Image by Vu Anh on Unsplash

O The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus

lyrics by Samuel Trevor Francis; music by Thomas J. Williams

O The Deep, Deep Love (Hymn 159)  (As always, you might want to listen to the hymn both before and after the reflection! I love the image above–although I believe it’s hills in mist, it looks very much like ocean waves beneath a starry sky.)

Just consider for a moment the cavernous passion and depth of this opening line!  Very much like the ocean itself, whose depths are virtually unknowable, the “deep, deep love of Jesus” cannot be sufficiently grasped or understood.  Our best efforts to “get” it or “secure” it are the merest swimming and diving–they may seem like great depths to us, but the first few feet of the ocean’s surface are swallowed up in mile after mile of fathomless, unknowing depth.  Left to ourselves we do no more than play on the surface of Jesus’ love.

Consider here what we sing!  The passion in this line!  The “O” can arise from nowhere else than the heart of one resting in the fathomless depths of Jesus’ love! And “deep” is not just deep, but “deep, deep.”  The repetition following the majestic “O” tells us that we are indeed out of our depth here.  Let’s see what the hymn itself reveals to us! 

O, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free—
Rolling as a mighty ocean
In its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me
Is the current of His love—
Leading onward, leading homeward
To His glorious rest above.

It’s not enough to declare the love of Jesus “deep, deep.”  It is vast, unmeasured, boundless, free.  Vast, yes.  Unmeasured, yes.  Boundless, sure, I get it.  But free?  The love of Jesus is free because it is freely offered.  It is free because it costs us nothing, while costing Him everything.  It is free because it is uncontrollable, entirely beyond our own ability to navigate or steer.

This great love rolls like the waves of a mighty ocean, but think of those billows, those amazing, foamy crests and the frightening, seemingly bottomless valleys–and notice that this vast, measureless, boundless, free ocean rolls in all its fullness over me!  To venture out into this ocean is to know one’s smallness, to know how easily one could be swept away, swallowed up in it.  The “free” love of Jesus is truly love because it reveals how utterly powerless we are in its hold, and free because it promises to swallow us whole, to overwhelm us and never let us go.

Underneath and all around me, the current of His love sweeps me along.  It is no vast, impersonal love that takes such firm hold of me, but a love that leads me on, that, in fact, leads me homeward, heavenward.  And what do I find, tossed onto those marvelous shores?  Rest.  Glorious rest.

O, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
Spread His praise from shore to shore!
Praise His mercy, praise His goodness;
Praise His love forevermore.
How He watcheth o’er His loved ones,
Died to call them all His own;
How for them He intercedeth,
Watcheth o’er them from His throne.

Caught up in the relentless grasp of this loving Jesus, how can I help but sing, shout, spread His praise?  Where shall I sing and shout?  From shore to shore, everywhere!  To be caught in the grip of this love is not to feel trapped or squeezed, constrained or confined. No!  His praise builds and rolls and swells just like the billowing ocean waves!  Praise His mercy!  Praise His goodness!  Praise His love forevermore!  Let it roll!  Let it swell all the more!

Left to ourselves in such an ocean of love, we might fall prey to fear:  How can we survive?  Won’t we be lost and swallowed up alive?  Won’t we lose ourselves? What if we’re swept so far from shore we can never find our way back?  Do not be afraid!  He watches over all those whom He loves!  He died on the cross, the wondrous cross, not just so that we don’t have to, but so that we might be called His very own!  Our whole identity has changed–we are no longer our own, but His!  And He prays for us before His own Father’s throne–indeed, He watches over us from His very own throne!

O, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
Love of ev’ry love the best—
’Tis an ocean vast of blessing;
’Tis a haven sweet of rest.
Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus—
’Tis a heav’n of heav’ns to me;
And it lifts me up to glory,
Lifts me up eternally.

The billows continue to roll!  O, the deep, deep love of Jesus!  Of all loves we ever have known or will know, His love is the best, the truest, the most faithful–it never fails.  And this love pours over us wave after wave of blessing, tossing us in the end onto shores of everlasting delight and rest–a haven, a protection from all worldly harm.  There is no other heaven that compares, no other heaven for us than that which we find in Jesus’ love.  One day there will be no more soaring aloft on the towering swells only to be cast down into the depths once again.  No, one day this heaven of love will bear me–and all whom it carries–aloft and into glory forever and ever!

O, to be found in the grasp of this love!  O, to be held by the strength of those arms! Amen!

O The Deep, Deep Love (Hymn 159)