, I give.”
If you listen to modern Christian music, much of it centers on the Christian’s love toward God. Loving God is a great thing. But Gerhardt puts the emphasis for loving God where it belongs – that God loves us first with a boundless love through Jesus Christ.
Verse two: “Oh, grant that nothing in my soul May dwell but your pure love alone; Oh, may your love possess me whole, My joy, my treasure, and my crown! All coldness from my heart remove; My ev’ry act, word, thought be love.”
Before we can respond warmly in love to God, God the Holy Spirit must first remove the coldness of our hearts. Based on God’s action of loving us with the pure love in giving us his Son, now we can react with our actions, words and thoughts of love.
St. Paul puts it this way in this Sunday’s epistle lesson: “I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he would strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner self, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then, being rooted and grounded in love, I pray that you would be able to comprehend, along with all the saints, how wide and long and high and deep his love is, and that you would be able to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16–19).
It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring Christ to us so that he might dwell in our hearts through faith. This results in us “being rooted and grounded in love.” Martin Luther explains it this way in his Small Catechism, “I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him. But the Holy Spirit has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith. In the same way he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.”
Verse three: “This love unwearied I pursue And dauntlessly to you aspire. Oh, may your love my hope renew, Burn in my soul like heav’nly fire! And day and night be all my care To guard this sacred treasure there.”
If you want to be more loving to your spouse or desire for your children to be more loving to you, then all of you need to be filled with the love of God. Pursue God’s love. Aspire to be filled with God’s love. Pray for your soul to become a heavenly fire set ablaze by the love of God. You cannot have a natural love for others until you are first filled with the supernatural love of God. “We love because God first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
Verse four: “In suff’ring be your love my peace; In weakness be your love my pow’r; And when the storms of life shall cease, O Jesus, in that final hour Be then my rod and staff and guide And draw me safely to your side.”
In his last verse, Gerhardt speaks of the final hour of a believer’s life. We desire to be guided by the Good Shepherd’s rod and staff to his side in the green pastures and quiet waters of paradise. We can wait patiently and confidently because our earthly suffering is replaced with heavenly peace. Our human weakness is surpassed by God’s divine power. All this is given to you by God’s divine love.
Love shown by a God who cared enough to save newlyweds from embarrassment on their wedding day. Love shown by a God who cared enough to save sinful humanity from hellish punishment on Judgment Day.
Listen to Jesus, Your Boundless Love to Me on YouTube. Then hear it again this Sunday in worship. Be filled with Christ’s boundless love so you may respond with love to God and God’s people.
We end with St. Paul’s beautiful benediction in Ephesians: ”Now to him, who is able, according to the power that is at work within us, to do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen” (Ephesians 4:20-21).