Lift Your Souls and Receive…

Clearly, good lyrics stand on their own without any comment from me. I'm glad of this, for I have nothing to add the words I've been listening to tonight.  These lines from "The Glorious Impossible" by Joe Beck, Carl Cartee, and Wendy Willis have captured my attention this week:

Love has come to walk on water, turn the water into wine,
Touch the leper, bless the children, love both human and divine.
Praise the wisdom of the Father who has spoken through His Son
Speaking still He calls us to the glorious impossible!

Praise the wisdom of the Father -- Emmanuel. God is with us. Amen.

Advent? Christmas?

Sometime in the last few years, I was doing some reading and the author said something like, "it would be like singing Christmas hymns during Advent."  The phrase certainly grabbed my attention. I really had no idea what that was supposed to mean. I was surprised to learn, as a grown woman, that churches that observe a liturgical year traditionally sang Advent hymns through the four preparatory Sundays, and Christmas songs and hymns were reserved for the actual 12 days of Christmas from Christmas Day through Epiphany. (And as I read more about it, I learned that the demolition of this tradition has been just about as heated as the worship-style battles in our evangelical churches.)

I began to do a little research into what hymns were considered appropriate for Advent, and found that I knew very, very few of them.  I suppose that should be no surprise.  After all, a structured season leading up to the commemoration of the nativity is pretty much entirely extra-biblical, and we were supposed to be people of the book.

But I really do want to help create a sense of anticipation and longing for Christ's advent, because just as Israel waited for Messiah, so are we waiting for his return.  As I looked over hymns that I found listed as suitable for Advent, I didn't really find very many that I wanted to make a point of teaching my children, as I doubt they'd ever be singing them in corporate worship.  

But I did find some with writing that I liked even if I didn't care to learn the song, and one of those is "O Son of God, We Wait for Thee".  It grabbed my attention first because it used the word "supernal", meaning that contrary to popular opinion "Heaven Came Down and Glory Filled My Soul" is not the only place that word has ever been used.  

My silliness aside, it also had some lines that fit in with that sense of longing anticipation for his coming advent that I want us to feel:

But while our spirits feel Thee near,
Our eyes would see Thy beauty. 

I think that sums up our situation so well.  Christ in us, Christ never leaving us nor forsaking us, and yet we still see through that glass darkly and are waiting to see face-to-face. As the Bride, let us listen to the Spirit and join as he says, "Come."

Waiting in Darkness

Today is the first Sunday of Advent.  In our family Advent celebration, I have tried to focus the first week on the waiting aspect of Advent.  We emphasize that Israel had been waiting essentially for all time for the Messiah, but that for the last 500 or so years before Jesus's incarnation, they had been waiting in silence.  God had not spoken through a prophet for centuries. They were waiting in darkness.


A friend of mine posted a quote today that sums up the feeling we're trying to convey to our children about what that waiting was like:

‎A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

As we sit in a darkened room, the oldest child lights the first candle, and when the flame is lit, my husband or I read, "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light." Then we sing what I consider the prototypical Advent hymn: "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."


One of its verses particularly captures what I want my children to take away about the dark times of waiting for a word from the Lord. I want us to have a sense of the Lord's absence so that we may even more rejoice in his presence.

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer


Our spirits by Thine advent here;


Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,


And death’s dark shadows put to flight.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

Blessings

A couple of weeks ago in this space, I jotted down some musings on what makes a hymn dated, or what characteristics keep it from becoming timeless. This is a pretty subjective subject, of course.  One good ol' gospel song that I think does not necessarily modernize well is one that was undoubtedly near and dear to my grandparents' generation: In the Sweet By and By.  You, of course, may love that one, but to me it's fairly dated.

Why?  I think first that the metaphor linking dying with crossing the river has pretty much run its course.  There's nothing wrong with it, of course, but contemporary worship writers just don't tend to spend as much ink on death as writers of previous generations did.

I think another reason In the Sweet By and By has fallen out of favor has to do with its melody.  The melody line of the chorus has an unfortunate tendency to encourage a bit of sliding and sometimes it even gets a bit screechy. And though it doesn't have to be this way, I think that unless handled skillfully, it gets a bit dirge-like.

