Ma Sandaha Divi Piduwe

The one who gave his life for me,
who rose again from death,
who is there but you, who but you,
Jesus, my Lord Christ?

Whether it be disaster and ruin,
whether it be sorrow and grief,
from the love of Christ my Lord,
who could ever separate me?

Whether it be affliction,
whether it be hunger,
from the love of Christ my Lord,
who could ever separate me?

Whether it be poverty and want,
whether it be the blow of a sword,
from the love of Christ my Lord,
who could ever separate me?

Whether it be death itself,
whatever mighty power there is,
from the love of Christ my Lord,
who could ever separate me?

The love that God showed toward us,
seen in the very face of Jesus,
gazing on it with our own eyes,
let us offer up our lives

This is a hymn of unshakable confidence, and it is built almost entirely on one of the most triumphant passages in the whole Bible, the apostle Paul’s declaration in Romans that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. It opens by identifying who that love belongs to, “the one who gave his life for me, who rose again from death, who is there but you, Jesus, my Lord Christ?” The cross and the resurrection are the ground of everything that follows.

Then the song does exactly what Paul did, it lists every terrible thing that might come, and after each one asks the same defiant question. “Whether it be disaster and ruin, sorrow and grief,” “affliction,” “hunger,” “poverty,” “the blow of a sword,” and finally “death itself” and “whatever mighty power there is”, from the love of Christ, “who could ever separate me?” The expected answer, thundering underneath, is: nothing, and no one. The love that saved us cannot be taken away by any hardship, however extreme.

The final verse turns that confidence into surrender. Having seen “the love that God showed toward us, seen in the very face of Jesus,” the only fitting response is to give oneself back, “gazing on it with our own eyes, let us offer up our lives.” What the listener is left with is courage, the kind that can face ruin, hunger, the sword and even death without fear, because it rests in a love that no power in heaven or earth can ever cut off, and it answers that love by laying down its own life in return.