the Greatest Love

Of all the bards that ever sang their Ballads of love, none have ever sung of such a disparity between a lover and the beloved, as when John set his pen and ink to paper and wrote “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…” Even then, few have grasped the unlikelihood and the uniqueness of this never before seen incomprehensible love. The gulf and difference between two was never greater. Such a disparity was hinted at when Peter wrote his sonnet  of sacrificial love about the Just giving Himself for the unjust,  but even that does not begin to touch the hem of the garment, or grasp the enormous disproportion between the lover and the loved, and the matchlessness of this amazing grace. Even the love of Romeo and Juliet, with so wide the gulf of likelihood, is understandable as it is romantic. God’s love is out of this world.  In human love Kings have abdicated thrones, men forsaken homes, and relinquished fortunes.  They have given up fame and name for that beloved, but never has the universe ever witnessed such love so condescending or love so up lifting. The King of Kings, Prince of Peace, Rose of Sharon, darling of the Eternal Father’s love, brightness of his glory, express image of his person, heir of all things, This One, loves an ugly, deformed, miserable, pathetic creature, not only found on a dung hill, but in the crawling condition of a worm, a condemned criminal, an insolvent debtor, a rebellious renegade against heaven, a slave to lust, a loathsome leper,  living among the tombstones, and at the bottom of  a horrible pit.   That God would so love the sinner that he would stoop so low, and lift the unlovely so high would never have been imagined by mortal man whose idea of love is so conditional.  This disparity is the wonder of angels, and would be the scandal of the ages except it is, in fact, the greatest love.   -id