But this Thanksgiving, as I was counting my blessings and chopping my onions for the dressing, a verse from this song is what kept coming to mind.  So I'd like to close out my week of Thanksgiving-focused posts by highlighting that verse:

To our bountiful Father above,


We will offer our tribute of praise

For the glorious gift of His love


And the blessings that hallow our days.

That final line has really touched me the last few days.  "The blessings that hallow our days." May we remember that our days are made holy by His gift of righteousness that came through the one man, Jesus Christ.  Lord, we thank you for the gift of your love, and are grateful that you hear us. Blessed be your glorious name.

Harvest Matters

Being a typical suburban housewife (to the extent that there actually is such a thing), I am dismayed from time to time at the extent to which my children are removed from awareness of the food supply. The same is true for me, of course, but at least I had occasion to ride on the combine with my grandfather and spend days of summer prepping corn and beans for canning and other tasks that brought me at least a little closer to the process. 

I think that there are indeed a few things we lose in being so far removed from our food sources.  I think we probably lose a shade of thankfulness.  When the harvest is providing not only our own sustenance, but also all our other income, I expect we are more grateful than when the food is coming from the grocery store, and said store has always had plenty of it there to sell. Greater awareness brings greater gratitude.

Second, I wonder whether being closer to the process creates a greater sense of the dependence we have on God for all good things.  Drought or pests might drive prices up for my family, but they are unlikely to leave us looking for food.  We still recognize our dependence on the Lord for income and even recognize our lack of control over growing conditions, but we certainly do not recognize it to the extent a farmer would.

Third, I think we have to try harder to relate to some of Jesus's words in the gospel.  Many of his parables that made absolute sense to his agrarian audiences send us to commentaries for interpretation. We have to search to get the impact of words that might strike a different audience with full force.

These are the things I have been musing upon as I've been thinking about a true harvest hymn, "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come."  Note how many references in this song are both agricultural and biblical.

Come, ye thankful people, come, raise the song of harvest home;


All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin.


God our Maker doth provide for our wants to be supplied;


Come to God’s own temple, come, raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God’s own field, fruit unto His praise to yield;

Wheat and tares together sown unto joy or sorrow grown.


First the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear;


Lord of harvest, grant that we wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come, and shall take His harvest home;

From His field shall in that day all offenses purge away,


Giving angels charge at last in the fire the tares to cast;


But the fruitful ears to store in His garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come, bring Thy final harvest home;


Gather Thou Thy people in, free from sorrow, free from sin,


There, forever purified, in Thy garner to abide;


Come, with all Thine angels come, raise the glorious harvest home.

To me, there is just something very heartfelt and simple about this song. My perception may also be colored by a reference to this song in a favorite book.

In The Magician's Nephew (and I assume that if anyone actually reads this entry, you have probably read the Narnia books or you probably wouldn't have stuck around to read a blog about hymns), Digory and Polly have jumped from London to the Wood Between the Worlds, bringing Jadis, Uncle Andrew, a London cabby, and his horse with them.  They move from the Wood into a land that is dark and empty.  As they try to figure out what has happened, the cabby acts as a calming influence.

And if we're dead -- which I don't deny it might be -- well, you got to remember that worse things 'appen at sea and a chap's got to die sometime. And there ain't nothing to be afraid of if a chap's led a decent life. And if you ask me, I think the best thing we could do to pass the time would be sing a 'ymn.

And he did. He struck up at once a harvest thanksgiving hymn, all about crops being "safely gathered in."

I didn't particularly notice this passage as a child, I don't suppose.  But it turns out that by the time I read The Magician's Nephew to my children, I had already taught them "Come, Ye Thankful People, Come," and of course it was fun to watch them notice the allusion. But more than that, it made me think about the worship responses.  I think the first response when we encounter God is likely to be awe.  He is, of course, awesome in the truest sense of the word, and if we have come into His presence, we will be awestruck.  But I think the cabby's response to sensing an impending encounter with the Holy was thankfulness, as is ours.  We are thankful that He is mindful of us, that He desires a relationship with us, and that He has acted to make that relationship possible. Lord, accept the worship of Your thankful people!

