It's amazing how you can read or hear or sing a set of words for years without them being at all real to you. You know how it is, you’ve been reading that verse in the Bible your whole life, and it makes perfect, empirical sense to you, and you just slide past it. And then one day, you read it and something clicks. Something is in those words that wasn’t there before, and whereas you didn’t feel the meaning the first thousand times you read them, they definitely have meaning this time. Those words finally hit you in the gut rather than in the head.

I’ve seen that sort of little epiphany described in multiple ways. That punch to the face has finally landed… A seed sown long ago has finally germinated… A word spoken long ago has suddenly become incarnate… I guess those moments of revelation are particularly important to we Christians since we live by a bunch of old words that seem a little old and dusty at times but that must be made new again. (Hence, my favorite verse is Matt. 13:52.) And, of course, Christ is also always after us to be fully present in our lives so that we don’t miss out on what is being spoken to us through them (“Those who have ears to hear…”).

I’m not leading anywhere big here at the moment. All I’ve been meaning to get to in this post is just that last night I was reading the words to a hymn that I’ve sung my whole life, and they struck me like they never had before. And it got me to thinking… Anyway, I just thought I’d post that song here while I’m thinking about it. You know, sticking an old picture in a new frame can sometimes help so see that old picture a little better.


When I Survey The Wondrous Cross
by Isaac Watts

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ, my God;
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down;
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.