Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

Glory to God: 611
Text. Henry Van Dyke 1907
Music Ludwig Van Beethoven 1824

Joyful, joyful, we adore thee,
God of glory, Lord of love!
Hearts unfold like flowers before thee,
opening to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
drive the dark of doubt away.
Giver of immortal gladness,
fill us with the light of day.

All thy works with joy surround thee;
earth and heaven reflect thy rays;
stars and angels sing around thee,
center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
flowery meadow, flashing sea,
chanting bird and flowing fountain,
call us to rejoice in thee.

Mortals, join the happy chorus
which the morning stars began.
Love divine is reigning o'er us,
joining all in heaven's plan.
Ever singing, march we onward,
victors in the midst of strife.
Joyful music leads us sunward
in the triumph song of life.

Hearts Unfold like Flowers

It would be hard to imagine a day when the church didn’t regularly enjoy the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee.” Our thanks belong to Henry van Dyke, a traveler, professor of literature at Princeton, poet, and renowned preacher for putting poignant words to the “mighty chorus” of the finale of Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which has rightly been called “one of the most precedent-shattering and influential compositions in the history of music.”

Vessel for a Message

Its word-driven final movement is a declaration in favor of universal brotherhood, which explains why the Ninth is the work most often used to solemnize an important event – the opening of the United Nations, the signing of a peace treaty at the end of a war, the fall of the Berlin Wall. . .It is perceived as a vessel for a message that confers a quasi-religious yet nondenominational blessing on all “good” and “just” people, institutions and enterprises.

You don’t need a complex understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ or a mass of scriptural knowledge to join enthusiastically in this hymn. God has splayed God’s goodness and tender appeal to us all over creation for those who at least stop and look.

Van Dyke’s most eloquent image might be “Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee>”. Watch flowers. Don’t just glance at them. Give it some time. Flowers take time. They don’t sprout up in a jiffy. Gardeners understand that the cultivation and care of flowers requires patience, vigilance, and tenderness. The human heart yearns for a Lord and for faithful friends who are patient vigilant and tender. Flowers are fragile. That is their wonder. WE know that a gust of wind, a scurrying squirrel, or a hard rain might damage them. They are transient like us, and yet they are lovely. Lent is about our transient mortality – which is our beauty too.

Flowers Unfold

The bud gradually morphs, and then there’s an opening up, a revelation of the beauty that has been hidden until that moment. Jesus preached on a hillside and pointed to the flowers all around and said, “This is God’s tender care; this is God’s nature; this is God strewing beauty all over the place - and this God will care for you.” (Matthew 6:28-30). He wasn’t pointing to a finely manicured flower garden designed by a landscape architect. They were wildflowers popping up anywhere and everywhere. Like God’s grace. They were unfolding like the hearts of the people of God.

Flowers don’t seem to be trying hard. Effortlessly, they defy gravity and adorn even ugly, gray places. Their strength is under the ground, unseen, in the dark, where they reach down like the hungry soul for nourishment and ballast. Yet it's totally involuntary. Paul spoke of the “fruit of the Spirit,” a poignant, truth telling image. Fruit, like the flower, doesn’t grit its teeth and strives valiantly to row. Growth just happens to the fruit and to the flowers. The first fruit Paul names is Love, as it is the love of God that plants and nourishes flowers and our hearts. The second is Joy, which is what our hymn and Beethoven’s stunning Ninth Symphony are all about – and what they create as we are dazzled and moved. Hearing about our hearts unfolding opens up the heart to joy.

When we get to the second stanza, we find ourselves singing about the “flowery meadow.” The heart that flowers is not alone. Rarely do you see just a single flower, unless it’s been plucked by someone. Flowers grow together. Beethoven’s Ninth was composed during tumultuous days in the nineteenth century when nations couldn’t get along and people within nations loathed one another almost more than they loathed the other nations. This symphony has been called “a one-of-a-kind counterargument to the retrograde tendencies of the day.” Into such a culture of rancor, distrust, and division, Beethoven picked an old poem and set it to music that undeniably draws everyone in. The repeated refrain is “Alle Menschen warden Bruder”: All men become brothers. All people become siblings. We really are family.

English speaking choirs sing these words in German, giving the w in warden a v sound, and trying their darndest to do something that is resembling a Germanic sound with that daunting u umlaut, that ü. The noble, bumbling effort to speak in someone’s mother tongue, longing to be understood, hoping to be spoken to in reply: This is love, this is joy, this is hope. Beethoven’s declared goal when scribbling down all those notes and words was to “liberate mankind through art.” Perhaps that was God’s intention when in creation God thought I’ll throw in some flowers for good measure, to liberate my people, so their hearts will open up to me and to one another.

Videos

Two versions for Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. One from Carrie Underwood and the other of Bernstein conducting Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in 1989 when Berlin Wall came down.

Be Thou My Vision

Glory to God: 450
Irish poem translated by Mary E. Byrne 1905
Music Irish ballad; harm, David Evans 1927

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
naught be all else to me, save that thou art;
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.

Be thou my wisdom, and thou my true word;
I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord;
thou my soul’s shelter, and thou my high tower;
Raise thou me heavenward, O Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor vain, empty praise;
thou, mine inheritance, now and always;
Thou and thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my treasure thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heaven’s Sun!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Hymn Texts: A Lenten Devotional

The next several week’s devotions come to us from a book that takes us on a Lenten journey, using hymns of our faith. Each day of Lent is represented with a beloved hymn in the book. I will be sharing music and approximately 6 of the many devotionals available in the book.

The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns. Published by Upper Room Books 2021. The book can be found here: The Upper Room

Still Be My Vision

Hymns help us hear and see what God hears and sees. Who wrote “Be Thou My Vision” and why? Sometimes it’s attributed to St. Patrick, the courageous fifth-century missionary to the Irish. Or maybe it was the writer St. Dallan Forgaill in the sixth century. It’s been covered by lots of musicians, including Van Morrison. What thoughts have flitted through the minds and hearts of millions as they’ve sung this over the centuries?

My optometrist checks my vision and prescribes corrective lenses. He can explain why my vision is trending a certain way. Our hymn asks for a peculiar vision – that the Lord will not merely help or correct my vision but rather “Be thou my vision, O Lord.” You be my eyes.

On the road to Damascus (see Acts 9) Paul experienced a transformative vision of Jesus. After a short stint of blindness, he recovered his sight. But he never saw anything the way he had previously. “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16). We see ourselves, others, every situation, and all creation through the lens that is Jesus’ life, cross, and resurrection. Our bodies aren’t gangly, unwieldy things but temples of the Spirit. There is beauty in the picturesque but also in the aspects of God’s creation that nobody thinks to photograph. Hope for reconciliation shines in the ugliest conflicts. Other people are divine image bearers.

