"Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."

Hymn: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” – Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Tune: HAMBURG

This final phrase from one of the best-loved Christian hymns – especially during Lent – pulls together all the previous stanzas to state the proper response to our giving attention to the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died.

We have been called upon to count our richest gain as loss – or to consider all that we’ve amassed in this life as nothing. Instructed to have contempt for – to hate – our prideful nature, we’ve promised God that we would never boast in anything except the death of his Son. We have committed to turn instruments of vanity into a sacrifice for our blood-bought redemption.

We have looked with reverence upon the head, hands and feet of the Crucified One from whom sorrow and love become a confluence flowing slowly downward. Have ever love and sorrow intertwined in such a way? Has ever a rich crown been formed from bramble-bush thorns?

Then we come to the end of the hymn, admitting that nothing created could possibly be gift enough for all this suffering. Instead, our total surveillance of the wondrous cross demands total commitment… a sacrifice of soul, life, and all that we are.

Thank you, Isaac Watts, for walking us through the crucifixion event with such beautiful language… language to sing together as a great congregation of those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb... language which at once communicates our sorrow and our love.

Hear Gilbert Martin’s Setting of This Hymn