The Depth of God’s Love is Beyond our Measure

Psalm 118

Psalm 118 is the last of the six psalms read at every Passover (the Hallel Psalms).  Jewish worshipers and scholars viewed it as a Messianic Psalm, and Christians have seen it that way, too.  Indeed, when Jesus rides into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, the crowds throw down branches and cloaks before him and shout the words of Psalm 118:26, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”  And Jesus quotes from Psalm 118:22-23 when he says to the people, in Matthew 21:42, “Have you never read in the scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

Psalm 118 is a psalm of thanksgiving for God’s care through the most challenging of circumstances—when under distress (verse 5), when confronted by hatred (verse 7), when surrounded by enemies (verse 10), when stumbling (verse 13), when near death (verse 17), and when disciplined by God (verse 18).  But through it all, the psalmist affirms that God’s “steadfast love endures forever” (verses 1, 2, 3, 4, 29).

In the early 20^th century, Norwegian explorer and oceanographer Fridtjof Nansen tried to measure an extremely deep part of the Arctic Ocean.  The first day, he used his longest measuring line but couldn’t reach the bottom.  He wrote in his log book, “The ocean is deeper than that.”  The next day, he added more line but still could not measure the depth, so wrote in his log book, “Deeper than that.”  After several more days of adding more and more pieces of rope and cord to his line, he had to leave that part of the ocean without learning its actual depth.  All he knew was that it was beyond his ability to measure.  And that is the only conclusion we can come to about God’s love: It is deeper than our ability to measure!  “His steadfast love endures forever!”

Brennan Manning speaks to this truth in his book The Ragamuffin Gospel (p. 87-88):

“Are you afraid that your weakness could separate you from the love of Christ?  It can’t.

“Are you afraid that your inadequacies could separate you from the love of Christ?  They can’t.

“Are you afraid that your inner poverty could separate you from the love of Christ?  It can’t.

“Difficult marriage, loneliness, anxiety over the children’s future?  They can’t.

“Negative self-image?  It can’t.

“Economic hardship, racial hatred, street crime?  They can’t.

“Rejection by loved ones or the suffering of loved ones?  They can’t.

“Persecution by authorities, going to jail?  They can’t.

“Nuclear war?  It can’t.

“The gospel of grace calls out, Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“His steadfast love endures forever!”

What We Can Learn from the Magi

In ancient times, it was expected that anyone making a visit to a king was expected to bring a gift.  Following custom, when “wise men from the East” visited the young Jesus, they offered him gifts.  Matthew reports that the wise men opened their treasure chests and offered Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 

Gold was recognized as the richest of all metals.  It was looked upon as the gift for kings.  They presented gold to Jesus, affirming him as having been born to be the king of the Jews.

In ancient times, frankincense was looked upon as sacred.  The gathering of the sap of frankincense was restricted to only 3,000 specially appointed families, who were also looked upon as sacred.  While the sap was being gathered, the harvesters were required to keep themselves holy, and were forbidden to have sex or to attend a funeral.  Frankincense was burned for worship and was considered to be the gift for a priest.

Myrrh was used in expensive medicines and cosmetics.  Writing for the Smithsonian magazine, Lionel Casson states, “As a medicine, myrrh was taken internally for fever, dropsy, asthma and diarrhea.  Externally, it was used on open wounds.  The theory seems to have been that because wounds smell bad, improving the smell would improve the condition.”  Myrrh was the gift for one who is mortal.  It was used to embalm the bodies of the dead; it is the gift for those who will die. 

Why do people give such costly gifts?

I can think of two possible reasons:

1: Those who are grateful for what they have received give in keeping with their gratitude. 

In 1971, in Houston, Mississippi, according to Donna McGuire of the Kansas City Star, Larry Stewart lost his job and slept in his car for eight nights.  Out of gas and out of money, Stewart “walked into a Dixie Diner, ordered a huge breakfast, slowly sipped coffee refills and planned how he could escape without paying.  Finally, he feigned losing his wallet.  The owner—who was the cook, the waiter and the cashier—lifted a counter top door, reached toward the floor and acted as if he had picked up something.  ‘You must have dropped this,’ the owner said, handing the young man $20.  As he drove away, [Stewart] thought about how fortunate he was.  Suddenly, it occurred to him that no one had dropped that money.  ‘Cookie’ behind the counter helped in a way that allowed [Stewart] to keep his dignity.  Later that year, [Stewart] found a sales job in Kansas City, and continued living from paycheck to paycheck.  One cold day, shortly before Christmas, 1979, he pulled up to a little drive-in restaurant in Independence [Missouri].  The carhop looked so cold and miserable.  [Stewart] decided to give her the change from $20.  Her face glowed.” 