Don’t thoughts just happen? Don’t they just pop into your head? Yes, but we have choices about what to think and what not to think. Reading scripture, singing hymns, worshipping, study, and service are a years-long tutorial in what and how to think. The goal? “Thou my best thought.” Late in life, Dorothy Day told how she once started to write a memoir but discovered she had no need to do that: “I just sat there and thought of our Lord, and his visit to us all those centuries ago, and I said to myself that my great luck was to have had Him on my mind for so long in my life!”

Be Thou My Wisdom

Maybe that’s how you turn out if your constant prayer is “Be thou my wisdom.” We know smart, successful people. But who is wise? Henry David Thoreau mocked Harvard for teaching “all the branches (of knowledge), but none of the roots. Wisdom is deep underground, not just lying around on the surface. We hear thin, pithy sayings pretending to be wise: “Time is money.” “You get what you pay for.” “When the going gets tough, the tough get going. ““Life is short, play hard.” “Bloom where you’re planted.” These are too trivial to be true; they are too insubstantial. Thoreau, who went to live in the woods in pursuit of wisdom, noted how technological advances are merely “Improved means to unimproved ends.”

Wisdom thinks about the end, the purpose of life. Wisdom is serenity and patience. Wisdom must be cultivated and won over the length of life. Wisdom treasures what is old and has survived for a reason. Wisdom is born out of the cauldron of experience: hard times, grief, sacrifice. You can’t just pick up an idea and suddenly become wise, the way you crack open a fortune cookie. You live it, wait on it, test it, let it seep up from the good earth through the soles of your feet. You become one with God, who is Wisdom.

The way to wisdom is “I ever with thee and thou with me, Lord . . .with thee one.” Sam Wells suggested that the most important theological word in the Bible is with. God is with us. This is a constant theme in our best hymns. That’s what the psalmist sought after suffering much: “Nevertheless I am continually with you…There is nothing on earth that I desire other than you…For me it is good to be near God.” (Psalm 73: 23-28).

We stick close to God in prayer, immersion in scripture, holy conversation, and being with those in need. We never forget the quirkiness and scandal of divine wisdom. Paul wrote to the sophisticated, philosophically proud Corinthians that “the message about the cross is foolishness” and that God “will destroy the wisdom of the wise” (see 1 Corinthians 1:18-27). “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom” precisely because “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise” (1 Corinthians 1: 18-27). Signs that this foolish wisdom has been cultivated in us are contentment, gratitude, and forgiveness. Our values are not defined by this world: “Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise.” The hymn itself pulls us into the very soul of God. What joy it is to sing that God is “heart of my own heart.” The heart of my heart is the heart of God – which is the way to “reach heaven’s joys.”

Sources

1. Robert Coles, Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion (reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987), 16.

1. Quoted in “the Harvard in Thoreau, “ Richard Higgins, The Harvard Gazette, June 29, 2017, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/06/near-the-bicentennial-of-thoreau’s-birth-a-look-at-his-harvard-years/.

1. Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings of Henry David Thoreau, ed. Brooks Atkinson (New York: Random House, 1992), 49.

1. Samuel Wells, A Nazareth Menifesto: Being with God (Malden MA: John Wiley and Sons, 2015), 3, 11.

Be Thou My Vision

Cathy Craig

Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah

Glory to God: 65

Text William Williams 1762
Music John Hughes 1907

Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
pilgrim through this barren land.
I am weak, but thou art mighty.
Hold me with thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
feed me till I want no more;
feed me till I want no more.

Open now the crystal fountain,
whence the healing stream doth flow.
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
lead me all my journey through.
Strong deliverer, strong deliverer,
be thou still my strength and shield;
be thou still my strength and shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
bid my anxious fears subside.
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises
I will ever give to thee;
I will ever give to thee.

Hymn Texts: A Lenten Devotional

The next several week’s devotions come to us from a book that takes us on a Lenten journey, using hymns of our faith. Each day of Lent is represented with a beloved hymn in the book. I will be sharing music and approximately 6 of the many devotionals available in the book.

The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns. Published by Upper Room Books 2021. The book can be found here: The Upper Room

Feed Me Til I Want No More

The Sinai Peninsula is a dry, barren, forbidding place. Imagine the Israelites, thousands of them, without a compass, army, food, or water supply, wandering around out there for forty years. That wilderness wandering has become a parable of the Christian life, although a few days of spiritual dryness isn’t quite as daunting as spending decades out on sandy, rocky terrain in soaring temperatures and with the occasional gnat and locust swarm.

“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land” is a lovely and fitting prayer to God. We want guidance, which is more than general wisdom about doing the right thing. If you go on a wilderness trek, your guide is the one you stick close to. She warns you about dangers and knows where the shade and watering holes are. Guide me. I’m like a child, I’m weak in this spiritual life, so “hold me with thy powerful hand.” Imagine walking through your days with God’s firm hand in yours. God’s secure grip, comforting and guiding. Over here. This way now. Careful.

Lest we forget, as God guided the Israelites, they murmured and kept planning to bolt and return to Egypt. But God fed them manna, a blessing of immense mercy in response to their bitter complaints against Moses (and God!). We would expect sin to elicit God’s rage, but it seems to stir God’s mercy. As we sing these words, are we really anymore pious or full of faith than they were?

The hymn picks up on other images from Exodus and Numbers, like the fountain (see Exodus 17: 1-7) and the fire and cloud that gave direction by day and night (see Exodus 13:21). Not to mention Israel’s arrival at their longed-for destination, crossing safely onto Canaan’s side: “When I tread the verge of Jordan.”

So many slave spirituals picked up on this imagery. “Deep river, my home is over Jordan” and. “I am bound for the promised land of Canaan” were thinly veiled codes for hoping to cross over the Mason-Dixon line or to make it to Canada. Of course, that “verge of Jordan” also implies the end of life, instilling hope. President James Garfield, nearing death, brightened and then wept as his wife sang this hymn to him; and it was sung at Princess Diana’s funeral.

Perhaps more than any other hymn, this one could keep someone with a Bible concordance busy. The main focus seems to be the wilderness journey, but the hymn also quotes and alludes to a broad variety of texts: Numbers 20:2-13, Deuteronomy 8:15, Joshua 3, Psalm 78:52, John 4:14, 1 Corinthians 10:4, 2 Timothy 1:10, Hebrews 11:!3, Revelation 22:1-2 and others. William Williams, who composed the hymn in his native Welsh, was one of those Christians who are very deeply immersed in scripture that phrases fall effortlessly from their minds, as naturally as breathing comes to the rest of us.

Excesses of Exuberance

Yet so many hymn writers miss the point in their excesses of exuberance. We have, for example, “Are Ye Able said the Master to be crucified with me? . . .Yea, the sturdy dreamers answered, to the death we follow thee. Lord, we are able.” When Jesus asked the disciples this very question, they too answered, “We are able” (Mark 10:39) – but the tragicomedy was that they most certainly were not able. Peter denied him. The others fled.