Happy Thanksgiving!

To me, the prototypical Thanksgiving hymn is "We Gather Together."  Like "Now Thank We All Our God," its origin is not in harvest and plenty but instead in time of war. It was written to celebrate a victory in 1597 of Dutch Protestants against the forces of Philip II (he of the Spanish Armada).


It was a good 10 years after this victory that the Englishmen we now know as the Plymouth colonists spent a season in Amsterdam avoiding persecution for their non-conformity to the Church of England. So it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to suppose that they may have heard this song during their Dutch sojourn and perhaps even brought it with them as they returned to England and later sailed out to help colonize a new world. My understanding of Separatist and Puritan worship practices is that the only music acceptable in corporate worship was the singing of metrical psalms, so I suppose it wouldn't have been sung in assembly. However, one can imagine that perhaps this song might have been one that was on their lips as they went about the daily work.


It turns out that the first line of this song is more significant than we realize if we do not know its origin.  In areas of Reformation Europe still torn apart by religious wars, neither freedom of worship nor freedom of assembly were at all considered inalienable rights.  The Protestants in the low countries were indeed forbidden to gather together, so that line is truly a proclamation of great victory. Similarly, the final line recognizes that they are still in need of divine help to secure true religious liberty.

We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing;

He chastens and hastens His will to make known.


The wicked oppressing now cease from distressing.


Sing praises to His Name; He forgets not His own.

Beside us to guide us, our God with us joining,


Ordaining, maintaining His kingdom divine;


So from the beginning the fight we were winning;


Thou, Lord, were at our side, all glory be Thine!

We all do extol Thee, Thou Leader triumphant,


And pray that Thou still our Defender will be.


Let Thy congregation escape tribulation;


Thy Name be ever praised! O Lord, make us free!

I think from our 21st century American perspective, it is rather difficult to wrap our brains around the hardships and actual persecution that led the Separatists first to the Netherlands and eventually to the colony.  We forget that the first amendment, forbidding a state church and allowing complete freedom of religion, was a truly radical policy.  And we, or I, can just as easily fail to be mindful of believers in other places that still can not gather together legally, and that still face persecution. Lord, you have been at our side. All glory be Thine.  Lord, wherever they are, let Thy congregation be relieved from their tribulation. O Lord, make them free!


Some source material from:
Wikipedia
History News Network

Now Thank We All Our God!

Here in the US, our Thanksgiving still carries images of a harvest festival, regardless of how many generations removed we are from the farm and the growing cycle. So when we hear traditional Thanksgiving songs, images of a bountiful harvest and meal and of the Plymouth colonists gathering with the Wampanoag to mark the successful establishment of a colony and peaceful coexistence with the indigenous people are the images that prevail in our imaginations. 


But there are many reasons to give thanks, and thanks must still be given even during hardship. Some of our oldest thanksgiving songs have more to do with hostilities and hardships than with harvest.  One example is "Now Thank We All Our God", by 17th century Dutch Lutheran minister Martin Rinkart.


According to Cyberhymnal, Mr. Rinkart and his parishioners experienced dark, desolate days of siege and plague and defeat. He ministered to parishioners faithfully through a horrific time, and when at last they were relieved from the dire situation, he wrote this hymn in celebration:

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.

Thanksgiving Time!

I would indeed like to reflect on some traditional Thanksgiving songs this week, but we'll get to that tomorrow.  During two different worship services yesterday, a couple of lines jumped out at me that I wanted to remember. As I was unable to post yesterday due to a DSL outage and to my own unwillingness to blog on an Iphone-sized keyboard, those are the words I'd like you to hear today.


My church participates in a yearly community Thanksgiving service with about 5 other churches of varying denominations. The location rotates each year, and the host church is responsible for planning to music portion of the service. One song selected last night at this year's service was "He Reigns," popularized by The Newsboys and written by their former lead singer Peter Furler along with Steve Taylor.


This has been a pretty popular song, and certainly I was familiar with it, but apparently sometime after the first verse, I stopped listening to the words, because as we got further into the song, I found I didn't know it. That verse had a few lines that really jumped out at me.


Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this…
Glory, glory! Hallelujah, He reigns!


Now that is something to be thankful for!  He reigns!  There is a kingdom of God, and He reigns!  The powers of darkness do not reign.  I do not reign, the president does not reign, OPEC does not reign, political parties do not reign, the UN does not reign, members of organizations that people make up conspiracy theories about do not reign, the TSA does not reign. The Lord God Almighty reigns.  Blessed be His name.


The other song I know quite well: Chris Tomlin's Sing, Sing, Sing. And though I've given this bit of lyric thought before, I expect it jumped out at me because I knew I was planning on writing about themes of thanksgiving in this space.


We will sing, sing, sing
Grateful that He hears us


Indeed!  The same Lord who reigns and who created all, who brought Israel through the Exodus, who defeated mighty kings, who gives food to all creatures, who took on the nature of a servant, who was born, beaten, killed, buried and raised, to whom all knees will bow and whose lordship all tongues will confess hears me.  I try to give thanks, and He hears me. I make feeble attempts to sing praise, and he Hears me.  I have the presumption to try and engage others as we speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and call it "leading worship", and He hears us all together.  Yes, we will sing and be profoundly grateful that He hears us. He has done great things, and He has shown us tender mercy.  He reigns, and I am grateful that He hears me.

Summer

and winter

and springtime

and harvest

Sun, moon and stars in their courses above

Join with all nature in manifold witness

To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love! 

(Note: I'm not sure which of these pictures were taken by my son and which by me.  I know the fall color is his, and expect the mimosa blossom is as well.  Thanks for the use of your images!)

What a Contrast!

Set our feet on lofty places,


Gird our lives that they may be

Armored with all Christ-like graces,


In the fight to set men free.

Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,


That we fail not man nor Thee,


That we fail not man nor Thee.

Save us from weak resignation,


To the evils we deplore.


Let the search for Thy salvation

Be our glory evermore.


Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,


Serving Thee Whom we adore,


Serving Thee Whom we adore.

I find these final 2 stanzas to both be very evocative, but evocative of such very different emotions.  Verse 4 just seems so stirring and energizing and, well, lofty.  You can practically hear the organs and trumpets sounding as we get prepared to get out there and set men free. We think of Mount Sinai, of Elijah battling on Mount Carmel, of the transfiguration, of the ascension.  We feel ennobled thinking of being imbued with Christ-like graces.  We feel like we've been to church!

And then comes verse 5. If verse 3 ("rich in things and poor in soul") described the Laodicean condition that our affluent suburban churches find ourselves in danger of, verse 5 describes, well, me.  Oh, how many times I have weakly resigned.  I am lacking in the spirit of Winston Churchill. As has been well-established, I am not good enough.  But I can know His salvation, and I can share in His glory.  And from the depths of that weak resignation, I am raised to serve Him Whom we adore.  Amen!

Henry Emerson Fosdick

It has been interesting to me to read about the author of "God of Grace and God of Glory." (Since this is a blog and not an academic paper, I'm relying on internet sources for biographical information.)   It's really been thought-provoking to discover the man that wrote one of my favorite hymns was apparently in serious opposition to the school of Christian thought in which I was raised.


My paternal grandfather was not particularly religious as a younger man.  I'm not quite sure how he attracted my grandmother, who was, but such things have certainly been heard of both before and since.  He continued in slightly hard-living ways until, in the mid-1920s, the aftermath of a freak accident took the life of his first child, a little four year old boy. As my grandparents walked through the grieving process, a local preacher walked with them, and his ministry persuaded my grandfather to turn to the Savior.  Both he and my grandmother were convinced of God's love and followed Him until the end of their lives. The preacher was from the local Missionary Baptist church, a movement very much a part of fundamentalism.  It was the church for those who found the Southern Baptist church too liberal. 


