Good Friday. I have a book I want to review, but I’ve got to address more important things on the holiest weekend of the year.

Above, a beautiful rendition of O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, with words I’m not familiar with. The hymn’s origins are complicated. The original poem, of which this hymn is just a section, was written either by St. Bernard of Clairvaux or by Bishop Arnulf of Villers-la-Ville. The section was translated into German by the famed Lutheran hymn writer Paul Gerhardt, a pastor who suffered greatly during the Thirty Years War. The traditional setting is by no less a composer than Johan Sebastian Bach. The traditional American translation of the text came from James W. Alexander, a Presbyterian churchman and scholar.

To my mind, this is the best Lenten hymn. But there are many other fine ones out there too.

I want to write about a point of apologetics tonight. I’ve probably laid it out here before. But it seems to me the absolute, rock-bottom argument for Christianity.

Your mileage may vary. I may even be talking through my hat. All our proofs, I am certain, will whirl away like autumn leaves when we behold the One whom Father Ailill likes to call the Beloved.

Ask anyone what’s the most important thing in the universe. Doesn’t matter who. Christian, Jew, atheist. (This may be different in countries with non-Abrahamic religions – I know less about them. But I’m addressing my neighbors, my fellow Americans and Europeans.)

You know what the answer is: Love. Love is the answer. Love is all you need. The greatest of these is love.

But does this make sense outside of the Christian faith?

I’m sure there are lots of atheists around who also say, “Love is the answer, love is the greatest thing.” They take it for granted. It’s the minimal place-holder for religion they’ve been raised with (even if they were raised by other atheists).

But if there is no God, what does that mean? If the ultimate truth of the universe is impersonal, how can love be the answer? Objects don’t love. Energy doesn’t love. Rocks don’t love. Trees don’t love.

Only persons love.

If some Person doesn’t lie behind all the material things we know, then love means nothing. Because sentient creatures will die out eventually, and then love will go away. And it won’t be the answer.

Christianity says that a Person made the universe, and loved us, and demonstrated the greatest love conceivable in the atonement and resurrection.

Blab about love all you want, but if you don’t believe in that God, then it seems to me you’re just surviving on the scraps you picked up under Christianity’s table.

You could choose Judaism or Islam, I suppose, but there’s no parallel act of love.