“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” makes a similar blunder. Appealing twice to God as “bread of heaven” and alluding to the provision of the manna in the wilderness, the hymn prays “Feed me till I want no more” and then repeats it. Like a family at Thanksgiving, we imagine ourselves feasting until our bellies are about to pop. Lord, give me what I want, even more, until I’m totally full. But the manna wasn’t a bountiful meal. It was barely enough to get by for a day. And it had to get old, same manna, day after day, for months, years, decades. They got a little and surely hankered for a little more. God gave them not their fill, but enough.

The geniuses of the early centuries of the church understood the virtues of hunger and dissatisfaction. While many people in wealthy modern countries feel that all desires must be satisfied, early Christians knew that emptiness, craving and unfulfilled desire for God was the secret to the spiritual life.

We have a hunger to know God. We learn a bit about God, but instead of that quenching our thirst, it makes us even thirstier for more of God. Then we apprehend even more of God, we feast on greater knowledge of God – only to discover that we are even more hollow now, yearning for even more. God made us this way. The joy is in the pursuit, in the gnawing desire for more, rather than in any fantasy of being full or having gotten what there is to receive.

How Great Thou Art (O Lord My God)

Glory to God: 625

Text Stuart K. Hine 1953
Music Swedish Folk Melody: adapt, Stuart K. Hine 1949

Today’s Hymn of the Week is part 2, featuring a different devotion on the final verse.

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder
consider all the works thy hands hath made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
thy pow'r throughout the universe displayed;

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander,
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze;

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
that on the cross my burden gladly bearing
he bled and died to take away my sin;

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration
and there proclaim: "My God, how great thou art!"

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

Hymn Texts: A Lenten Devotional

The next several week’s devotions come to us from a book that takes us on a Lenten journey, using hymns of our faith. Each day of Lent is represented with a beloved hymn in the book. I will be sharing music and approximately 6 of the many devotionals available in the book.

The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns. Published by Upper Room Books 2021. The book can be found here: The Upper Room

How Great Thou Art

And Take me Home

“How Great Thou Art” is a dramatic movement from praising God in the wonders of creation – from the sublime grandeur of mountain peaks to the singing of birds, from thunder up in the clouds to a brook meandering through the woods, from the starry host to a gentle breeze - to the purpose and turning point of it all, the cross of Christ.

All this sets the stage for the climatic vision of the fourth stanza, which doesn’t fantasize about when we go to heaven but rather “when Christ shall come,” which is the Bible’s vision. The overwhelmed, giddy, awed exclamation of all creation will be a “shout of acclamation,” reminding us of Psalm 47, where the Israelites in the Temple literally shouted as the ark of the covenant was hoisted and carried to the altar.

Then our hearts are opened by the phrase “and take me home.’ Where is home for you? Are you at home now? The question is not “Are you at your address?” It is “Are you home?” St. Augustine famously began his life’s narrative by summarizing his story and ours: “You made us with yourself as our goal, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” We are always looking for something, someone, someplace, like that prodigal son in Jesus’ best story (see Luke 15:11-32).

Restless Sense of Yearning

We know this restless sense of yearning for home but never quite settle in. Carl Sandburg wrote that Abraham Lincoln never felt at home in any of the thirty-one rooms of the White House. Anne Tyler’s novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant tells the story of Ezra Tull inheriting Mrs. Scarlatti’s restaurant, where he’d worked. He renamed it the “Homesick Restaurant” and got rid of the menu. Customers would name a food they were homesick for, and the cook would make it.

God seems to have fashioned us with a hankering for home and also with a gnawing sensation that we’re never quite there. It might feel like nostalgia for some hazy yesteryear (that maybe wasn’t as marvelous as you recall). But what is nostalgia anyhow? The word derives from Greek roots meaning an ache for home. Can you remember such a place? You want it, you crave it, you’re driven by a quest to figure out just where and what it is.

We get surprising glimpses now and then. Dolly Parton had a hit with “My Tennessee Mountain Home” and then built a huge theme park around a replica of her childhood home. She calls this “golden thread that keeps me tied to Eternity.” Tourists flock to it by the thousands. They’re having fun, but many report being touched by some deep memory and yearning. What’s downright shocking is how popular her song is in countries like Kenya, England, and Lebanon, where Appalachian culture could not be more alien. It’s because of that home-shaped hole in the heart of every person. God is calling us “Softly and tenderly” to “Come home.”

For me, the home in my heart wasn’t a house where my nuclear family lived. We were an Air Force family that moved a lot, and my parents were at war with one another. So home for me was my grandparent’s home in a sleepy, middle-of-nowhere town called Oakboro. My memory of it is expansive, as if it were a huge mansion. But I was a bit stunned by its actual size when I went back to visit years after my grandparents had died. It was just a small bungalow of no architectural distinction. Nostalgia, or my God-given ache for home, had expanded the place to fit the space in my soul. I wanted to go back and be welcomed home as I’d been as a wee one.

I stood in the yard for a few minutes and wondered what it had been like when my dad returned there from World War II. Back in those days of no immediate communication, families could just wait and hope for good news. So many young boys were killed in action, but my dad, in his early twenties, returned and was embraced with shouts and tears. It was probably a lot like the homecoming Jesus pictured when that prodigal finally found his way down the road to home.

Doesn’t “How Great Thou Art” invite us to dream of such a day when Christ will bring us home? The plot of the gospel is that God in Christ made his home among us so that he might then bring us home to God. The promise, the hope, the assurance is that the elusive home we’ve known and yet have always sought so earnestly is waiting for us. We’ll get there, we’re headed that way even now. So let’s exhale, sigh, and even rest a little on the journey. Then what will rush into that empty place where we’ve just breathed out our frustrating seeking? “What joy shall fill my heart.”

Sources

1. St, Augustine, Confessions, trans. Sarah Ruden (New York: Modern Library, 2017), 3.

2. Carl Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years (San Diego Harvest, 1954), 407.

How Great Thou Art

How Great Thou Art (O Lord My God)

Glory to God: 625

Text Stuart K. Hine 1953
Music Swedish Folk Melody: adapt, Stuart K. Hine 1949

Today’s Hymn of the Week will be in two parts. Next week will feature a different devotion on the final verse.

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder
consider all the works thy hands hath made,
I see the stars, I hear the mighty thunder,
thy pow'r throughout the universe displayed;

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander,
and hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees;
when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
and hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze;

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
that on the cross my burden gladly bearing
he bled and died to take away my sin;

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then I shall bow in humble adoration
and there proclaim: "My God, how great thou art!"

Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior-God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

Hymn Texts: A Lenten Devotional

The next several week’s devotions come to us from a book that takes us on a Lenten journey, using hymns of our faith. Each day of Lent is represented with a beloved hymn in the book. I will be sharing music and approximately 6 of the many devotionals available in the book.

