CW 397 – My Song is Love Unknown
“My Song is Love Unknown” is a wonderful, biblical, and beautiful text on the passion of our Lord. Much of its popularity must also be attributed to the wonderful tune written by John Ireland.
In a letter to the Daily Telegraph dated April 5, 1950, a Mr. Donald Ford stated that the tune was composed in a quarter of an hour. According to the report, it was written while John Ireland was having lunch with Geoffrey Turton Shaw, who requested, “I want a tune for this lovely poem by Samuel Crossman.” The composer then took the paper and picked up the menu. After writing on the back of the menu for a few minutes he handed it to Shaw, with the casual remark, “Here is your tune.
Verse one: 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?
It seems odd that the hymnwriter describes the Savior’s love for us as “love unknown” and “love to the loveless.” Of course, God’s love is known through Christ, but we stand in amazement at the love of God that surpasses our understanding. The idea of Jesus loving us despite our loveless condition and the wicked way in which he was treated runs throughout the hymn. This idea is found in Romans 5: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God shows us his love by doing the unthinkable – he gives his own Son for people who simply do not deserve it.
Verse two: He came from his blest throne salvation to bestow, but such disdain! So few the longed-for Christ would know! But oh, my friend, my friend indeed, who at my need his life did spend!
This verse brings us into the harsh and heart-breaking reality that Jesus was and is rejected by people. Jesus is the King who came from his throne to his people, and they rejected him, mocked him, and crucified him. But this was prophesied by Isaiah: “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (53:2-3).
Verse three: Sometimes they strew his way and his sweet praises sing, resounding all the day hosannas to their King. Then “Crucify!” is all their breath, and for his death they thirst and cry.
This verse takes us through the way the crowds treated Jesus during Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, he was greeted with palm branches and shouts of praise. The crowds were greeting him as the rightful King of Israel, as the One who would rescue them. But a different crowd was turned against Jesus by the end of the week. The devil whispering in their ear, the chief priests urging them on, and their own sinful nature enjoying the mob mentality all conspired to call for Jesus’ death.
Verse four: 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.
Jesus healed the sick, made the blind see, allowed the lame to walk, and even raised the dead. Yet, these things caused great offense and contributed to the anger and controversy from the religious leaders that then led to Jesus’ execution.
Verse five: They rise and needs will have my dear Lord made away. A murderer they save, the Prince of life they slay. Yet cheerful he to suff’ring goes that he his foes from death might free.
This verse points to a great irony. The crowds chose to kill the Prince of life and let a convicted murderer go free. Peter sums this up quickly in Acts 3: “You handed [Jesus] over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this” (13-15).
Verse six: 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.
Verse six states that Jesus has no house nor home. This was even demonstrated in Jesus’ death and burial. During Jesus’ ministry, he traveled from city to city so that he said of himself, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head" (Luke 9:58). Even at his death, Jesus had no family tomb, but he was placed in the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Jesus was laid in a tomb that should have been ours, but instead heaven, which was his home, will now be our home!
Verse seven: 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!
In this final verse we sing about why we always want to be worshiping our God. Jesus received the punishment for our sin and now we receive the reward of the righteous. We receive the life, joy, and peace of heaven itself. This leads us to joyfully proclaim the love of him who has suffered, died, and risen from the dead for us. We want to sing this song of sweet praise all our days in response to God’s unknown love shown to us in Christ Jesus.