How He Loves by Brady

There is a song called “How He Loves” that the David Crowder Band is putting on their new album titled “Church Music,” which will be released this September. I found out that the song was actually written by a guy named John Mark McMillan the day after one of his close friends named Stephen was killed in a car accident. The extraordinary thing about this story is that John Mark’s friend had prayed to God the morning of his wreck and stated that he would give his life if it would spark a movement amongst the youth in our nation. As I mentioned, that night he was killed in a car accident and people were left feeling as though Stephen was a sacrifice of a lesser kind than Christ.

The lyrics to the song are powerful because it uses terms of desperation and brokenness with words of love, grace, and hope. Here is just a sample of some of the lyrics: “Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy, When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great your affections are for me;” “If grace is an ocean we're all sinking, So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way, that he loves us, how He loves us, how He loves us, how He loves.” This last line changes the entire message of the song and seems to imply that it is about the manner in which God chooses to express His love for us rather than being about the amount or depth of love that God has for us. I believe the imagery this song presents of being broken by love and almost drowning in grace is consistent with the message of Christ.

Out of all of the different and beautiful elements of this song, the most impactful thing to me is the title of the song. The title is not “How He Loves Us;” rather it is “How He Loves.” This song is addressing the way that God loves us, not the fact that God loves us. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus addresses the nature of this life many times. In a famous portion known as “The Sermon on the Mount” he uses birds as an example. He says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:25-27)

To be honest, my wife has had a problem with this verse for a long time and never more than today probably. The lot that our house sits on has seven mature trees and 30 plus bird’s nests in them. This spring alone we have buried seven baby birds that have died, the most recent one being today. Today’s case was different because a baby dove had fallen and was still alive, yet the mother couldn’t get it back up into the nest high above. My wife did what she could to save the bird, but ultimately ants ate the bird alive before she could save it. And in this small fragment of the rhythm of life we see the pain that we experience as humans. This pain comes from what Charlie Hall calls “the beauty of the ash of love.” In short, it is the fact that spring means new life and also baby birds dying. It is a soldier dying when his wife is back home giving birth. These moments are why Jesus can say that to truly live, you must die.

I do not believe it is a coincidence that one of the few other times Jesus mentions birds in the Gospel of Matthew is when he is telling a potential follower what it will cost to follow him. He says, ““Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”” (Matthew 8:20-22) These are undeniably some of Jesus’ harshest words, but he is getting at the root of what Christians believe this life is ultimately about.

Did God grant the request of Stephen and allow him to die because of the prayer he prayed that morning? I’m not sure, but I know beauty was birthed out of this tragedy in the form of a song that has potential to transcend this life. I do know that the nature of God is to allow suffering to happen because of His love for us, not in spite of it. Just like the song says, it is simply “how he loves.” Because “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” And this is the hope that we have as Christians. That God is not some distant deity smiting us by causing us pain and heartache; rather, He is love that chose to enter into this world full of pain and hurt with us, live a life worse than the birds of the air experience, and die a painful death in order that we might have life. And the call to us is to follow him in the way of love represented here: to die in order that we might have life. If we die to self for His glory in whatever way we are called, whether it is social, economical, material or literal death, He will produce something transcendent that is far more beautiful than anything we could create on our own. And that is the promise of Jesus in Matthew: “Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” (Matthew 13:32) This is the true nature of life found in Christ; this is the how He loves us.