The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns. Published by Upper Room Books 2021. The book can be found here: The Upper Room

How Great Thou Art

When I was a boy, my mother tuned in to the Billy Graham crusades on television. I don’t recall much of what Graham said, but I was always struck and moved (as much as a little kid can be “moved”) by George Beverly Shea singing “How Great Thou Art.” It’s a hymn, reminding us just how great God is.

We often underestimate God’s grandeur. We whittle God down to size, to an assistant, a power boost, a doctor’s helper, or a rescuer in times of trial. God is not small, utilizable, or dispensable; God is not a helpful extra. Idolatry is when we shrink God down to a tool or a machine, a badge to stick on our political ideology, or a hideout from challenges of the world.

We will never exaggerate when we speak of God’s amazing greatness. Our most spectacular, eloquent words, songs, and actions will be embarrassingly modest, falling far short of how great God is. When I think of this hymn and of God’s greatness, I recall the times I’ve heard it sung in faraway places and in different languages. Once, with a group of pilgrims at the Jordan River, we peered across the place where Jesus may well have been baptized and admired a group of Korean Christians singing the stirring rendition of “How Great Thou Art.” They’d come from the other side of the globe to the place where Jesus showed us how great God really is, and there they were, singing enthusiastically. We echoed their rendition, singing back in English. God’s greatness echoed for just a marvelous moment.

God is so great, encompassing all people, everywhere and always, that we are summoned by that greatness not to settle back into our easy chair. If God is great, then we are set free to be courageous for God. We are required to be bold for God. We cannot help but labor for those God cares about – if this God really is as great as we sing.

Heavenward

The hymn literally directs our attention heavenward. “I see the stars.” Of course, pollution and urban ambient light make it so we can’t see as many stars as our grandparents, St. Francis, or Jesus did. Aristotle believed stars left a trail of music as they travelled through the heavens. Dante spoke of God as “the love that moves the stars.” Indeed, God “determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names” (Ps. 147:4).

Years ago, my friend Ralph called me late one night asking me to bring my children to his house quickly. He had a big telescope set up in the driveway, and we all squinted into it and saw the moons orbiting Saturn. Ralph always knew what would appear and when. This predictability and awe-inspiring order and grandeur made him feel, as he repeatedly told me, “At home in the universe.”

Those stars seem so gentle adorning the night sky. We forget they are massive fireballs; if you were to get within a few thousand miles you’d be incinerated. Nature is like that: loveliness and terror, beauty and peril. “I hear the rolling thunder.” We see a lightning flash. The sound rumbles in a few seconds later. I count in my head, calculating how far away the electrical arc actually is. Ancient people cowered in fear of their gods, imagining them tossing down thunderbolts of wrath. Israel’s God wasn’t moody like that. And yet the world has built-in risks. Thunder, stars, just being alive; it’s dangerous out there. Something in the edgy precariousness of it all elicits even greater praise in our hearts.

This hymn recognizes that God’s greatness is embodied in Christ – who sacrificed everything – even his own life – to liberate us from sin and death. And he’s not done; he’s not a figure in the religious past. “When Christ shall come . . .and take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.” This thrills me every time we sing it.

And what will heaven be like? Will it just mean having fun with people we like? Hardly. It will be something far grander: “Then I shall bow in humble adoration, and there proclaim, my God, how great thou art!” We will need an eternity to try to tell God how awed we are, how grateful we are, how humbled and ennobled we are to be God’s people, and to delight in the gift of dwelling – forever! – in God’s presence.

Sources

1. Raymond Barfield, Wager: Beauty, Suffering, and Being in the World (Eugene, OR: Casace Books, 2017). 1.

How Great Thou Art

We Are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder

We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,
Soldiers of the cross.

Ev'ry round goes higher, higher,
Ev'ry round goes higher, higher,
Ev'ry round goes higher, higher,
Soldiers of the cross.

Sinner, do you love my Jesus?
Sinner, do you love my Jesus?
Sinner, do you love my Jesus?
Soldiers of the cross.

If you love Him, why not serve Him?
If you love Him, why not serve Him?
If you love Him, why not serve Him?
Soldiers of the cross.

Rise, shine, give God glory,
Rise, shine, give God glory,
Rise, shine, give God glory,
Soldiers of the cross

Hymn Texts: A Lenten Devotional

The next several week’s devotions come to us from a book that takes us on a Lenten journey, using hymns of our faith. Each day of Lent is represented with a beloved hymn in the book. I will be sharing music and approximately 6 of the many devotionals available in the book.

The devotion has been reprinted with permission of the author, James C. Howell, from his book entitled: Unrevealed Until Its Season: a Lenten Journey with Hymns. Published by Upper Room Books 2021. The book can be found here: The Upper Room

Every Rung Climbs Higher

Another moment in the Bible’s narrative that may expose what Lent is about, a moment when earth morphed into heaven, was Jacob’s dream of a ladder (see Genesis 28), a text we cannot read with hearing a certain tune. It’s hard to think of a hymn whose rhythm and melody embody what’s envisioned in the hymn (and the Bible story) quite like “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.”

Even when reading silently we pause after “are” and “climbing,” as if grasping a rung and pulling, then pausing before the next rung. “every rung climbs higher, higher.” Singing it requires some patience. The pace is slow but certain. No wonder people enslaved on plantations, dreaming of going up and over and out of there, loved this song.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote, “Prayer is a ladder stretching from earth to heaven. On this ladder of words, thoughts and emotions, we gradually leave earth’s gravitational field. We move from the world around us, perceived by the senses, to an awareness of that which lies beyond the world.” The days of Lent might be marked as one rung after another on this ladder.

Stephen Covey said you can spend your life climbing the ladder of success “only to discover it’s leaning against the wrong wall.” Or there’s poor Sisyphus who pushed that rock uphill, only to have it roll back down just before arriving at the summit.

Jacob

had been a ladder climber, doing whatever it took to get ahead: cheating his brother, deceiving his father, whatever. But in Genesis 28, he comes to “a certain place,” no place really. He’s as weary as Sisyphus and must rest. He has nothing but a rock for a pillow, although the Hebrew may imply that he put it next to his head for protection. There is no rest for the fearful weary. In a fitful sleep he has a dream Freud might analyze, a vision we might covet: a ladder bridging the great chasm between earth and heaven. The Hebrew really means it’s a long, steep ramp, the kind archaeologists have uncovered on the sides of ziggurats in Iraq.

Angels – not the sweet, kind we know from jewelry and little ceramic statues but mighty heavenly warriors and messengers – are going up and down the ramp. What could it mean? Jacob snaps out of his sleep or reverie. Dumbfounded, all he can say is “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it.” (Genesis 28:16).

I wrote an entire book about of recollections from my childhood, youth, and adulthood about times and places when God was present but undetected by me; only in retrospect could I see that God had been in a moment, a person, a circumstance.

