When I Survey The Wondrous Cross – Kathryn Scott

Following yesterday’s first version of WISTWC it’s fair to say that at the time I didn’t pay too much attention to the song itself.  As age has had a habit of doing for a while it was as I grew that the weightiness of the lyrical content began to hit home.  I remember back whilst working for the North Staffs YMCA as a spiritual development worker I did some prayer days and I played this version of the song.  I played it and realised what a dreadful mistake I’d made in not paying careful attention to the words.

I mean what does it mean to ‘survey the wondrous cross’?  Just being captured by that thought caused a radical overhaul in my thinking.  That thought made the lyric ‘my richest gain I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride’ make a great deal of sense.  Perspective is adjusted sharply so that it’s about what happened on that cross.  Why is it so important?  What does it have to do with my every day life?  Did ever such love and sorrow meet or thorns compose so rich a crown?  What a marvellous and haunting juxtaposition to consider that this should be what our Prince of Glory did on the cross.

So that in itself refreshed a song for me that brought me to my knees.  That was not all though … as I’ll share in a later post.