Back in March 2021, I wrote a blog about this hymn. I mentioned that at the Secondary School I attended I was part of the 'Sacred Choir' and at almost every Easter we sang the hymn 'O Sacred Head Now Wounded' and I often felt its accompanying mournful tune so helpfully re-inforced the significance and weightiness of Christ's death. It continues to be a hymn that deeply impacts me. Easter is only a month away, and as I listened to the morning worship service at St Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney and heard it again, I was once again drawn to its words.
It was written by Bernard of Clairvaux, abbot, and doctor, a Frenchman of the middle ages, born in 1091. It was then translated from the Latin into German around 1660 by Lutheran hymnwriter Paul Gerhardt and then translated into English around 1850 by James Alexander, son of the first Professor of Princeton Seminary.
In the previous blog I mentioned how all those years ago I had not realised the significance and weight of the words of the first verse, although the tune that was deeply etched in my mind had brought me back to the hymn again and again.
O sacred Head, now wounded,
with grief and shame weighed down,
now scornfully surrounded
with thorns, thine only crown!
O sacred Head, what glory,
what bliss till now was thine!
Yet, though despised and gory,
I joy to call thee mine.
It is easy to sing familiar hymns and songs, especially at Easter, without thinking deeply about the extent of what they mean.
This first verse speaks of Jesus' humiliation in going from glory to gory!
But this time I want to look also at the 2nd verse.
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered
was all for sinners' gain;
mine, mine was the transgression,
but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior!
'Tis I deserve Thy place;
look on me with Thy favor,
vouchsafe to me Thy grace.
The hymnwriter from almost 1000 years ago recognised something we tend to overlook. The first line speaks of that which Jesus suffered was for our (the sinner's) gain. But what did he just say Jesus suffered as a loss that would be for our gain?
He has just spent a whole verse describing Jesus' suffering of shame; his loss of glory.
His loss - of glory, was for our gain - of glory. His endurance of shame was so that we could escape the everlasting pain of shame (Daniel 12:2). The pain is not primarily the physical pain (though that was no small part of the crucifixion), but the main pain was the shame that fills the writer's mind in the first verse. We are the ones who have shamefully fallen short of God's standard, as evidenced in our transgressions of God's law. We are the ones who deserve the shame punishment for that. But instead of us, Jesus bore that immeasurable shame. We deserved the place and punishment that Jesus was given!
However, what is it that Jesus' bearing of the shame (that was due to us) accomplishes for us?…It is, so that now, God can look on us with favour and grant us his grace instead of delivering us up to our pre-destined eternal shame. What is this grace then? It is what is given to us in place of the punishment deserving shame we should've had - it is the underserved gift of glory. It is the glory given to us, so that as the hymn goes on to say at the end, when our time on earth comes concludes, we can have the confidence that:
'for he who dies believing
dies safely in Thy love.'
Because Jesus bore our shame, we are blessed with the opportunity to put our trust in him and not face eternal shame when this earthly body finishes its duration. Our eternal shame is cancelled in Christ, if we trust in his already sufficient bearing of our shame. In Christ, our trajectory is changed from being on the road of shame that goes on to eternal shame, to being on the road of new undeserved glory given as a gift - the gift of grace. Jesus died in shame so that we could live in glory. It is a gift of glory that enables us to be made new and holy in union with Christ. As Christians, we are now those who give glory to God as the response of worship we were created to give. And that response begins with praise and thankfulness and the desire to love Christ forever for the immensity of God's gift to us in Christ.
…as the hymn's verse 3 says:
What language shall I borrow
to thank Thee, dearest Friend,
for this, Thy dying sorrow,
Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever!
And should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never
outlive my love for Thee.
Jesus becomes our dearest Friend, because he paid the greatest price. In English we sometimes call the most expensive thing the 'dearest' thing. And this is exactly the situation here. Jesus' is our dearest friend, because he valued us as dearest to him and gave his all for us. So thus should we value him as our dearest and give our all for him in love and full devotion in obedience and honour. This begins with basic but deep heart-thankfulness. His gift of undeserved honour (favour), in other words his grace, should elicit our honour toward him and in other words a lived-out gratefulness…a life of thankfulness…of life of 'gracias'.
The author's view of salvation was a salvation from shame to honour that should thus elicit the deepest levels of love and thankfulness forever. Maybe our depths of love for Jesus are weak, because our understanding of the depths of shame he bore for us, are weak. Maybe our weak understanding in the church today comes from a weak (or non-existent for some) awareness of the shame context of our sin, Jesus' death on the cross, and thus our salvation. If we fail to realise the shame context, we will fail to recognise and live in the honour context of the grace we have been given and the gratefulness that should characterise us.
Let me conclude with the words I concluded the part one blog…..
"Can you join with me to sing 'though despised and gory, I joy to call thee mine'!"
and then this Easter sing with me the triumphant, hope and joy filled final verse sung at St Andrew's Cathedral this morning, written by their Choir Director Mr Ross Cobb:
When dying, Lord have mercy
When I from life must leave.
And for my final journey,
O Jesus, to me cleave.
These eyes shall close in longing,
While earth's vain shadows flee,
And see in Heav'ns bright morning,
The Christ who died for me.
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