God was there. I not only didn’t know it; I wasn’t seeking it. I wasn’t praying. Jacob isn’t on some spiritual quest. He’s not observing Lent. He’s on the run from . . .his brother? His past? His demons? You don’t have to be a spiritual climber to sing “We are Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” It’s as if we’re groping in the dark for something but don’t know what. And it turns out to be the way to God – or God’s way to us. Jacob, after all, doesn’t even try to climb on the ladder. He’s awestruck and then goes on his way to a new job, a couple of wives, children who squabble, and a lot of heartbreak. God was in those places too.

Jacob was “a border crosser, a man of luminal experiences,” as Robert Alter puts it. We can find God – although it really is always that God is finding us – even in our restless forgetting to pray. Jacob wasn’t praying, but maybe unwittingly his prayer was his brokenness, his weariness, his fitful sigh.

Standing under a fig tree, Jesus mysteriously told Nathanael, “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (John 1:51). St. Catherine of Siena thought of Jesus’ crucified body as that ladder on which we climb toward God. The first rung is the nailed feet. We humble shed our selfish will. The next rung is his open pierced side: We press in to glimpse the abyss of divine love. Finally, we scale to his face: We are moved by love to obedient holiness.

Who’s doing this climbing? “Soldiers of the cross.” Of course the soldiers at Jesus’ cross were the ones who nailed him to it, the ones snickering, the ones gambling over his clothing. And they were the ones he forgave, even though they didn’t repent or ask for mercy.

Something to Consider…

When we ponder the way God showed up to Jacob in his anxious flight from God and goodness and the way of Jesus, our ladder to heaven, forgave the unrepentant soldiers of the cross, we know the only answer to the hymn’s other questions: “Sinner, do you love my Jesus?” and “if you love him, why not serve him? “

Sources

1. Jonathan Sacks, Covenant and Conversation: A Weekly Reading of the Jewsih Bible, vol. 1, Genesis: The Book of Beginnings (New Milford, CT: Maggid Books, 2009), 88-89.

1. Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988) 98.

1. James C. Howell, Struck from Behind: My Memories of God (Eugene Or: Cascade Books 2012).

1. Robert Alter, Genesis, Translation and Commentary (New York: W.W. Norton, 1996) 149.

Bernice Johnson Reagon & Vocal Group: We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder

I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord

Glory to God Hymn 310

Text Timothy Dwight 1800
Music The Universal Psalmodist 1763

I love thy kingdom, Lord,
the house of thine abode,
the church our blest Redeemer saved
with his own precious blood.

I love thy church, O God.
her walls before thee stand,
dear as the apple of thine eye,
and graven on thy hand.

For her my tears shall fall;
for her my prayers ascend;
to her my cares and toils be given,
till toils and cares shall end.

Beyond my highest joy
I prize her heavenly ways:
her sweet communion, solemn vows,
her hymns of love and praise.

Sure as thy truth shall last,
to Zion shall be given
the brightest glories earth can yield,
and brighter bliss of heaven.

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

Dwight is perhaps best known for his grandfather, Jonathan Edwards, but he had fame in his own right.

Timothy Dwight

Graduating from Yale University at seventeen, Dwight became a tutor at his alma mater in 1769. He served as a chaplain under George Washington during the Revolutionary War and wrote songs and sermons for the men in his regiment. When Dwight returned from military service in 1778, he became a successful farmer, a Congregational minister at Greenfield, Connecticut, a state legislator, and a member of the faculty at Yale, where he was named president in 1795. He not only raised academic standards but also began a spiritual revival, which spread to other institutions in New England.

Dwight also was one of the first American hymn writers. He wrote 33 hymns, with the one for this week perhaps being his best known. It was published in 1800 at the beginning of the Second Great Awakening as part of an edition of Watts’ Psalms, which he edited at the request of the Congregational General Association of Connecticut. Dwight’s edition was arranged to reflect the characteristic theological persuasion of American evangelical Calvinists like his own Congregationalist denomination and their Presbyterian allies. Dwight’s version was no longer simply the Christianized rendering of the Hebrew psalter that Watts had originally conceived nearly a century earlier. This new edition had become instead an instrument of evangelism designed to persuade the unregenerate and to comfort the converted.

This hymn was intended to be an interpretation of Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon—
there we sat down and there we wept
when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

How could we sing the Lord’s song
in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
above my highest joy (NRSV).

The writer Rachelle Stackhouse points out that this hymn and Psalm 137 do not, in fact, have much to do with each other. Dwight had a theo-political point to make in this hymn, and the biblical Psalm in its lament for Zion gave him the opportunity. The biblical Psalmist weeps for a nation-state, a city, and a temple; Dwight celebrates an ecclesiastical institution. In his valedictory address to the students at Yale in 1776, Dwight wrote: “we have the best foundation to believe that this continent will be the principle seat of that new kingdom.” Dwight believed that the means for establishing this kingdom of God in America included “preaching and hearing the word, reading scripture, prayer, correspondence with religious men, religious meditation, and the religious education of children,” all of which applied to everyone, regardless of church affiliation or participation.

The Tune…

for this hymn text, ST. THOMAS, first appeared in Aaron Williams’ collection of tunes of 1763. It is also often used with Isaac Watts’ text, “Come, We That Love the Lord.” Since Williams never claimed authorship of this tune, many believe it was not Williams’ original melody but rather an adaptation from a work by George F. Handel.

Sources

• John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

• Discipleship Ministries | History of Hymns: "I Love Thy Kingdom,… (umcdiscipleship.org)

I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light

Glory to God Hymn 377

Text and Music Kathleen Thomerson 1966

I want to walk as a child of the light.
I want to follow Jesus.
God set the stars to give light to the world.
The star of my life is Jesus.

In him there is no darkness at all.
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

I want to see the brightness of God.
I want to look at Jesus.
Clear sun of righteousness, shine on my path,
and show me the way to the Father.

In him there is no darkness at all.
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

I'm looking for the coming of Christ.
I want to be with Jesus.
When we have run with patience the race,
we shall know the joy of Jesus.

In him there is no darkness at all.
The night and the day are both alike.
The Lamb is the light of the city of God.
Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

The following description of today’s hymn comes from Dr. Hawn’s wonderful website. See the link below for more information.

From time to time, a hymn captures our imagination because of its simplicity and transparency. Such a hymn is “I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light.” In singing this hymn, we feel the spirit of Epiphany unfold.

Kathleen Armstrong Thomerson

(b. 1934) is a native of Tennessee. She wrote the hymn during the summer of 1966 during a visit to the Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas, the location providing the origin for the tune name HOUSTON. Her musical education took place at the University of Texas and Syracuse University, with additional studies at the Flemish Royal Conservatory in Antwerp. She has studied with several of the most noted organists of the twentieth century.

