Oh the Deep Deep Love -- Samuel Trevor Francis (and Bob Kauflin)

 

He wasn’t the first to contemplate a radical solution to his misery, nor the first to instead salvage a hymn from his experience. It was a turning point for Samuel Trevor Francis, perhaps something that might be described as an epiphany when he thought about it years later and said “Oh the Deep Deep Love” about the God that he felt had saved him one night. What he wrote suggests he was looking upon a mighty body of water, and comparing that scene to what he’d probably read so many times before from the pen of an apostle. What might you and I ponder if we were on a bridge over the River Thames in London? (See a picture here of the Hungerford Bridge over that river, as it might have looked to Samuel Francis in 1845, some 30 years before he authored the hymn.) Is one’s life too gloomy to be saved by a God with a love that knows no bounds? That’s what Samuel asked himself.

 

Could a nighttime walk over the Thames while wallowing in his despondency decades earlier have been what Samuel was remembering as he reached middle age in 1875? This 41-year-old London merchant and preacher had apparently suffered from some depression as a teenager, and thus thought briefly about suicide one winter night as he walked across a bridge. Did the cold, roiling water change his mind, or was it his recollection of what an apostle wrote about the vast dimensions -- how deep God’s love is (Ephesians 3:17-19) – that helped him overcome this momentary darkness? Admittedly, we in the 21^st Century have only a general comment from this 19^th Century author, many years after this incident, to evaluate precisely if this bridge episode had indeed stuck with him and motivated ‘Oh, the Deep…’ in 1875. And yet, his own remarks (in an 1898 publication of some of his hymns; see them in the Hymnology Archive link below) indicate that many of his works were sparked by his desire to show how someone can overcome a despairing life with the love of God. ‘Oh, the Deep…’ fits seamlessly into that category. Certainly, the multiple references to water bodies signal that Samuel was observing a piece of His watery creation, one that especially struck him. It was ‘vast, unmeasured, boundless, free’ (v.1), and ‘ocean’ (vv.1 and 3) could suggest he was alternately near the English coast, observing the North Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, or the English Channel, instead of the River Thames in London. Any of these bodies of water would have served his temporary urge to end his life! Fortunately, he also discovered that God’s love was a ‘current’,’all around’ and ‘underneath’ him (v.1), that His praise could travel from ‘shore to shore’ (v.2). He returns again and again to how deep – one ‘deep’ is not enough – is God’s care and longing for us. His provision in this life is like that Divine River of Life that transports the soul ‘onward’ and ‘homeward’ (v.1).

 

The power of water, that is something perhaps unappreciated until you’ve seen what it can do in a flood or worse yet a tidal wave. Samuel Francis must have thought about what it would mean to drown in the Thames or elsewhere, how suffocating in water would feel, and how it might have been for those who scorned God’s provision in Noah’s day. Those are the negative examples of God’s water. God also makes transport possible with it, provides life in it – fish and other creatures man can consume for nourishment – and how it is necessary to make land-based crops grow to feed and sustain us and the rest of his creation. Samuel was likewise pondering the positives of God’s watery ingenuity, one night on a bridge. What He’s made can point to Him, if I’ll just take a moment to turn around my negative thoughts and look at things from a different direction. That’s what Samuel did. Would you prefer to drown or ride the waves?         

 

See here for some biographic information on the original writer: S. Trevor Francis | Hymnary.org

 

See here also for biographic information on the author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Trevor_Francis

 

See information on the hymn here: O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus - Wikipedia

 

See more information on the song and its writer here: O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus - The Center For Church Music, Songs and Hymns

 

See some pretty extensive notes on the song here (including a brief note on how the new chorus was written by Bob Kauflin): O the deep, deep love of Jesus — Hymnology Archive

 

See this link for image of the Hungerford Bridge over the River Thames in London, and its public domain status: File:Hungerford Suspension Bridge (1845).jpg - Wikimedia Commons  The following statement appears with the image: This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. {{PD-US-expired}} – published anywhere (or registered with the US Copyright Office) before 1928 and public domain in the US.