"Always" is a power ballad by Bon Jovi. It was released as a single from their 1994 album Cross Road and went on to become their best-selling single, with a million copies sold in the U.S. and more than 3 million worldwide. The song reached #4 in the U.S. Billboard charts, #2 on the Mainstream Top 40 and was also an international hit (#1 in Australia, #2 in the United Kingdom and #4 in Germany). It marks Alec John Such's final single with the band before he left the band in late of 1994. This song was originally written as the soundtrack to the Romeo is Bleeding but Jon Bon Jovi wisely pulled the track after seeing what a dud the film was. The track mourns a lost love (“It's been raining since you left me / Now I'm drowning in the flood”) and is accompanied by a wonderfully cheesy video complete with long-haired men, ripped stonewash jeans and a seriously dramatic storyline.
This romeo is bleeding
But you can't see his blood
It's nothing but some feelings
That this old dog kicked up
It's been raining since you left me
Now I'm drowning in the flood
You see I've always been a fighter
But without you I give up
Now I can't sing a love song
Like the way it's meant to be
Well, I guess I'm not that good anymore
But baby, that's just me
And I will love you, baby - Always
And I'll be there forever and a day - Always
I'll be there till the stars don't shine
Till the heavens burst and
The words don't rhyme
And I know when I die, you'll be on my mind
And I'll love you - Always
Now your pictures that you left behind
Are just memories of a different life
Some that made us laugh, some that made us cry
One that made you have to say goodbye
What I'd give to run my fingers through your hair
To touch your lips, to hold you near
When you say your prayers try to understand
I've made mistakes, I'm just a man
When he holds you close, when he pulls you near
When he says the words you've been needing to hear
I'll wish I was him 'cause those words are mine
To say to you till the end of time
Yeah, I will love you baby - Always
And I'll be there forever and a day - Always
If you told me to cry for you
I could
If you told me to die for you
I would
Take a look at my face
There's no price I won't pay
To say these words to you
Well, there ain't no luck
In these loaded dice
But baby if you give me just one more try
We can pack up our old dreams
And our old lives
We'll find a place where the sun still shines
And I will love you, baby - Always
And I'll be there forever and a day - Always
I'll be there till the stars don't shine
Till the heavens burst and
The words don't rhyme
And I know when I die, you'll be on my mind
And I'll love you - Always
"Always"
is about undying love. the sentiments in this track make it a power
ballad. Love and Commitment hand in hand with good rock music make it a
winner in anyone's back catalog. This morning in our devotions I would
like to explore the line in the song that amplifies this love that is
spoken about. In the third to last stanza we find the words "There's no price I won't pay" and It's to these words and the thoughts behind these words that we direct our reflections this morning.
This is a passage about death, about the death of Jesus.
Jesus came to die in the place of others. And he took their place as a ransom. A payment that secured release, be it from slavery or captivity. He paid the price. Its an exchange: this for that. Take this and release to me that. It’s a costly intervention. Consider what Psalm 49:7-9 has to say about the price of a ransom, “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit.
No man could ever offer the price required to ransom another’s life from the inevitable, from death. The Psalmist admits despairingly that, “death shall be their shepherd.” The shadow of death reigns, it directs human life with its disruptive power. It’s our shepherd, leading us towards brokenness and decay, tarnishing relationships, and infusing life with suffering. Death is our shepherd. It’s scary. But theres a turning point at the end of the Psalm, a turning towards hope. The Psalmist writes, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of [death].”
So, Jesus gives his life as our ransom. And this is how God ransoms our souls from the power of death, from death being our shepherd. This is what the death of Jesus does. Now, Mark isn’t the least bit concerned about who the ransom is paid to—despite how occupied scholars can be with this question. What is clear, and what is important, is how great a price was paid. A price no one but God himself could pay. And, it cost God—it costs God dearly—to free the ransomed. It costs his only Beloved Son. This is how much God is willing to pay!
The cross is the ultimate revelation of God’s character. God must and will deal justly with our sin. But Jesus on the cross shows us that God’s love knows no bounds, that there is no place that God wouldn’t go to set humanity back to rights with himself—even death on a cross. And on the cross, in our place, God absorbs the offence, he takes on our sin, and he demonstrates his forgiveness in such a profound way.
We will never fully understand or comprehend what happened on the cross. We can’t dissect the mechanics of it. But we are meant to encounter Christ’s death. And when we encounter it, we either receive it or reject it. We can receive the meaning of his death and receive the forgiveness of our sins, and the ransom payment of Jesus which sets us free from death. Or we don’t. When we resist it, when you consider it foolish, irrelevant, or too much; you actually refuse the power of God.
When we accept Jesus’ death on our behalf, our hearts have to be humbled. We have to admit that we need Jesus to take our place before God. Because if we attempt to stand before God on our own two legs we know we will be cut down. Because God is holy, and his holiness reveals how far we have fallen. And yet the death of Jesus shows us that Jesus will come to the depths of our fallenness to bring us back to God.
Accepting what Jesus did in our place—for us—means that death is no longer our shepherd. As Jesus says in the gospel of John, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.” Death no longer reigns over us, because our sins have been dealt with and atoned for by Jesus’ death. We are forgiven! We are ransomed from the power of death, and freed for new life.
As our good shepherd Jesus leads us in the way of life, not the way of death. Jesus is life. To live as he lived, to serve as he served only comes through him serving us. If you’re going to follow in the way of Jesus—the costly, sacrificial way of Jesus—the only way it is going to happen is in him.
Jesus offers us not a model, but power to do what he does. The only power we have is not our own, but Jesus serving us. He has served us in the ultimate way, and he continues to serve us and grant us power to follow him.
As we accept his death, as we put our faith and trust in him, we are unified with him. His death is our death. His life is our life. We die with him. But in dying with him we receive the power of his resurrected life. And it is his resurrected life that defeated the grave, and the power of death.
We get to live with God through Jesus who continually serves us for our good. There is nothing in the world more powerful than that. He paid the ultimate price. It's like Jesus were saying the words of the Bon Jovi song "Always" "There's no price I would not pay"
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