Amazing Grace, Amazing God

A poetic Eastertide reflection on the eternal and ever-present reason for the death of Jesus…

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O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are (Thy) judgments and how inscrutable (Thy) ways!
(Romans 11.33; my emendations)

God moves in mysterious ways; (Thy) wonders to perform…
From the hymn, Light Shining out of Darkness (1779) by William Cowper (1731-1800)
(my emendation)

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Thou art amazing, O God,
how unfathomably many, endlessly mighty the ways
dost Thou, by Thine Own boundless grace, appear…

through orbiting spheres and glimmering stars of unceasing cosmic canopies;
in tiniest seed, buried, dying, bursting into verdant leaf and glorious flower;
through raging wind and sea, stillest water and calming breeze;
in dreamscape night-visions of light and color and whispered Voice;
through ancient hallowed text,
too, in our ever-evolving sacred human story of holy living and holy dying…

and most especially, in One, aye, Thine Own Body hanging from the crucifixion-tree;
in this, Thy Sacrifice, all that we might see
the ends to which Thy Love moves
and the end of the need of all needless sacrifice by human hand
that, whene’er it occurs, again and alway proves
our human ill will-to-power.

Illustration: Christ on the Cross, Matthias Grünewald (1470-1528)