19th August 2025

Scripture is full of such simple but powerful statements that are there reminding us of the part Jesus Christ played in our lives – and continues to play. They are sentiments embedded in well-known hymns that many of us can sing without needing the book: My Song is Love Unknown; There is a Green Hill Far Away; And Can it Be; Praise to the Holiest in the Height; When I Survey the Wondrous Cross. They are all songs infused with an authors’ depth of understanding of the enormity of Jesus’ sacrifice in each of our lives, and the power of his love for his wayward creation. They are a continuing vocal reminder of the gift of salvation.

As a child, and part of a church choir, I sang these hymns, and others, week after week and generally without understanding the immense meaning behind the words I was singing, and that I knew by heart. I loved the tunes and I loved singing – and the singing sounded wonderful in the vaulted village church. Although I believed in God, and in his Son, Jesus Christ, I had little understanding of what it all really meant.

Then I was given an understanding of a basic equation that changed everything. I struggled to understand why I had missed it for so long. There is sin, and sin equals death. And that death was mine. Then there was Christ’s death – the horror of which I had not comprehended. And so the equation changed: sin still equalled death, but Christ’s death was substituted for mine. I would still die – but there was now hope beyond this physical life. I was overwhelmed by the enormity of Christ’s sacrifice because it encompasses all humanity. 

It took more time to understand the love that underpinned this equation – a love that led to an acceptance of the pain and the suffering on that dreadful night, and the following day, when all the powers of evil attempted to derail the plan that was to rescue the creation that God had described as ‘good’. (John 17,18,19; Genesis 1:31).

But there is more to tell – stories of a perfect creation that was corrupted but is not abandoned. What God declared as ‘good’ will be good again. God has not given up on it. Another hymn that alludes to this is Hills of the North Rejoice. It looks forward to something we struggle to imagine – “He comes to reign with boundless sway, and makes your wastes His great highway.”  A ruined earth will give way to a new earth and a new heaven in which Christ will reign (Revelation 21:1). 

Local congregation:
GCI Market Harborough
9 The Point
Rockingham Road
Market Harborough 
LE16 7QU

Meeting time:
Sunday 4.00 pm

Local congregational contact:
Sinead Henderson 
Email: sinead.henderson@gracecom.church

Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church