Ms. Thomerson directed music at University United Methodist Church in St. Louis and was on the organ faculties of St. Louis Conservatory and Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville. From 2004 through 2013, she served Mt. Olive Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas. In addition to this hymn, she contributed tunes for hymns by Patricia B. Clark in their joint collection, A Taste of Heaven’s Joys: A Collection of Original Hymns (2005).

“I want to walk as a child of the light” communicates deep conviction and personal sincerity, while avoiding any hint of pretense. The first person perspective invites the singer to join Christ, the Light of the World, in discipleship – a journey of faith. The second line of each stanza deepens this commitment:

Stanza 1: “I want to follow Jesus.”
Stanza 2: “I want to look at Jesus.”
Stanza 3: “I want to be with Jesus.”

As in most gospel hymns, it is the refrain that carries the essence of its meaning; and indeed it is this refrain, with its scriptural allusions that virtually quote from Revelation 21 and 22, that distinguishes this hymn from many earlier expressions of discipleship. While a deeply personal expression of piety, the poet roots her devotional expression firmly in Scripture, avoiding the maudlin and simplistic notions of some gospel songs.

The simplicity of the music and text does not imply a simplistic faith. “I want to walk as a child” reminds us of one of the paradoxes of our faith, that we need to become as a child to fully understand the realm of God (Matthew 18:2-4).

Discipleship Ministries | History of Hymns: "I Want to Walk as a… (umcdiscipleship.org)
*Text © 1970, 1975 Celebration, P.O. Box 309, Aliquippa, PA 10001, USA. Used by Permission.
C. Michael Hawn is University Distinguished Professor of Church Music, Perkins School of Theology, SMU.

I Was There to Hear your Borning Cry

Glory to God Hymn 488

Text and Music John C. Ylvisaker 1985

I was there to hear your borning cry,
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.
I was there when you were but a child,
with a faith to suit you well;
In a blaze of light you wandered off
to find where demons dwell.

When you heard the wonder of the Word
I was there to cheer you on;
You were raised to praise the living Lord,
to whom you now belong.
If you find someone to share your time
and you join your hearts as one,
I'll be there to make your verses rhyme
from dusk 'till rising sun.

In the middle ages of your life,
not too old, no longer young,
I'll be there to guide you through the night,
complete what I've begun.
When the evening gently closes in,
and you shut your weary eyes,
I'll be there as I have always been
with just one more surprise.

I was there to hear your borning cry,
I'll be there when you are old.
I rejoiced the day you were baptized,
to see your life unfold.

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

“Borning Cry” is one of the most popular songs in recent hymnals. The ballad style of the music lends itself to a feeling of a love song. A love song it is—between God and the singer.

Many hymns address God from the human perspective, but few address humanity from God’s point of view. The spirit of “Borning Cry” is one of a God who loved us from the beginning of time and continues to love us throughout the seasons of our life.

John Carl Ylvisaker

The author and composer is John Carl Ylvisaker (b. 1937), a native of Fargo, N.D. He studied at Concordia College in Minnesota, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1959.

Following further studies at Luther Northwestern Seminary (now Luther Seminary) in St. Paul, the University of Minnesota and St. Cloud State College, he worked as a voice teacher from 1971-75 in Buffalo, Minn. From 1973-86, Mr. Ylvisaker served as the music director for the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in St. Louis Park, Minn.

An early work of note was his Mass for a Secular City (1967) followed by 11 recordings of his work between 1967 and 1998. Much of his original music has been composed for the Lutheran Vespers radio broadcasts and videos for the ELCA.

He also produced SCAN, a weekly radio broadcast for the ELCA, and has received five Gabriel Awards for his broadcasting endeavors. Mr. Ylvisaker’s copyright covers more than 1,000 songs, and he is in high demand for performances and as a worship leader.

The composition of “Borning Cry” began in 1985, when Mr. Ylvisaker was asked to prepare a series on baptism called “Reflections” for the ALC. His Web site states: “John began work on the song before any footage for the video had been shot. When the media team met to put the music with the video for the first time, it became obvious that the dance-like beat and fast rhythm of the music did not match the gentle scenes being depicted on the screen. The lyrics were on target, but not the music. As he left the studio that day, John received the suggestion to ‘take it home and personalize it.’”

As a result, the composer adapted a completed work into a new form—the result of which was one of the most popular hymns written in the late 20th century.

The ballad style of “Borning Cry” reflects the composer’s interest in folk song. In his book What Song Shall We Sing? (2005), he speaks of “fusion” of traditional folk songs with hymnody.

After noting several well-known hymns that use music from traditional folk sources, he poses the question: “What is it that makes traditional [folk] tunes so appealing? It is their strength and durability, certainly, but ultimately it comes down to one word: flexibility.”

Folk songs can be adapted rhythmically, melodically and harmonically. They can be accompanied on a wide variety of instruments.

The use of folk sources is embedded in Mr. Ylvisaker’s Lutheran heritage of the chorales, many of which had folk influences and provided the basis for the congregational song heritage of the Lutheran Reformation.

In addition to the lyrical melody and text that allows God to sing a love song to humanity, “Borning Cry” gives us a sense of the timelessness of God. The final stanza of the seven-stanza hymn is the same as the first stanza.

While we think of ourselves as finite beings, God re-creates us and gives us new life in the baptismal waters, a spiritual regeneration that lasts for eternity.

*© 1985 John Ylvisaker. Used with permission.
Dr. Hawn is professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology.

Links:

Take a moment to see the composer’s life in pictures as he sings his hymn on the YouTube link below.

• Discipleship Ministries | History of Hymns: "I Was There to Hear Your… (umcdiscipleship.org)

• John Carl Ylvisaker Obituary – John Ylvisaker

O Jesus, I Have Promised

Glory to God Hymn 724

Text. John Ernest Bode 1869

O Jesus, I have promised
To serve thee to the end;
Be thou forever near me,
My Master and my friend;
I shall not fear the battle
If thou art by my side,
Nor wander from the pathway
If thou wilt be my guide.

O let me feel thee near me!
The world is ever near:
I see the sights that dazzle;
The tempting sounds I hear.
My foes are ever near me,
Around me and within;
But, Jesus, draw thou nearer
And shield my soul from sin.

O let me hear thee speaking
In accents clear and still,
Above the storms of passion,
The murmurs of self-will;
O speak to reassure me,
To hasten or control;
O speak, and make me listen,
Thou guardian of my soul.

O Jesus, thou hast promised
To all who follow thee
That where thou art in glory
There shall thy servant be.
And, Jesus, I have promised
To serve thee to the end;
O give me grace to follow,
My Master and my friend.

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

After witnessing our young confirmands being confirmed a couple of Sundays ago, I kept hearing this particular song running through my head and thought it would be timely to share it. Apparently, this song became so associated with confirmation Sunday that congregations began pleading that it NOT be sung for their confirmation. Sometimes, a hymn can have too much time in a church service.

