Lenten Devotion: Good Friday, April 6
by Patricia Dean
O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done?
United Methodist Hymnal #287
Words: Charles Wesley, 1742
Music: Isaac B. Woodbury, 1850
Why did Jesus die? In his hymn, “O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done,” Charles Wesley offers the traditional view that Jesus died to atone for human sins: “The Son of God for me hath died…Pardon for all flows from his side.” This belief updates a pre-existing belief, operative in many cultures, that the gods, angered by human behavior, need to be appeased with sacrifices, either animal or human. In the traditional view espoused by Wesley, Jesus is the Final Sacrifice, ending the need for any further blood sacrifice.
Some find it difficult to believe in a God that requires that kind of sacrifice as a prerequisite for the forgiveness of sin. That seems to be a primitive understanding of the divine-human relation.
What Jesus’ death on the cross offers, instead, is a new understanding of the divine-human relation, retaining the power of the sacrificial act as a religious symbol but transforming it into a gesture of love. In committing his life to delivering the message of a radical new vision of the world, Jesus was consciously challenging the power of both Roman and Jewish authorities, thereby exposing himself to their systems of “justice.” The “kingdom” that Jesus offers is grounded in principles that threaten those in power. As the messenger for a salvific Kingdom of God, Jesus chose to be crucified for a vision that now stands for Christians as the most powerful force for good in the world and one that will inevitably be in conflict with flawed human “kingdoms.”
O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done?
United Methodist Hymnal #287
Words: Charles Wesley, 1742
Music: Isaac B. Woodbury, 1850
1
O Love divine, what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father's coeternal Son
bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th’immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
2
Is crucified for me and you,
to bring us rebels back to God.
Believe, believe the record true,
ye all are bought with Jesus' blood.
Pardon for all flows from his side:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
3
Behold him, all ye that pass by,
the bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, sinners, see your Savior die,
and say, “Was ever grief like his?”
Come, feel with me his blood applied:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
O Love divine, what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father's coeternal Son
bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th’immortal God for me hath died:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
2
Is crucified for me and you,
to bring us rebels back to God.
Believe, believe the record true,
ye all are bought with Jesus' blood.
Pardon for all flows from his side:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
3
Behold him, all ye that pass by,
the bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, sinners, see your Savior die,
and say, “Was ever grief like his?”
Come, feel with me his blood applied:
My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
Why did Jesus die? In his hymn, “O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done,” Charles Wesley offers the traditional view that Jesus died to atone for human sins: “The Son of God for me hath died…Pardon for all flows from his side.” This belief updates a pre-existing belief, operative in many cultures, that the gods, angered by human behavior, need to be appeased with sacrifices, either animal or human. In the traditional view espoused by Wesley, Jesus is the Final Sacrifice, ending the need for any further blood sacrifice.
Some find it difficult to believe in a God that requires that kind of sacrifice as a prerequisite for the forgiveness of sin. That seems to be a primitive understanding of the divine-human relation.
What Jesus’ death on the cross offers, instead, is a new understanding of the divine-human relation, retaining the power of the sacrificial act as a religious symbol but transforming it into a gesture of love. In committing his life to delivering the message of a radical new vision of the world, Jesus was consciously challenging the power of both Roman and Jewish authorities, thereby exposing himself to their systems of “justice.” The “kingdom” that Jesus offers is grounded in principles that threaten those in power. As the messenger for a salvific Kingdom of God, Jesus chose to be crucified for a vision that now stands for Christians as the most powerful force for good in the world and one that will inevitably be in conflict with flawed human “kingdoms.”
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12:01 AM
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