Such Love

From time to time I run across a text that makes me understand Paul’s passion when he wrote to the church at Ephesus and prayed that they might be able to better comprehend the width, the length, the depth, and the heighth of Christ’s love, a love that really surpasses knowledge, that is, it cannot be fully fathomed (Ephesians 3:18).

This morning, I read another text that once again stirred that sense of wonder and awe. In Zephaniah 3, the people of God, those who had failed repeatedly to live up to the covenant expectations and had on numerous occasions turned their back on the very God who had preserved, loved, and kept them even in their failure, are called upon to “shout for joy”, “shout in triumph”, and “exult with all their heart.” That is not the surprising part. Certainly this should be the response of the people whose sins have been overlooked and by grace have been invited to participate in the blessing of God. This command to praise, found in Zephaniah 3:14, is still in effect for the redeemed people of God today. We should be marked by lives of grateful, exuberant, and sincere praise directed toward our creator and redeemer.

The surprising and provocative text is four verses later. Zephaniah 3:17 reads this way:

The Lord your God is in your midst.
A victorious warrior.
He will exult over you with joy.
He will be quiet in His love.
He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.

Three things stand out here as significant. One, God is in the midst of His people as their defender. No weapon formed against us will prosper because He is our shield and strength. But secondly, what an amazing truth to ponder: The Almighty God deriving delight from His own creation! That in itself is staggering but that He should experience ecstasy over the sinner is incomprehensible. Even more thrilling is the realization of the mutuality in the loving response between the Redeemer and the redeemed. His people are exhorted to sing (ranni) and He rejoices with singing (rinna). His people will rejoice (simhi), He delights over them with joy (simha). Redeemer and redeemed mutually rejoicing in their love for one another.

The final truth creates even more wonder. He will quiet you with His love, or literally He will be quiet in His love. The Almighty El-Shaddai, sinking into contemplative love thoughts of a once wretched human being can hardly be absorbed by the human mind. How wide, how long, how deep, how high is this amazing love toward us?