Gracious God, we praise you with our whole hearts for the wondrous revelation of your love in Christ Jesus our Lord.We think every day of his passion, for all our hope lies in his death: but as often as we think upon it, we are still filled with astonishment that you should so love the world as to give your only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life; that heaven’s eternal darling should come to earth to be made a man, and in manhood’s form to be despised and rejected of the very men whom he came to bless; and then should be made to bear the sin of many and to be numbered with the transgressors, and, being found in that number, to die a transgressor’s death, a felon’s death upon the gibbet of the cross.
Oh, this surpasses all belief if it had not indeed been actually so: and if the sure word of prophecy had not of old declared it, we could not have imagined it. It would have seemed blasphemy to have suggested such a thought; yet you have done it. Your grace has almost out-graced itself; your love has reached its height: love to rebels; so to love, that even your Son could not be spared. O God, we are afflicted in our hearts to think we do not love you more, after such love as this.
Amen.