Stewart was deeply moved by the experience of helping someone as he had been helped.  He went to his bank and withdrew more money to give away.  As the years went on, and Stewart became more successful, he began a practice of giving away $100 bills to 500 people every year at Christmas in Kansas City, Missouri, as Secret Santa.  His identity was not known until a year before his death in 2007 of esophageal cancer. 

Those who are most grateful for what they have received are willing to give so that others, too, may be blessed.

2: Lovers give great gifts to match the height and depth and breadth of their love.

O. Henry tells the story of a young couple, named Jim and Della, who wanted to buy for each other the best Christmas gift possible, but neither could afford the gift they wanted to give to the other.  Della wanted to buy a platinum chain for Jim’s prized gold pocket watch, but she had only $1.87.  Out of love for him, she made the ultimate sacrifice.  She cut and sold her beautiful, long, thick brown hair for enough money to buy the chain.  Meanwhile, Jim set out to buy a lovely set of combs for Della’s beautiful hair.  Not having enough money for the gift, Jim made the ultimate sacrifice for Della.  He sold his prized pocket watch for the money to buy the combs.

Both sacrificed their prized possession to give a gift of love to the other.  You might think that what they did was a foolish waste of their resources and that everything turned out wrong.  Indeed, in the final paragraph of his story, O. Henry concedes, “I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house.”  Yet O. Henry concludes by affirming the worth of their gifts by the value of their love: “But in a last word to the wise of these days, let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest…. Everywhere they are the wisest.  They are the magi.”

Those who are most in love give most generously.

God’s Steadfast Love Prevails

Psalm 117 is the shortest psalm in the Bible—just two verses in length—yet these two verses contain a powerful message: “Praise the Lord, all you nations!  Extol him, all you peoples!  For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.  Praise the Lord!”

The New Revised Standard Version translates the first part of verse 2 as: “For great is his steadfast love toward us.”  But Hebrew scholar Derek Kidner suggests that a more literal translation would be: “For his steadfast love toward us prevails,” stressing that this word is “a vigorous, formidable word, used of the stronger side in battle.”  Indeed, this Hebrew word is translated as “prevail” in Exodus 17:11: “Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.” 

The assurance to us in Psalm 117 is that God’s steadfast love prevails through the most difficult challenges of our lives.

Dr. Tom Dooley was a medical missionary in Southeast Asia.  He organized hospitals, raised money, and poured out his life in the service of needy persons in that land.  He was struck by cancer in his early thirties and died at the age of 34.  On December 1, 1960, in the depths of his battle with cancer, Dooley wrote a letter from his hospital bed in Vietnam to the president of the University of Notre Dame, his alma mater:

“Dear Father Hesburgh,

“They’ve got me down.  Flat on the back, with plaster, sand bags, and hot water bottles.  I’ve contrived a way of pumping the bed up a bit so that, with a long reach, I can get to my typewriter…. Two things prompt this note to you.  The first is that whenever my cancer acts up a bit, and it is certainly ‘acting up’ now, I turn inward.  Less do I think of my hospitals around the world, or of 94 doctors, fundraisers, and the like.  More do I think of one Divine Doctor and my personal fund of grace.  It has become pretty definite that the cancer has spread to the lumbar vertebra, accounting for all the back problems over the last two months.  I have monstrous phantoms; all men do.  And inside and outside the wind blows.  But when the time comes, like now, then the storm around me does not matter.  The winds within me do not matter.  Nothing human or earthly can touch me.  A peace gathers in my heart.  What seems unpossessable, I can possess.  What seems unfathomable, I can fathom.  What is unutterable, I can utter.  Because I can pray.  I can communicate.  How do people endure anything on earth if they cannot have God?”

Even in the face of cancer, God’s steadfast love prevails.

Psalm 117 goes on to assure us, “And the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever.”

Derek Kidner remarks, “The emphasis of the second line can be summed up by saying that God’s plans and promises are as fresh and intact now as on the day they were made; and they will remain so.”

What does it mean to you to consider that God’s faithfulness “endures forever,” that God’s plans and promises for you are “as fresh and intact now as on the day they were made and…will remain so”? 

