Mar 02 – The Love of Christ !

“For your love is better than wine” (Song of Solomon 1:2)

A devout believer once meditated on what the Lord’s love could be compared to. Could it be likened to gold and riches? Or to palaces and positions of honour? After much thought, he chose to compare His love to wine.

Why wine? When grapes are crushed, the deep red juice flows out. When Jesus desired to reveal the fullness of His love, He too was “crushed” on the cross of Calvary—just like grapes pressed in a winepress. He was beaten, bruised, and poured out His last drop of blood. No love can ever be compared to such love.

As we meditate on the love of Jesus Christ, we see that He loved us as the God who dwells with us. We behold Him as the Creator who made all things for us. We see in Him the compassion of a father. We experience the comforting love of a mother.

He loves us as Counselor, Teacher, Brother, Friend, and as the Lover of our souls. Yet above all these expressions of love, the love displayed on Calvary—submitting Himself to be beaten and crushed—stands incomparable. That is why the Scripture declares that His love is sweeter and more delightful than wine.

At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus turned water into wine. At a wedding feast, He filled what was lacking and performed a miracle. Those who tasted it testified that the latter wine was better than the former. In the same way, His love fills all our deficiencies and brings fullness to our lives.

Then came the final day of His earthly ministry. Before going to the Garden of Gethsemane, He shared a last meal with His disciples. Taking the cup, He said that it was His blood of the new covenant, shed for them. The One who turned water into wine at the beginning now spoke of wine as His own blood.

Perhaps the disciples did not fully understand the depth of those words at that moment. But the next day, when He was scourged; crowned with thorns; when His body was crushed; when nails were driven into His hands and feet, and pierced in His side—they understood that His love was indeed sweeter than wine.

Dear children of God, look upon the Son of God who gave Himself for you. The blood that dripped from His body, that flowed from His pierced side, that oozed from His nail-pierced hands—that is love.

Verse for further meditation: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).