Jesus Loves Me

In the this episode of Christian Mythbusters, Father Jared debunks the myth of the beloved children’s song, “Jesus Loves Me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” You can hear Christian Mythbusters in the Grand Haven area on 92.1, WGHN, on Wednesdays at 10:30am and Sundays at 8:50am. The transcript of the episode is below, or you can listen to the audio at the bottom of the post. This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I am going to take a step on a shaky limb today, so I hope you will bear with me. This week I want to bust the myth of the beloved children’s song, “Jesus loves me.” If you grew up in the church like me, probably one of the first songs you learned was “Jesus loves me.” You know, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” We teach these songs to our children because the first and most important thing we want them to learn about Christianity that they are deeply loved by God, this truth is inescapable and irrefutable. I mean clearly, we set it to rhyme. But maybe, if you are somewhat like me, as you grew up that song became a little harder to believe. There’s nothing like adolescence, being a young adult, and then moving through your early 20s to realize that you can sometimes be a pretty horrible person, or at least kind of a jerk. And you know that God is supposed to love everyone, but it becomes more sort of a blanket statement. It’s not like God looks actually looks at you and says, “That’s great. You’re great.” This sinking suspicion was broken open for me by a contemporary Christian artist in the 90s named Rich Mullins who once said, “I grew up hearing everyone tell me ‘God loves you’. I would say big deal, God loves everybody. That don’t make me special! It just proves that God ain’t got no taste.” But what if…. What if… it wasn’t about you being special? That’s part of the problem, I think. What if God’s love for you isn’t because you are special but, instead, is because you are… you. A lot of Christians spend a good deal of time trying to get an experience of God in their lives. I remember when I was a minister in the evangelical tradition of the church, working to find the right balance of exciting praise music and emotional worship music to cultivate an emotional reaction in those attending a worship service. I wound up… exhausted. But the first time I attended a service of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament—this is a devotion common in the more catholic parts of the church where you basically sit (or kneel) in front of the communion elements of bread and wine, trusting Jesus was serious when he said they were his body and his blood, and you just… adore. I wasn’t sure what to expect. But through the clouds of incense, as I looked at the bread of communion, I was suddenly overcome with a sense that Jesus was right there… and I didn’t make it happen. It wasn’t because I structured a perfect worship service or raised my hands the proper amount to the best Christian songs. It certainly wasn’t because I was special—Lord knows that’s the truth. Jesus was just… there… in the sacrament… reaching out in love… to me. This is, theologically, the objective presence of Christ in the sacraments. In simpler terms, it is the truth that Jesus loves you so much that he wants to be with you in that bread and wine, even if you aren’t sure that sort of thing is possible.