Annie Johnson Flint shares:

          When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

          When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,

When we reach the end of our boarded resources

          Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

          His love has no limit, His grace has no measure,

          His power no boundary known unto men.

          For out of His infinite riches in Jesus

          He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.

God Invited Shepherds to be the First to See Jesus

People in Israel at the time of King Herod would have been flabbergasted by the idea of God choosing to make shepherds the first people to bear witness of the birth of Jesus.  Though the Bible presents Abel, Abraham, Moses and David as respected shepherds, and though the Bible describes God as our Shepherd, Jewish culture, at the time of King Herod, did not look favorably on those who tended sheep.  It was a job that was often pushed off on the daughter in the family, or, as in the case of David, the youngest son in the family.

In his book Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, Joachim Jeremias stresses that shepherds were not allowed to hold a judicial office in Israel and were not even permitted to give testimony in judicial matters.  Citing the writings of rabbis from the time of Jesus, Jeremias shares the contemporary opinion of shepherds: “Most of the time they were dishonest and thieving; they led their herds onto other people’s land and pilfered the produce of the land.”  Jeremias also quotes from a Midrash—an ancient Jewish interpretation of the Bible—that comments on Psalm 23:2: “There is no more disreputable occupation than that of a shepherd.” 

From the perspective of most Judean citizens, it would make no sense for God to choose shepherds to be the first to witness the birth of Jesus.  But God had a different perspective. 

God has a tendency to look out for those who are otherwise overlooked.  Therefore, it is not surprising that God would invite shepherds to Bethlehem to see the baby in the manger.

Moreover, God seems to have felt a bond or an affinity with shepherds.  Shepherds were tasked with the responsibility of caring for a bunch of animals who were helpless and who easily lost their way, and God has taken on the responsibility of caring for people who are helpless and who easily lose their way in life.

During his ministry, Jesus declared himself to be our Good Shepherd, that means that he announced himself to be the one who would provide for us the care that we, his sheep, need. 

Ray Vander Laan remarks, “Shepherds in Israel don’t drive the sheep; they lead them along the narrow paths that still crisscross the Judean hillsides.  ‘This is the way to go,’ the shepherd says to the sheep.  ‘Follow me.’

“And the green pastures of Irael are not belly-deep alfalfa; they’re sparse tufts of grass springing up in a sometimes unbelievably rocky landscape.  From one moment to the next, the sheep depend on the leading of the shepherd and the sufficiency of the grazing he provides….

“The shepherd isn’t always out in front, leading this sheep, however.  As the sun sets on the Judean hills, with their confused tangle of trails, steep cliffs, and deep wadis, it becomes increasingly difficult for the sheep to follow the shepherd and increasingly likely that they may misstep, fall, or get lost.  Then, in the lengthening twilight, when the sheep must pass through the darkest shadows in the deepest wadis, the shepherd drops back and walks with them” (Echoes of His Presence, p. 27-28).

Nelson’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary points out, “Sheep are curious but dumb animals, often unable to find their way home even if the sheepfold is within sight.  Knowing this fault, the shepherd never takes his eyes off his wandering sheep (Psalm 32:8).  Often a sheep will wander into a briar patch or fall over a cliff in the rugged Palestinian hills.  The shepherd tenderly searches for his sheep and carries it to safety on his shoulder, wrapped in his own long cloak (Luke 15:6).”    

It seems to me that God invited shepherds to be the first to see the newborn Savior because God deeply values the care shepherds give to their sheep and because Jesus came to be our Good Shepherd. 

God Is Sovereign over Death

In psalm 116, the psalmist reflects on the terror and despair that swept through the psalmist’s soul in the midst of a life-threatening illness.  In verse 3, the psalmist writes, “The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish.”

Life-threatening illness shakes us to our core.  It makes many people question the value of their life, the existence of God, the adequacy of their faith.  After having ministered to his plague-ridden parishioners in London in 1623, John Donne found himself lying in bed, gravely ill, expecting that he would die.  When he heard a bell toll outside his home, calling for the undertaker to collect another dead body, Donne felt himself deeply moved by the death even though Donne had no idea who had died.  He wrote,

          No man is an island, entire of itself.

          Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

          If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,

          As well as if a promontory were,

          As well as if a manor of thine own or of thine friend’s were.

          Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.

          Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls,

          It tolls for thee.

