Pity, Grace, Love!

Songs of the Church Devotion for March 31, 2022

?“Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed!” st. 2

?“Was it for crimes that I had done He groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity, grace unknown, And love beyond degree!”

?Yet another rhetorical question.?“Was it for crimes that I had done He groaned upon the cross?”?Quite obviously the answer is yes.?He died for all, the righteous for the unrighteous that He might bring us to God.”?He died for me, for especially me, for most especially me… and for you.

?Look at what this stanza says about what Jesus did for us on the tree of the cross.?That’s “amazing pity.”?Pity is another word for mercy.??Mercy is when God fails to give us what we deserve.?Mercy is God withholding from you and me the punishment for sin that we deserve.?It should have been us groaning on that tree.?But that’s not what happened.?Instead, God’s own Son, Jesus was punished for our crimes.??Amazing pity!

?It is also grace unknown.?Grace is God giving us what we don’t deserve.?Grace is God loving us in spite of us giving him every reason not to love us… in spite of our sin. “While we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son…”?Elsewhere Paul writes, “One will scarcely die for a righteous man – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!”?That’s grace.

?And finally, the summary – such pity and grace are “love beyond degree.”?In the words of another well-loved Lenten hymn – “My song is love unknown, my Saviors 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!”