What Wondrous Love is This
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of Bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul!
Today, more than any other day, we stand in awe of what has been done for us by our God in the incarnation, life, and death of Jesus Christ.
The crucifixion of Jesus turns everything upside down. For the Romans, crucifixion was the ultimate display of power mixed with cruelty. Exactly the sort of image one wishes to hold over an occupied, oppressed people to remind them that rebellion and resistance are bad ideas. It is intended to punish, make an example, and instill fear in the hearts of onlookers. The crucifixion of Jesus surely accomplished these things for a moment. But as the Passion according to Mark tells us, immediately people began to realize that this was something very different than the executions they had seen before.
When Jesus is crucified, the sun goes dark and withholds its light from the world. The veil of the temple is torn down the middle, revealing the holiest of places in Jerusalem. The ground shakes. The dead are freed from their tombs. Even the impenetrable gates of Hell are burst open. Everything that was supposed to be constant, stable, tested and true has been torn down or stood on its head. The familiar order of the world is no longer in place.
Perhaps, in the midst of her grief and the confusion swirling around her, Mary had a moment of wonder at the order all displaced. Perhaps, if the sun could go dark and the earth could shake, then this was also the moment when tyrants would be cast down from their thrones and the rich would be sent away empty. Perhaps Mary, recalling Simeon’s prophecy of a sword piercing her soul, simply wondered how this cruel death could possibly be the reason that all generations would call her blessed. Perhaps she remembered the angel’s assurance that, with God, all things are possible. Perhaps, as Jesus’ body was taken down and given to her, Mary remembered a night not so long ago, when she held him like this for the first time and wondered at what God’s plan for them could possibly look like.
All is confusion and uncertainty. Jesus has died, the Romans remain in power, Judea remains occupied, the kingdom of God does not appear to be any closer than when this started. Was he who he claimed to be? Was he a clever teacher, deluded about his own greatness? Was he a charlatan, now dead beside two common criminals?
The Gospel according to St Mark is full of misunderstandings about who Jesus is. Jesus himself wants to keep his true identity a secret and, of course, where there is a lack of information, people will begin to guess, speculate, and the rumour-mill spins in highest gear. Throughout this gospel telling, not one single human identifies Jesus as the Son of God. A heavenly voice says so at Jesus’ baptism and at the Transfiguration, but no disciple or Pharisee or any other human uses those words. No one, that is, until the world has been turned upside down and Jesus has breathed his last. Only then does the centurion facing the cross say, “Truly, this man was God’s Son!”
It is the person in the scene who is least informed, least aware, an outsider to Judea and its religion, a despised member of the occupying force, a soldier just following orders and executing yet one more rebellious, troublesome local, who names Jesus for who he truly is. It is the centurion, accomplice to the crucifixion, who speaks clarity into the confusion and who truly sees the Body of Christ hanging upon the cross. It is the centurion whose indifference first turns to awe.
Today, we stand like the crowd generations ago. We see, reflected in the Passion of our Lord, all of our own betrayals, selfishness, pride, fear, anger, and sin. We realize, like the centurion, what wonders have been done upon the cross for us. We stand in awe that God invited this. That Jesus, out of wondrous love for us, took all of worst that humanity could muster—our confusion, hatred, greed, violence, murder, all of our sin—and washed it away in the flood of grace and mercy pouring from himself, his very body, upon the cross.
We long to respond as we ought to, with sufficient praise, adoration, and thanksgiving. But nothing we can muster comes close to adequate. Even amid our awe and gratitude, we grieve that it ever came to this. That we could be so hard of heart as to need this to soften them. So, we respond, not as we ought to, but as we are able. Standing, as did Mary, John, the centurion, and the women, in awe of this man who is God’s son.
What child is this who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet, while shepherds watch are keeping?