During his lengthy illness, Donne wrote into his journal, recording his wrestlings with

God over his pain and discouragement and fear.  (His journal was printed a year later as Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions.)  Writing about Donne’s crisis of faith during his life-threatening illness, Philip Yancey points out that Donne “began with prayers that the pain be removed; he ends with prayers that the pain be redeemed.”  And Yancey shares that Donne took comfort from the way that Jesus struggled with death: “For the account of the Garden of Gethsemane hardly presents a scene of calm acceptance either.  There, Jesus sweat drops of blood and begged the Father for some other way.  He too felt the loneliness and fear that now haunted Donne’s deathbed.  And why had he chosen that death?  The purpose of Christ’s death brought Donne some solace at last: he had died in order to effect a cure.  A turning point came for Donne as he began to view death not as the disease that permanently spoils life, rather as the only cure to the disease of life, the final stage in the journey that brings us to God.  Evil infects all of life on this fallen planet, and only through death—Christ’s death and our own—can we realize a cured state” (Soul Survivor, p. 218 & 220).

The author of Psalm 116 recovered from that life-threatening illness.  Thus, the psalm is a psalm of thanksgiving to God.  Verses 8-9 declare, “For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.  I walk before the Lord in the land of the living.”  Yet, after facing the threat of death, the psalmist has come to discover, with John Donne, that death is not to be overly feared, for even in death we meet God.  Therefore, the psalmist declares in verse 15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.” 

I find great comfort in this verse, in the assurance that even at death our loved ones are precious in the sight of the Lord, and that even in death we will be precious in the sight of the Lord—not just as a memory, but for life everlasting.  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me…. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

I Admire Joseph, the Step-Father of Jesus

In the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew we meet two characters in the Christmas story who are a tremendous contrast to each other: Herod and Joseph, the step-father to Jesus and the would-be murderer of Jesus. 

Herod is an extreme example of arrogance.  He is consumed with promoting himself regardless of the cost to others.  Though he was Idumean rather than Jewish, through conniving and connections, Herod became governor of Judea.  He maintained his power and position through a ruthless and violent reign.  He killed Mariamne, the favorite of his nine wives.  He also killed the two sons he had through Mariamne because they had more Jewish blood than he, and he feared that they could claim the throne.  It was said of Herod, “It is better to be Herod’s hog than to be his son.” 

As the years went by, his panic over his position grew, so he had his genealogical records destroyed so that his ancestry could not be compared negatively to anyone else.  Increasing fear of revolt drove Herod to severe suppression of any opposition.  As his death approached, Herod ordered the arrest of many prominent citizens in Jerusalem, with instructions for them to be executed as soon as he died.  The reason he did this was to guarantee that there would be mourning in Jerusalem at his death.  Fortunately, Herod’s officers released these citizens when Herod died rather than carrying out their executions.

Herod was a warped and arrogant man.  Matthew provides evidence of Herod’s ruthless commitment to removing all threats to his throne in his report of Herod killing all the infants in Bethlehem in his attempt to destroy the one whom the Magi came to worship.    

Describing such arrogance, C.S. Lewis commented, “As long as you are proud you cannot know God.  A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, or course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you” (Mere Christianity, p. 111). 

Joseph also had strong reactions.  In our English translation, Matthew 1:20 reports simply that Joseph “resolved” to dismiss Mary quietly.  But the original Greek presents more intense emotion on the part of Joseph.  The Greek word used here is enthumathentos, which comes from the prefix en, meaning “in” or “with,” and the root word thumos, meaning “anger,” “fury,” “rage,” or “intense feeling.”  When Joseph found out that his wife-to-be was pregnant, and he knew that he was not the father, Joseph did not calmly and emotionlessly come up with a plan to dismiss her quietly, he stormed internally.  The emotions in him erupted with fury, rage, and anger. 

But here is where we begin to see the huge contrast between Herod and Joseph.  In his arrogance, Herod set his focus on himself alone.  In his arrogance, he was willing to destroy others to maintain his status.  In his arrogance, he ruthlessly suppressed all that did not go his way.

In humbleness, Joseph considered Mary.  In humbleness, Joseph sought to protect Mary from public disgrace.  In humbleness, Joseph listened to what God said to him in a dream.  Here’s the key thing: Joseph did not get stuck in a self-righteous plan to divorce Mary; in humbleness he was willing to consider new information, to be influenced by an angel, and to change his mind and go in a new direction. 

We would do well to be less like Herod, and to imitate Joseph more.