My Song is Love Unknown

This pensive Lenten text is by Samuel Crossman, an Anglican priest with leanings towards Puritanism. This is a wonderful, biblical and beautiful text on the passion of our Lord. Much of its popularity must also be attributed to the wonderful tune by John Ireland, the writer of the tune. Ireland was an English cathedral composer in the first half of the twentieth century, a golden period of English church music.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph dated April 5, 1950, a Mr. Donald Ford stated that the tune was composed in a quarter of an hour. According to the report, it was written while John Ireland was having lunch with Geoffrey Turton Shaw, who requested, “I want a tune for this lovely poem by Samuel Crossman.” The composer then took the paper and picked up the menu. After writing on the back of the menu for a few minutes he handed it to Shaw, with the casual remark, “Here is your tune.”

1. Why does the hymn-writer describe the Savior’s love for us as “love unknown” and “love to the loveless”? 

Of course, God’s love is known through Christ, but we stand in amazement at the love of God that surpasses our understanding.  The idea of Jesus loving us despite our loveless condition and the wicked way in which He was treated runs throughout the hymn. This idea is found in Romans 5: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God shows us His love by doing the unthinkable – He gives His own Son, His own life, for people who simply do not deserve it. We were not a cause worth dying for, but God chose to love us anyway. Not only did Jesus choose to suffer for us, He also humbled Himself by taking on “frail flesh” and being willing to die. We see this clearly in Philippians 2:8: “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross!”

2. Stanza 2 brings us into the harsh and heart-breaking reality that Jesus was and is rejected by people. Why would and do people reject Jesus as their Savior and treat Him with such disdain?

Jesus was not welcomed and He is not well received. Jesus is the King who came from His throne to His people and they rejected Him, mocked Him, and crucified Him. But this was prophesied by Isaiah: “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. ³ He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (53:2-3). Jesus fulfilled this prophecy of disdain and hatred. Yet, what else would you expect from a world that was truly corrupted by sin? Still, He gives Himself for us! He shows himself to be our true friend, our friend indeed, by laying down His life for us.

3. To what is stanza 3 referring? Why loud hosannas on Sunday but shouts of “Crucify Him!” on Friday?

This stanza takes us through the way the crowds treated Jesus during Holy Week. On Palm Sunday, He was greeted with palm branches and shouts of praise. The crowds were greeting Him as the rightful King of Israel, as the One who would rescue them. But the crowd, as crowds are wont to do, was fickle and turned against Jesus by the end of the week. The devil whispering in their ear, the chief priests urging them on and their own sinful nature enjoying the mob mentality all conspired to call for Jesus’ death.

4. Pilate’s words, “Why, what evil has he done?” lead us into the next stanza. What irony does the hymn-writer point to as to why Jesus should deserve this?

Jesus healed the sick, made the blind see, allowed the lame to walk and even raised the dead. And yet, these things caused great offense and contributed to the anger and controversy that led to His execution. After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the chief priests not only wanted to kill Jesus, but now they also wanted to kill Lazarus, because he was a living, breathing testimony to the divine power of Jesus. “Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well” (John 12:9-10). Or the time Jesus healed a blind man and the Pharisees repeatedly questioned the man and cast him out of the synagogue because of their anger and hostility toward Jesus: “We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from.” ³⁰ The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. ³¹ We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. ³² Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. ³³ If this man were not from God, he could do nothing." ³⁴ To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out (John 9:29-34)

5. Again, what great irony does the hymn-writer point to in stanza 5?

They chose to kill Jesus and let a convicted murderer go free. Peter sums this up quickly in Acts 3: “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. ¹⁴ You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. ¹⁵ You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this” (13-15).

6. Why would stanza 6 say that Jesus had no house or home? How did this demonstrate itself in Jesus’ death and burial? What great exchange is mentioned at the end of this stanza?

During Jesus’ ministry, He traveled. He was without home and had no place to rest. He speaks of this in Luke 9: As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." ⁵⁸ Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Even at His death, He had no family tomb, but He was placed in the borrowed tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. (The beauty is that He only borrowed it for 3 days!) Jesus was laid in a tomb that should have been ours, but instead heaven, which was His home, will now we our home!

7. According to stanza 7, why do we want to worship God?

Jesus receives the punishment for our sin and we receive the reward of the righteous. We receive the life and joy and bliss and fulfillment and peace and love of heaven itself. This leads us joyfully sing the faith; to joyfully proclaim the love of Him who has suffered, died, and risen from the dead for us. We want to sing this song of sweet praise all our days in response to God’s unknown love shown to us in Christ Jesus.