FEb 06-07, 2021
From the Pastor’s Desk: Rev. Simon Lee

Dear brothers and sisters of RCAC,

At the beginning of a new year (2021) and also as we celebrate our Chinese New Year, it is most appropriate that we celebrate the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ is King. This is indeed our hope and prayer after a devastating year of 2020 filled with chaos, and gloom and doom from the pandemic. Biden, the new President of the United States in his Inauguration Speech on January 20, quoted from Psalms 30:5 – “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Indeed, we share this hope and look forward to the dawn when we can all rejoice in the Lord.
We had looked at the first stanza of Crown him with many crowns, which focused on “The Lamb upon his throne. In this article, I would like to share with you the themes of the second stanzas of the hymn (HL #9), which is “Crown Him the Lord of Love.”

The lyrics is as follows:

Crown him the Lord of love!
Behold his hands and side,–
Rich wounds, yet visible above,
In beauty glorified:
No angel in the sky
Can fully bear that sight,
But downward bends his burning eye
At mysteries so bright!

Jesus is the Lord of Love

Jesus Christ is King because he is the Lord of love. We are brought to the cross where Jesus Christ the sinless Son of God was crucified for our sins. If we have any question about how much Jesus loves us, we only have to go back at the cross and “behold his hands and side, rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.” The scene was “beauty glorified” because it symbolized the fulfilment of God’s plan of redemption of all mankind, but at the same time it was so painful that the hymn writer tells us that even the heavenly angels cannot “fully bear that sight.” In contrast Jesus with His head bend down and with “burning eye” (eyes of the King , the Judge) was gazing at this divine mystery, the mystery of the incarnation, the atonement of sin and the defeat of Satan.

This demonstration of true love is described well in the words of John: “For God so love the world, that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Paul puts it this way, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom. 5:8)

One of my favourite hymns is “Love Was When” and the lyrics of the first verse is:

Love was when God became a man,
locked in time and space, without rank or place.
Love was God born of Jewish kin;
Just a carpenter with some fishermen.
Love was when Jesus walked in history.
Lovingly He brought a new life that’s free.
Love was God nailed to bleed and die,
to reach and love one such as I.

Imagine God the creator of the whole universe, “became a man, locked in time and space, without rank or place.” Incredible! Unthinkable! This is LOVE! The hymn writer urges us to ponder on the fact that the sinless Son of God came and “Lovingly He brought a new life that’s free. Love was God nailed to bleed and die, to reach and love one such as I.” Herein is LOVE! We praise God that we are a follower of Jesus who is the “Lord of Love.” We are to worship Him by crowning Him the Lord of Love. What does this mean?

Crown Him the Lord of Love

Apart from quoting from Psalm 30:5, it is interesting that Biden also invokes Augustine in call for American unity based on their common values. As a cradle Catholic, he quoted a teaching of St. Augustine whom he referred to as “a saint of my church” – that “a people are a multitude defined by the common object of their love.” The Church father Augustine in City of God presented love, not law, as the thing that binds a society together. He also wrote, “the soul takes on the character of what it loves.” Biden is appealing to Americans to love and put into practice their common values and therefore be united as a nation.

Applying it further to the Church, Jesus taught “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:35) Jesus also underscored the relationship of loving God and following His commandments: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (Jn 14:21) These two dimensions of love described by John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, in these two references is summed up in Jesus’ own summary of the Great commandments, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27)

Jesus is the Lord of love, the very personification of the virtue of love. He urges us his disciples to love God vertically by following His commandments and horizontally by loving one another. Jesus has set an example for us as the Lord of love. His sacrificial love for us should motivate us to respond by loving Him and loving another in Christ. This is what is implied when we sing “crown Him the Lord of Love” as it reminds us to worship God for who He is,” the Lord of Love,” and do so by practising love, for God and for one another.

May we in RCAC all learn to “Crown Him the Lord of Love” in 2021 and beyond!

Your servant in Christ,
Pastor Simon Lee