I Stand Amazed (My Savior’s Love)
One of the great hymns of God's love was written by Charles Gabriel, musician and songwriter alongside the great evangelist Billy Sunday. These words about "Jesus the Nazarene" and his wonderful, marvelous love have captured millions.
Welcome back to Friday Classic Hymns, everybody, taking our favourite old hymns and looking closely at their stories and, of course, the lyrics, and then singing them together. Last week I did a song called "Since Jesus Came into My Heart"—a joyful hymn which I really love. This week I was looking for a hymn out of the long list that I've got planned this year and I chose one because it's one that I know the melody for. I discovered that it's written by the same man who wrote the music to last week's hymn, "Since Jesus Came into My Heart," which was interesting to me—it followed on quite nicely. Maybe you want to go watch that first video and come back to this one so you can get a bit of an idea of where this guy came from.
Now I didn't know the song until last year when my colleague here at the Church of the Nazarene in Benoni, Reverend Peter, chose it for a service. He sang it and I sat on the keys and played it with him and some of the other singers and just really fell in love with the song. What a beautiful song! I've since learnt that it is extremely popular, still performed everywhere. There are hundreds of amazing versions on YouTube. Do you have a particular favourite version perhaps? Do you remember the song? Maybe you sang it at a church somewhere that's got a special memory for you. Please share all your thoughts and your comments down below—I'd love to share in your joy.
Before we take a look at the history, I want to just let you know that I've released an album of hymns. It's called Canaan Melodies Volume 1, and these are old Nazarene hymns that I discovered that nobody sings anymore, the majority of them. I'm recording my way through this hymnal and just loving these songs. They've disappeared and I'm trying to bring them back to life and make them a bit modern, so please go and check out Canaan Melodies—I'll put a link below.
If you haven't subscribed to the channel, can I encourage you to do that? It really helps the channel to grow. The more you subscribe and like and watch long videos, the more YouTube throws this onto other people's feeds so that they can also find these videos. Thank you for doing that.
The Story Behind "I Stand Amazed in the Presence"
Last week I mentioned that Rufus McDaniel, who wrote "Since Jesus Came into My Heart," sent some of his songs to a famous songwriter of the day, Charles Gabriel. Charles Gabriel is the writer of "I Stand Amazed in the Presence" as well as some other famous hymns like "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."
He was born in 1856 on a farm in Iowa and spent his early years there. His father was actually a travelling music teacher, so he became quite musical at a young age. When his father died, he initially carried on his music teaching practice, but even before that he'd developed such a natural talent that during the day he would be busy on the farm doing his chores and he would be writing melodies in his head. He would come back in and write songs based on them.
He announced to his family that he wanted to be a songwriter and everyone was very pleased. He said how he wanted to write a famous song, and his mother said this to him: "My boy, I would rather have you write a song that will help somebody than see you the President of the United States."
Turns out that's exactly what would happen. Over the years he became very well known in his home state for all the great hymnals that he compiled and many of the great songs that he himself wrote. During the 1890s he and his family moved to Chicago and became very involved in the music there. He wrote countless songs, published countless hymnals, and really was well known in the field for his prolific work.
As I mentioned in last week's video, he was quite involved with Billy Sunday, who was a famous evangelist of the day. He would perform at the revival meetings that Billy Sunday held and he became so well known that other people would send him their songs for him to write music to.
A music historian said this about Charles H. Gabriel: "He earned a unique place in American hymn writing because he was equally capable of crafting a great lyric or a great melody."
When he died in 1932, he was revered. Nobody really knows where this particular song came from or why he wrote it, but as you'll see as we look at the lyrics, it is just a wonderful expression of what God's love means. Thank God for men like this who follow their calling to be ministers of music and write such wonderful songs for us to enjoy.
What Do the Lyrics of "I Stand Amazed in the Presence" Mean?
Gabriel wrote five verses and a chorus to this song. We don't usually sing all five today—we like to shorten it because we get bored quickly—but really all five verses are beautiful.
Verse 1: I Stand Amazed in the Presence
The first verse, of course, is the one everybody knows: "I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene."
Beautiful words! I stand amazed. So often in the Gospels you see how the crowds were amazed by Jesus—amazed. I wonder if we've lost this. It takes a lot to amaze us in today's world of crazy special effects and artificial intelligence. Do we still stand amazed when we read of who He is and what He did?
That line about Him being Jesus the Nazarene—obviously I love that because I'm a member of the Church of the Nazarene. Our church decided on that name back in the early days because the word "Nazarene" was a derogatory term. You know how Nathaniel said, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" in John's Gospel. Because Jesus came from Nazareth, people thought, "Ah, He's a nothing, He's a nobody." It represented His standing with those who were nobodies.
