Oh, Love, How Deep, ELW 322
1 Oh, love, how deep, how broad, how high,
Beyond all thought and fantasy,
That God, the Son of God, should take
Our mortal form for mortal's sake!
2 He sent no angel to our race,
Of higher or of lower place,
But wore the robe of human frame,
And to this world himself he came.
3 For us baptized, for us he bore
His holy fast and hungered sore;
For us temptation sharp he knew;
For us the tempter overthrew.
4 For us he prayed; for us he taught;
For us his daily works he wrought,
By words and signs and actions thus
Still seeking not himself, but us.
5 For us by wickedness betrayed,
For us, in crown of thorns arrayed,
He bore the shameful cross and death;
For us he gave his dying breath.
6 For us he rose from death again;
For us he went on high to reign;
For us he sent his Spirit here
To guide, to strengthen, and to cheer.
7 All glory to our Lord and God
For love so deep, so high, so broad;
The Trinity whom we adore
Forever and forevermore.
Devotion
"When the owner of the vineyard returns, what do you think he will do to those farmers?" The Pharisees' answer to Jesus is likely the same as ours: he will punish them, naturally, and throw them out of his land. He is finished with them. They will pay for what they have done.
But the surprise of God in the parable in Matthew 21 is that isn't what God does. As Luther Seminary professor David Lose wrote in his http://www.workingpreacher.org/dear_wp.aspx?article_id=512 [Working Preacher commentary] on this passage this week, instead, God raises that son from the dead, and sends him back to us one more time to try and turn our hearts to him.
Is it even possible for us to imagine—as Paul writes in Ephesians 3:18—how wide, how long, how high, how deep God's love is for us?
Prayer
Lord, your love is beyond all human comprehension. I am grateful that I don't have to understand it ... I just have to receive it, and believe it, and share it with others. Amen.