“JESUS LOVES ME, THIS I KNOW”

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28 

“We have known and believed the love that God has for us.”1Jn 4:16 NKJV 

In1962, the Swiss theologian Dr. Karl Barth did a lecture tour of the United States. Barth is regarded by many within the Protestant tradition as the greatest theologian of the twentieth century. He also made his mark outside the church, hitting the cover of Time magazine on April 20,1962. After Barth delivered his lecture at Rockefeller Chapel, a student asked him if he could summarize his whole life’s work in a single sentence. That’s not an easy question for someone as prolific as Barth, whose resume included more than 600 works. His Church Dogmatics was written over a thirty-five-year span. The 8,000-page,13-volume set is a library unto itself. Barth responded to the question by quoting the words of a song he learned at his mother’s knee: “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” When John Bruce, a federal judge appointed by Ulysses S. Grant, was on his deathbed, he instructed his daughter to “fetch the book.” Like Barth, Bruce’s life was defined by Jesus’ love. Bruce told her to turn to the eighth chapter of Romans and said, “Put my finger on these words,” and quoted: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ro 8:38-39 NKJV). When his daughter found the words, John Bruce told her to hold his finger there. He passed away with his finger on that promise. What a way to enter heaven!