The Church of the Nazarene formed to say we're going to stand with the nobodies because God offers grace to even them. The other day on one of the Nazarene pastors' groups, we had a bit of a laugh on Facebook because somebody was sharing a story—and I wish I could find it now to find who it was, so if you're watching this I'd love for you to get in touch with me—but he said that he was invited to preach at a Methodist church somewhere and they sang this song. He said afterwards that he said to the minister there, "Did you notice it didn't say 'I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Methodist'?" But it was all very lighthearted.
Jesus was a Nazarene and we stand—doesn't matter what denomination you are—we stand with Jesus as the One who stands with those whom the world considers nobodies.
The rest of that verse is also lovely: "And wonder how He could love me, a sinner, condemned, unclean."
We should never lose the amazement that God loves us even though we are sinners. We should never lose the sense of humility that we didn't deserve the love that He showed. Yes, of course He transforms us from sinners into saints—that's what the New Testament states—but we should never forget that it's an amazing act of grace and love that He even welcomes us, that He loves us because He found us condemned, unclean sinners and offered us love when we didn't deserve it.
Oh, how wonderful, as the song goes on to say. Look at the chorus:
"O how marvelous! O how wonderful! And my song shall ever be: O how marvelous! O how wonderful! Is my Saviour's love for me!"
He's saying I'll always be singing, I'll always be singing how wonderful and how marvellous is this love that He's poured out. Have you remembered that this is the crux of the Gospel? That we are loved by God. Before we loved Him, He loved us. Before we encountered Him, He reached out to us. We just stand amazed and sing of how wonderful and marvellous His love is. This song just touches the heart, doesn't it?
Verse 2: For Me It Was in the Garden
Verse two goes like this: "For me it was in the garden He prayed: 'Not My will, but Thine.' He had no tears for His own griefs, but sweat drops of blood for mine."
Picture Jesus in Gethsemane, sweating drops like blood because He was so distressed at what He was about to go through. But He didn't run away from it because He loved us and He knew that His death on the cross would bring our salvation. It was prophesied all those years ago. It was an act of love when Jesus said, "Not My will, but Yours be done, Lord," speaking to His Father. He was doing it in love for you and me. Beautiful.
Verse 3: In Pity Angels Beheld Him
Verse three goes on and says: "In pity angels beheld Him, and came from the world of light to comfort Him in the sorrows He bore for my soul that night."
Again this is Jesus in the garden, and He was attended to by the angels. We read this in Luke 22:43, how an angel came and helped Him.
It's an interesting thought. We don't often speak about it—at least not in my church we haven't really spoken about it or in the churches I've been part of. It's an interesting picture of Jesus in the garden, struggling with His idea of what He was going to go through, but God sending an angel to help Him, the Father sending this angel down to comfort Him in His difficulty.
Again there's this emphasis here at the end that He bore those sorrows for us, for our souls, that our souls might be saved. We praise Him and we sing how wonderful, how marvellous, that He would go through all of that in love for us.
Verse 4: He Took My Sins and My Sorrows
Verse four says this: "He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own; He bore the burden to Calvary, and suffered and died alone."
We know the story that Jesus went to the cross bearing our sins, carrying the weight of our sins on His shoulders, becoming sin for us, taking on our curse and doing it all alone. Of course He had the help of Simon of Cyrene who helped Him carry the cross, but when He was nailed to the cross it was Him alone who bore that weight.
This is an amazing thought: that we who are sinners, condemned and unclean—remember verse one—have those sins nailed to the cross with Jesus so that when we place our faith in Him they're washed away. They're taken away from us, they're placed on Him so that we can be free. This is the most wonderful act of love God could have done, taking on our sins Himself so that we could go free. How marvellous! How wonderful! I love this song.
Verse 5: When with the Ransomed in Glory
Verse five goes on and says: "When with the ransomed in glory His face I at last shall see, 'twill be my joy through the ages to sing of His love for me."
He's saying one day I'm going to actually see Jesus face to face up there in glory, and then it's going to be the greatest joy to sing His praise and to thank Him for His love.
So many times we think of heaven only for what it takes us away from. We think of the hurt and the sin and the struggles that we're going to be taken away from as we leave earth, and that's a wonderful hope. But I love here how he is focussing on what he's going to see there—not so much what he's leaving here, but the glory of seeing Jesus face to face and singing of His love and thanking Him for His love. What a joy! What a joy!
Man, this song, it's so real, it's so emotional but simple and understandable in deep what words mean the most to you. I'd love for you to share. Is there a verse or a line here that just hit you today as you sang it? Is there something that this song does to you?
For me it just humbles me in a great way to think of what Jesus has done for me. I hope you'll join me and sing it now because it's going to be special as we worship together.
Conclusion
Thank you for supporting my channel. Those of you who donate on Patreon, I'm so grateful. Those of you who share this video around, I'm really grateful for your help. Sing with me now and let's give thanks to Jesus the Nazarene for His marvellous, wonderful love for us.
References
Kenneth W. Osbeck. 101 More Hymn Stories. 1985. Kregal Publications: Grand Rapids
