What Wondrous Love Is This?

Meditations for Ragamuffins

May 17, 2024

What Wondrous Love Is This?

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

John 11:25a

We can know about someone: we can know of them; or we can know them, know them personally. I love the music of Robin Mark of Belfast, Northern Ireland. For several years I had listened to and enjoyed his music, but after spending a week with him in a setting where he led worship services for our group twice per day, I got to know him. After hosting him to twice lead worship at my church, corresponding with him, and reading his book, Warrior Poets Of The 21st Century, my personal knowledge of him grew, and my appreciation for his music and his ministry deepened.

John 11:17- 44 tells the story of Martha and Mary, and Jesus raising their brother Lazarus from the dead. Martha and Mary had been in various settings with Jesus on numerous occasions, and they had come to have great respect and appreciation for his ministry. Yet, they still did not know him. Martha and Mary’s ‘if only’ statements to Jesus reveal an underlying trust in his supernatural powers, but do not reveal an intimate knowledge of the person of Jesus. In raising Lazarus from the dead, Jesus was able to help them understand that the resurrection was not some future event that will happen some day; the resurrection is a person. As God’s Messiah, Jesus has brought the future hope of God’s restored Kingdom to become a present reality.

Amid this hugely difficult theological and doctrinal point to grasp, Jesus reveals the very heart of God. Jesus wept. Jesus fulfilled the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down” (Isaiah 53:4). The Palmist tells us that God cares deeply for us: “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book” (Psalm 56:8).

My Takeaway: God keeps our tears in a bottle and Jesus weeps with us. Our standing invitation is to come and know God the Father Almighty as our dear Abba, and to intimately know Jesus as our friend and comforter. When we do, our hearts will sing . . . 

 

What wondrous love is this,

O my soul, O my soul,

what wondrous love is this,

O my soul!

 

What Wondrous Love Is This?

Dr. Alexander Means, 1835

(My ancestor and my name’s sake) 

Sē’lah

 

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2024 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.