Your hand of mercy

An old Emu song that has been resonating with me these few days. (Hard to find the music for it though!)

Although we had no claim
you held Your hand of mercy to us.
What we receive for all our work
on earth is pain and death.
Your love we do not deserve.
We could not save ourselves.
And yet You gave a gift of life
through Jesus hanging,
bleeding on a cross.

In selfishness and sin we have been
blinded from Your truth.
We hate, we hurt, we hide from You
pretending we’re in control.
But please now open our eyes.
Replace this heart of stone.
Make us Your new creation and let
nothing keep us from
the love of God.

We praise you God our Father
for the gift of Your dear Son.
for Jesus Christ who shared our earth
and died that we might live.
And now You’ve opened our eyes,
Replaced this heart of stone,
Made us Your new creation
and now nothing keeps us from the love of God.


Although we had no claim
You held Your
hand of mercy to us.

the irony of salvation

Reading this caused me to pause and wonder at Jesus once again...

In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.
- Matt 27:41-42

Precisely because he chose not to save himself, he saved others. He saved me! He is the King, not just Israel, but of everything. And because he chose not to come down from the cross, I believe, I trust in him. There's nowhere else to go. God came down, in the person of Jesus, so that I might be lifted upward to see him, and look forward with hope to the redemption of the cosmos.