Henry Emerson Fosdick was a very prominent preacher in the first half of the twentieth century. While my grandfather was coming to know the Lord through the influences of a fundamentalist preacher in a small Texas Panhandle town, Harry Fosdick was proclaiming liberal theology in the great cities and churches of the northeast. He became widely known for a sermon titled "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" which was mailed out to thousands of churches across the nation.  His liberal views and the aftermath of this sermon led to his resignation of the pastorate at a Presbyterian church and to his taking a post at Park Avenue Baptist Church in New York.  He was apparently uncomfortable with baptism by immersion being the only accepted mode of baptism, and one of his congregants, John D. Rockefeller, built a new church, Riverside Church, so that Mr. Fosdick might be able to do things his way. "God of Grace and God of Glory" was the dedicatory hymn for the new church.


Sources indicate that Mr. Fosdick was opposed to certain concepts that many evangelicals would consider deal-breakers: He held that "belief in the virgin birth was unnecessary; the inerrancy of Scripture, untenable; and the doctrine of the Second Coming, absurd." Nonetheless, he also said, "I believe in the personal God revealed in Christ, in his omnipresent activity and endless resources to achieve his purposes for us and for all men."


But while his famous sermon certainly does contain points of contention with fundamentalist teaching, his real concern was the inclination of fundamentalists to be confident that their way was the only possible way to understand scripture.  Read this outtake:

If a man is a genuine liberal, his primary protest is not against holding these opinions, although he may well protest against their being considered the fundamentals of Christianity. This is a free country and anybody has a right to hold these opinions or any others if he is sincerely convinced of them. The question is—Has anybody a right to deny the Christian name to those who differ with him on such points and to shut against them the doors of the Christian fellowship? The Fundamentalists say that this must be done. In this country and on the foreign field they are trying to do it. They have actually endeavored to put on the statute books of a whole state binding laws against teaching modern biology. If they had their way, within the church, they would set up in Protestantism a doctrinal tribunal more rigid than the pope’s.

In such an hour, delicate and dangerous, when feelings are bound to run high, I plead this morning the cause of magnanimity and liberality and tolerance of spirit. I would, if I could reach their ears, say to the Fundamentalists about the liberals what Gamaliel said to the Jews, “Refrain from these men and let them alone; for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will be everthrown; but if it is of God ye will not be able to overthrow them; lest haply ye be found even to be fighting against God.

Though I think it's unlikely I would ever embrace liberal theology, I can certainly embrace the rejection (well, if one can embrace a rejection) of doctrinal tribunals that do more harm to the cause of Christ than variations in eschatological understanding ever could. Liberal, fundamentalist, or in-between, let us make sure that nothing about our speech, writing, conduct, or thought lands us in the camp of those who "scorn Thy Christ, assail his ways."


Sources: 


Bio of Henry Emerson Fosdick at Christianity Today's Christian History site


Tribute to Fosdick by dean of chapel at Mt. Holyoke


Wikipedia

Free Our Hearts

Lo! the hosts of evil ’round us,


Scorn Thy Christ, assail His ways.


From the fears that long have bound us,


Free our hearts to faith and praise.


Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,


For the living of these days,


For the living of these days.

A few random thoughts as I contemplate this stanza:

There can be no question that the hosts of evil continue to scorn the LORD's Christ and assail his ways.  And certainly Jesus let his disciples know straight out that they would be ridiculed and persecuted for his name's sake.  When that happens, we are blessed.  But I think that sometimes we may be a bit too quick to assume that opposition and resistance we may meet with are indeed for his name's sake.  Sometimes we are ridiculed because we say and do stupid things.   We are not promised a reward in heaven for that.  So when faced with opposition, be careful to consider whether what's being assailed is Christ's ways or my own bad judgment.

For several weeks, I have met with song after song and Bible reading after reading and sermon after sermon about being free from fear.  Here's another mention, and here's another angle. I get that fear means I'm not trusting, and I get that fear interferes with action.  If I'm scared, I don't go do.  But Mr. Fosdick's lyrics here bring up another problem to consider.  Does fear keep me from worship?  Can I truly praise if I'm not trusting?  That's a very good question. Lord, let me see where the barriers I have to worship are rooted in fear. Grant me widsom for the living of these days.

Rich Man, Poor Man

Cure Thy children’s warring madness,


Bend our pride to Thy control.


Shame our wanton selfish gladness,


Rich in things and poor in soul.


Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,


Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal,


Lest we miss Thy kingdom’s goal.

A couple of years ago, I made "God of Grace and God of Glory" the hymn of the month in our homeschool.  I hadn't really learned more than a couple of stanzas back when I was in churches that sang this song, so when I came to this third stanza, it was as if I were reading it for the first time (and of course, I might have been) and it made a deep impression on me.

I think that this stanza of this song is perhaps the most accurate summation of much of contemporary Christianity that exists.  Selfish gladness. Rich in things and poor in soul.  Warring madness. Prideful.  Missing the kingdom's goal.

I don't think the world needs me to expound upon instances of all these things in today's Christians.  There are many people who are more than happy to do that. But the way in which Mr. Fosdick captured the Laodicean problem* is succinct and striking. And then again the stanza ends with the call for wisdom and courage, lest we miss the kingdom's goal.  There's a lot of stuff in this verse that'll preach, so I'll leave it to the preachers.  But if you've stumble by here and are unfamiliar with this song, please take a few moments to consider these words.

*Somehow I failed to recognize the lyrics of a contemporary worship song, "Light the Fire Again," as coming fairly directly from the letter to the church in Laodicea found in the Revelation.  I certainly was keenly aware of Laodicea in my growing up years.  I could have told you all about being lukewarm and being spewed out.  But either the preacher didn't make it down to the solution very often or I just wasn't paying enough attention, because those verses are not nearly as familiar to me as those stating the problem. "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." "Buying gold refined in the fire" is going to take some study and meditation. I'm not quite sure if I'm getting that.

For the Facing of This Hour

I referred in a previous post to attending different breeds of churches through the years.  I grew up Baptist and attended Baptist churches until I married my husband, the interloper.  As anyone who knows anything about Baptists knows, there are many different families in the Baptist tribe.  My earliest years were in Southern Baptist churches.  Fourth grade through high school (and then summers at home) were spent in a fundamentalist independent Baptist church associated with what was then called the Baptist Bible Fellowship.  (I have no idea whether they still call themselves that.)  I attended a Southern Baptist college and so attended SBC churches through college and until I married.


Because we were independent Baptists, we did not use the Baptist Hymnal. This departure from and then return to the Baptist Hymnals had a noticeable effect on my knowledge base in regard to hymns.  We sang things in the independent church that weren't in the Baptist Hymnal, and when I got to college I found myself singing things that I vaguely remembered from young childhood but hadn't sung for nearly 10 years. 


And then there were, of course, songs that were part of the Baptist Hymnal that I had probably never sung in my life or at least had entirely forgotten.  One of these was "God of Grace and God of Glory," by Henry Emerson Fosdick.


This hymn was one that struck a chord with me at once.  Something about both language and melody just grabbed me. (We didn't sing "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah," to this tune or any other, in the BBF church, so the tune was new to me as well.) 


The first time I stayed at school long enough after May finals to attend commencement, I learned that "God of Grace and God of Glory" was the hymn used each year at graduation.  I found that very touching, and of course having the song associated with a tradition from a beloved institution only endeared it to me more.


I also thought that whoever selected it as the commencement hymn chose well.  What an appropriate thought for those getting ready to move into a new phase of life:

God of grace and God of glory,


On Thy people pour Thy power.


Crown Thine ancient church’s story,

Bring her bud to glorious flower.


Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,


For the facing of this hour,


For the facing of this hour.

As life goes on, I have, of course, met with many more times that required a blessing of wisdom and courage in order to face the hour.  So far, most of mine have related to the work of parenting. But the thought is appropriate to so many situations. Economic recession.  Political change. Loss of loved ones. War. Job loss. Uncertain health. 

And perhaps facing uncertain times with wisdom and courage is not important only for ourselves.  What we believe lived out in how we behave will affect how the Lord's church is perceived.  Wisdom and faith and courage as we face the challenging hour will show His power and bring glory to the Lord. 

Hymns Ancient and Modern: What Makes the Cut?