Bode, John Ernest,

M.A., son of Mr. William Bode, late of the General Post Office, b. 1816, and educated at Eton, the Charter House, and at Christ Church, Oxford, graduating B.A. 1837, and M.A. in due course. Taking Holy Orders in 1841, he became Rector of Westwell, Oxfordshire, in 1847; and then of Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire, 1860. He was also for a time Tutor of his College, and Classical Examiner. His Bampton Lectures were delivered in 1855. Head at Castle Camps, Oct. 6, 1874. In addition to his Bampton Lectures, and Ballads from Herodotus, he published Hymns from the Gospel of the Day for each Sunday and Festivals of our Lord, 1860; and Short Occasional Poems, Lond., Longmans, 1858.

Our hymn has its origins in the confirmation of the poet’s daughter and two sons in 1866. It was published two years later as a leaflet by SPCK (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) entitled “Hymn for the newly Confirmed” and later in the New Appendix to the New and Enlarged Edition of Hymns for Public Worship (1870), and in Church Hymns and Tunes (1874). When it was published in the second edition of the popular Hymns Ancient and Modern (1875), the success of the hymn was assured. Most major hymnals have included it since then.

The text is based on a verse in John 12 following Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem and his travel to Bethsaida of Galilee just before his impending passion when he shares with his disciples: “The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honor” (John 12:23-26, KJV).

Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me

Glory to God Hymn 438

Text Augustus M. Toplady 1776
Music Thomas Hastings 1830

Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.
let the water and the blood
from thy wounded side which flowed
be of sin the double cure,
cleanse from guilt and make me pure.

Not the labors of my hands
can fulfill thy law’s demands.
could my zeal no respite know,
could my tears forever flow,
all for sin could not atone.
thou must save, and thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring;
simply to thy cross I cling;
naked, come to thee for dress,
helpless, look to thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.

While I draw this fleeting breath,
when my eyelids close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see thee on thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in thee.

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

Toplady, Augustus Montague,
the author of "Rock of Ages," was born at Farnham, Surrey, November 4, 1740. His father was an officer in the British army. His mother was a woman of remarkable piety. He prepared for the university at Westminster School, and subsequently was graduated at Trinity College, Dublin. While on a visit in Ireland in his sixteenth year he was awakened and converted at a service held in a barn in Codymain. The text was Ephesians ii. 13: "But now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ." The preacher was an illiterate but warm-hearted layman named Morris. Concerning this experience Toplady wrote: "Strange that I, who had so long sat under the means of grace in England, should be brought nigh unto God in an obscure part of Ireland, amidst a handful of God's people met together in a barn, and under the ministry of one who could hardly spell his name. Surely this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous." In 1758, through the influence of sermons preached by Dr. Manton on the seventeenth chapter of John, he became an extreme Calvinist in his theology, which brought him later into conflict with Mr. Wesley and the Methodists. He was ordained to the ministry in the Church of England in 1762, and in 1768 he became vicar of Broadhembury, a small living in Devonshire, which he held until his death. The last two or three years of his life he passed in London, where he preached in a chapel on Orange Street. His last sickness was of such a character that he was able to make a repeated and emphatic dying testimony. A short time before his death he asked his physician what he thought. The reply was that his pulse showed that his heart was beating weaker every day. Toplady replied with a smile: "Why, that is a good sign that my death is fast approaching; and, blessed be God, I can add that my heart beats stronger and stronger every day for glory." To another friend he said: "O, my dear sir, I cannot tell you the comforts I feel in my soul; they are past expression. . . My prayers are all converted into praise." He died of consumption August 11, 1778. His volume of Psalms and Hymns for Public and Private Worship was published in 1776. Of the four hundred and nineteen hymns which it contained, several were his own productions.
If on a quiet sea 446
Rock of ages, cleft for me 279
Hymn Writers of the Church, 1915 by Charles S. Nutter

Toplady, Augustus Montague,
M.A. The life of Toplady has been repeatedly and fully written, the last, a somewhat discursive and slackly put together book, yet matterful, by W. Winters (1872). Summarily, these data may be here given: he was born at Farnham, in Surrey, on November 4, 1740. His father, Richard Toplady, was a Major in the British array, and was killed at the siege of Carthagena (1741) soon after the birth of his son. His widowed mother placed him at the renowned Westminster school, London. By-and-by circumstances led her to Ireland, and young Augustus was entered at Trinity College, Dublin, where he completed his academical training, ultimately graduating M.A. He also received his "new birth" in Ireland under remarkable conditions, as he himself tells us with oddly mixed humility and lofty self-estimate, as "a favourite of heaven," common to his school:—

"Strange that I who had so long sat under the means of grace in England should be brought right unto God in an obscure part of Ireland, midst a handful of people met together in a barn, and by the ministry of one who could hardly spell his own name. Surely it was the Lord's doing and is marvellous. The excellency of such power must be of God and cannot be of man. The regenerating spirit breathes not only on whom but likewise, when and where and as He listeth."

Toplady received orders in the Church of England on June 6, 1762, and after some time was appointed to Broadhembury. His Psalms and Hymns of 1776 bears that he was then “B.A." and Vicar of Broadhembury. Shortly thereafter be is found in London as minister of the Chapel of the French Calvinists in Leicester Fields. He was a strong and partizan Calvinist, and not well-informed theologically outside of Calvinism. We willingly and with sense of relief leave unstirred the small thick dust of oblivion that has gathered on his controversial writings, especially his scurrilous language to John Wesley because of his Arminianism, as we do John Wesley's deplorable misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Calvinism.

Throughout Toplady lacked the breadth of the divine Master's watchword "Forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for us" (St. Luke ix. 50). He was impulsive, rash-spoken, reckless in misjudgment; but a flame of genuine devoutness burned in the fragile lamp of his overtasked and wasted body. He died on August 11, 1778. The last edition of his works is in 6 vols., 8 vo., 1825. An accurate reproduction of most of his genuine hymns was one of the reprints of Daniel Sedgwick, 1860. His name occurs and recurs in contemporary memoirs and ecclesiastical histories, e.g., in Tyerman's Life of John Wesley. The reader will find in their places annotations on the several hymns of Toplady, and specially on his "Rock of Ages,” a song of grace that has given him a deeper and more inward place in millions of human hearts from generation to generation than almost any other hymnologist of our country, not excepting Charles Wesley. Besides the "Rock of Ages" must be named, for power, intensity, and higher afflatus and nicer workmanship, "Object of my first desire,” and "Deathless principle arise." It is to be regretted that the latter has not been more widely accepted. It is strong, firm, stirring, and masterful. Regarded critically, it must be stated that the affectionateness with which Toplady is named, and the glow and passion of his faith and life, and yearning after holiness, have led to an over-exaltation of him as a hymnwriter. Many of his hymns have been widely used, and especially in America, and in the Evangelical hymnbooks of the Church of England. Year by year, however, the number in use is becoming less. The reason is soon found. He is no poet or inspired singer. He climbs no heights. He sounds no depths. He has mere vanishing gleams of imaginative light. His greatness is the greatness of goodness. He is a fervent preacher, not a bard. [Rev. A. B. Grosart, D.D., LL.D.]

