The Love of God – Frederick Lehman

Only rarely does one find a song that has a 900-year history. Maybe that’s what got Frederick Lehman’s attention when he wrote – or, better it’s said that he finished - the hymn “The Love of God” in 1917. Listen to the story, and you might imagine that it was pretty lucky that it survived. But, look at the theme running through it, and instead you get a sense that Providence was at work. Could it be that God willed that this hymn about His nature be reborn, centuries after one line of it was written? Love among humans is difficult to explain, scientifically (see the picture), so how does one characterize His love? It’s rarefied air, in which someone extra special – God himself – requires a vehicle capable of the journey.

Frederick Lehman was the third in a line of preservers of “The Love of God”. A Jewish hymn writer in the 11th Century, Meir Ben Isaac Nehorai, is said to have written the original words of the third verse (as part of a larger poem known as “Hadamut”) in 1096 in the city of Worms, in what is now Germany. Meir’s intent was to compose a pre-festival praise that would be followed by a recitation of the 10 Commandments. So Meir was also looking backward, into Jewish history, to rejuvenate something of God for believers to appreciate. Later, a second and most unexpected preserver was an insane asylum resident, whose scrawled words on a wall echoed the verse from “Hadamut” that Meir had written. That’s right, in blunt terms, a nut was part of the hymn’s preservation story. Even he was reached by God, if only in a moment of clarity. Indeed, the deep truth of the poem’s words – that God’s love can overwhelm anything or anyone – apparently is what motivated Lehman as he sat years later to compose two other verses and the chorus.

God is timeless. That’s Him saying ‘no problem’, when a song seems to come almost out of thin air, or in the case of “The Love of God” after centuries of dormancy. Consider the hymn’s message – Love. Not just any variety, but Divine. Never quite dead, is this love, matching its owner. Lehman and Meir try to use lots of adjectives and phrases to describe the extent of His affection, but one phrase stands out for the writer. ‘…greater …than pen can ever tell…’. What more needs to be said? In fact, God set the standard for how to express it – in action, through the Son. He’s love, and that’s just who He is, who’s He’s always been, and who He will always be.

Information on the song was obtained from the books “Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions”, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990; and “The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs”, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006.

Also see the following website for information on Lehman and the song’s background: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/l/o/loveofgo.htm