For several years, it has been not the least bit unusual for CCM artists to include recordings of traditional hymns and gospel songs on their albums, either as a dedicated hymn album or as part of a more general release.  The Hymns recordings by Second Chapter of Acts in the late 1980's and "Our Hymns" back in 1991 are some of the first of these recordings I became aware of.  These songs generally used the tunes that are commonly sung in church music and punched them up, rocked them out, or otherwise contemporized them. At the very least, they sang the song and added some drums. Voila. A CCM hymn.

But these settings, if used in churches, were more likely to be aimed at soloists.  In more recent years, writers of contemporary worship music have been using traditional songs that are made more current and are more suitable for congregational use. Various Passion recordings, most especially Hymns Ancient and Modern, come to mind.

As I've heard more of these, I have sometimes been surprised that one song or another has been reintroduced in an altered form. It's caused me to speculate on what makes a hymn survive more intact with its traditional tune as opposed to getting a new melody to accompany the older poetry of the lyrics. How do the powers that record decide which hymns make the contemporary worship cut?

Good writing is good writing, and writing that spoke very meaningfully about the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit and man or about the human condition in 1785 still speaks meaningfully today.  Sometimes some language may need to be brought up a bit to date, but the depth of the poetry allows it to begin to take on at least some degree of timelessness.

But what about the music?  When to preserve and when to rewrite?  I think there are some songs that a pretty good plurality of folks would agree sound dated so that a putting a fresh tune on great poetry creates a great new song.  I'm speculating, but I would suppose that sometimes an artist has written a tune but hasn't come up with lyrics yet, and someone sees the potential for marrying the tune to an existing hymn. I wonder how many times a contemporary artist actually sets out to write a new tune for an existing lyric.  Having no connections in the industry, I suppose I'll just be left to my speculation.

At any rate, I seem to find myself often turning the idea of datedness over in my mind.  I've heard a friend refer to a song as "surprisingly contemporary" when it was one whose tune I found dated indeed.  I wonder whether there are any musical earmarks that make certain tunes seem long in the tooth while others continue to be loved even after centuries.  I have no answer, but I would be interested to know if there's some sort of measure of datedness.

And I would love to know what other people think about this subject?  Have you ever heard a contemporary version of a traditional song that you wished they'd left alone?  Have you heard any that you thought were a marked improvement over the tune you grew up knowing? What's an old favorite that you think would make a great candidate for a contemporary worship makeover?

If the Son Sets You Free

O that day when freed from sinning,


I shall see Thy lovely face;


Clothèd then in blood washed linen


How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;


Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,


Take my ransomed soul away;


Send thine angels now to carry


Me to realms of endless day.

This final stanza was another with which I was previously unacquainted.  I guess that's not surprising.  Death isn't nearly as popular a topic for worship songs as is was 150-200 years ago.  But I think it's still a perfectly valid topic.  Isn't eternal life, even when this poor lisping stammering tongue lies silent in the grave, what our hope is?  This stanza doesn't impress me as being at all morbid.  Rather, the author is again looking forward, as he has mentioned before, to being released from this body of sin and death. 

It does certainly go against our cultural grain to think of death as a consummation devoutly to be wished.  I know that I certainly don't think that way. I want to see my children grow up. I want to have grandchildren.  I want to see my grandchildren grow up! I want to accomplish this or that.  And those aren't bad at all.  Obviously the Lord wants us to live our lives and do things and bless people and glorify him.

But thinking about this stanza, in combination with some other things I've read in recent days, has brought me to the realization that there is something in me that wants the Lord to wait until I've become a better person.  There is something in me, apparently, that still clings to the idea that I can improve myself and get good.  Clearly, I need delivered.

So for right now, though I would love to be finally and completely freed from sinning and to see His lovely face, I can't say that I'm truly eager.  I hope I will be.  I hope I'll be able to truly echo Paul:

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;  -- Phillipians 1:21-23

Even so, come!

The Wanderer

O to grace how great a debtor

Daily I’m constrained to be!

Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,

Bind my wandering heart to Thee.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love;

Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

Surely one of the reasons this hymn is so loved is the pure honesty of it.  The author admits what we know to be true of ourselves. “I love you, Lord, but I’ve blown it before, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to blow it again.  Save me! Keep me close to you.”

I referred in the last post to the poem “The Hound of Heaven”. Though I had heard the phrase, I wasn’t at all familiar with the poem of that name. When I read its opening lines, I couldn’t help think of this stanza and wonder whether its author, Francis Thompson, had become acquainted with this hymn. He wrote:

I fled Him down the nights and down the days

I fled Him down the arches of the years

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways

Of my own mind, and in the midst of tears

I hid from him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped and shot precipitated

Adown titanic glooms of chasmed fears

From those strong feet that followed, followed after.


The author of "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing", Robert Robinson, evidently was well-acquainted with wandering.  The biographical information I've found about him indicated he had a fairly rough and misspent youth, but was converted through the preaching of George Whitefield and the influences of Methodism.  He became a minister himself, but some speculate that perhaps life continued to be rocky.  A story told on Cyberhymnal suggests rough times in the faith:

One day, he encountered a woman who was studying a hymnal, and she asked how he liked the hymn she was humming. In tears, he replied, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.

Lord, rather than fleeing you down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind, let your goodness bind my wandering heart to you until I see you face to face.

Looking for Me

The third of the original stanzas of "Come, Thou Fount" begins with familiar lines and then concludes with ones that were previously unknown to me.


Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.


-- For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10


What a beautiful story!  Even while we were sinners, Jesus sought for us and died for us, and still His kindness pursues us and leads us to repentance. Sometimes it stretches credulity, but I am so glad that Jesus loves even me.


How loving is the pursuit by the Hound of Heaven! To know that He sought this wandering sheep, that He laid down his life for me, that He desires my fellowship even now.  Indeed, I cannot proclaim it well.

There Is a Time to Sing

In the interest of going to bed earlier than I have been but still posting each day, I think now is the time for a little music. Let's hear from Jadon Lavik.



And be sure and listen to the words!

Here I Raise My What?

The second verse of "Come, Thou Fount" contains a name that probably produces more fleeting moments of unrecognition than any other reference in songs widely in current use.  Yes, we've all been raising our Ebenezer for years, but I would venture to guess that on any given Sunday, the vast majority of congregants singing this song have a nothing more than brief image of their favorite movie version of Scrooge pop into their heads when the second verse comes along. If the congregation is singing out of an actual hymnal, it might have a footnote indicating that Ebenezer means "stone of help", so someone might be able to learn that piece of trivia in passing, but not much more.

In fact, the assumption that people will not connect with this allusion has sometimes led to Ebenezer being written out of the song altogether. Here, Christianity Today contributor Gary Parrett comments on the value of preserving  traditional hymn lyrics, including this one.

The story of Ebenezer begins in I Samuel 4.  When the prophet and judge Samuel was still a boy or young man serving in the temple of the LORD, the Israelites were at war with the Philistines. They had faced one serious defeat, and in an attempt to avert a second disaster, took it upon themselves to have the ark of the covenant brought to the battle. This unauthorized movement of the ark resulted in defeat, the death of the sone of the priest Eli, and the capture of the ark.

The ark of the covenant does not make for a good battle trophy. Instead of parading it in triumphs through the land, the Philistines ended up passing it from town to town in hopes of escaping the curses that seemed to befall those in custody of the ark. Eventually, they latched the ark to a cow wagon and sent it on its way. It came to rest in a place called Kiriath Jearim, where it remained for some 20 years. 

During the course of those decades, Israel had circled back to a state of repentance and longing for redemption.  The LORD showed mercy, and when the Philistines had come against the Hebrew camp, the LORD threw the enemy into confusion by dint of a thunder storm, and handed the victory to the Israelites.

This action apparently took place at pretty much the same location as the disastrous battle that resulted in the loss of the ark. How poignant then when Samuel memorialized the battle by raising a stone marker. He named it Ebenezer, saying, “Thus far the LORD has helped us.” Where God had previously brought about there defeat, there now stood a marker commemorating His help.


So let this lyric encourage you to look for the Ebenezers of your own walk with God.  Think of times where you were defeated but now, as one who is more than conqueror through Him who loved us, stand in victory.  Commemorate and celebrate the places and times where thus far the LORD has helped you and remember those times the next time you sing about Ebenezer.