God of Great and God of Small

Glory to God Hymn 19

Text and Music Nathalie Sleeth 1973

God of great and God of small, God of one and God of all,

God of weak and God of strong, God to whom all things belong,

Alleluia, alleluia, praise be to your name.

God of land and sky and sea, God of life and destiny,

God of never ending power, yet beside me every hour,

Alleluia, alleluia, praise be to your name.

God of silence, God of sound, God by whom the lost are found,

God of day and darkest night, God whose love turns wrong to right,

Alleluia, alleluia, praise be to your name.

God of heaven and God of earth, God of death and God of birth,

God of now and days before, God who reigns forevermore,

Alleluia, alleluia, praise be to your name.

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

This week’s hymn is by one of my favorite hymn composers, Nathalie Sleeth. Please enjoy this beautiful tribute and analysis of the hymn by the venerable Dr. Michael Hawn. If you’d like to go straight to the website I pulled this from, here it is:

www.umcdiscipleship.org

Background

Natalie Allyn Wakeley was born in Evanston, Illinois, on October 29, 1930. She began piano study at the age of four and gained much of her musical experience by singing in choral ensembles during her early years. Studying music theory, piano, and organ at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, she received her B.A. in 1952. She received honorary doctorates from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1959 and from Nebraska Wesleyan College in 1990.

She married Ronald E. Sleeth, a United Methodist clergyman and professor of homiletics in Evanston, Illinois, on September 5, 1952. She studied organ at Northwestern University and served as the organist of the Glencoe Union Church in Glencoe, Illinois. After moving to Nashville and finally settling in Dallas, she became director of children's choirs at Highland Park United Methodist Church in 1965 and served as music secretary at Highland Park United Methodist Church from 1969-1976. During this time, she studied music theory with Jane Marshall and audited a course in choral arranging taught by Lloyd Pfautsch at SMU. Choristers Guild published her first anthem, "Canon of Praise," in 1969, the highest selling anthem in the history of that publisher. Her choral works for all ages number more than 200, many of which have been adapted as congregational hymns. Some of her compositions are described in her devotional book, Adventures for the Soul (Hope Publishing Co., 1987). She composed both words and music for her anthems and hymns.

Ms. Sleeth died of cancer in Denver, Colorado, March 21, 1992 at the age of 61. Dr. Michael Hawn writes, "Composer R. G. Huff, who attended her funeral in Denver, describes her impact on him in Worship Matrix, an online hymnal companion for the hymnal Celebrating Grace(2010): 'In March 1992, I attended the memorial service of Natalie Sleeth at Wellshire Presbyterian Church in Denver, across the street from the church I served there. I had been a pen-pal of sorts with her for several years and wanted to be there for the celebration of her contribution to church music, especially the music of children. For a full hour before the funeral, the church's choir, soloists and organist performed her songs, hymns and anthems. It was a great tribute to her writing legacy.'"

"God of Great and God of Small" was first published as a choral anthem by Carl Fischer, Inc. in 1973.

Music

One of the hallmarks of Sleeth's musical style is that of balance: phrases often divide into equal halves with thematic and motivic themes repeated or varied melodically and rhythmically. "God of Great and God of Small" consists of three four-measure phrases: AA'B. Phrase A opens with a rising melodic fifth, repeated as the opening of A'.

Harmonically, both A and A' exhibit the very classical tendency to move from tonic to dominant, from I to V, that is, from a C chord to a cadence on a G chord. While the first phrase (A) moves to the dominant area, the second phrase (A') does so much more conclusively with the introduction of the secondary dominant chord of D7 and a decisive V-I cadence, including the melody note ending on the fifth scale degree.

One might have expected the third phrase to begin on the tonic chord, the logical conclusion of the preceding dominant chord at the end of phrase two, but Sleeth instead uses a deceptive movement and surprises us with the relative minor vi chord to open the refrain (phrase three, B). The B phrase moves through several chords, finally and quite satisfyingly ending with a strong ii-V-I cadence.

Also take note of the range and tessitura of the three phrases. A and A' both begin on the lower tonic pitch of middle C, rising through and prominently sounding in a mid-octave range. The B phrase contrasts by boldly opening on the C above middle C ("Alleluia"), gradually falling a full octave, sounding every scale degree, to conclude on the lower middle C.

Sleeth has provided a spare accompaniment in the Accompaniment Edition, mostly consisting of a two-voiced bicinium, one melody, the other bass. For much of the hymn, the harmonies must be assumed or interpolated from these two voices. She provides slightly fuller harmonies in the refrain with the addition of a second harmony note above the bass line. The effect of the two-voice setting is to recall the sound of many similar compositions from the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. This structure points out the strong dual relationship that often exists between melody and bass lines. This structure might be exploited by having the choir or two duet voices sing the hymn using only these two parts, adding a third voice as provided in the refrain.

Words

Sleeth's fondness for a balanced structure in her musical style is also exhibited in her text. In the first stanza, for instance, note the structure and how Sleeth skillfully employs the use of opposites in successive phrases:

God of GREAT and God of SMALL, . . . God of ONE and God of ALL,
God of WEAK and God of STRONG, . . . God to whom ALL THINGS belong,

Not only is there balance in the yoking of paired nouns at the smallest level:

GREAT – SMALL . . . ONE – ALL,

there is also balance between the half phrase:
GREAT – SMALL (large/small) and ONE – ALL (small/large)
is answered by their opposites:
WEAK-STRONG and ALL THINGS

As so many hymns do, "God of Great and God of Small" seeks to understand God by providing images that are immediately apparent and understandable to the singer. When we sing "God of grace and God of glory," (UM Hymnal no. 577), we can perhaps grasp something of the nature of God by understanding the concept of God extending grace and exhibiting glory. Jaroslav Vajda's hymn "God of the sparrow, God of the whale" (UM Hymnal no. 122) has similarly given countless children and adults insight into who God is and our relationship to God. So has "God of Great and God of Small" (Worship & Song, no. 3033) as it enumerates pairs and opposites as part of God's creation and concern:

Stanza 1: great and strong; one and all; weak and strong . . . all things
Stanza 2: land, sky and sea; life and destiny; eternal power and hourly presence
Stanza 3: silence and sound; the lost; day and night; wrong and right
Stanza 4: heaven and earth; death and birth; present, past and eternal
Refrain: offers our response in alleluia and praise

Sources

Links to some of the source materials are not working.

• Hawn, Michael. "History of Hymns: In the Bulb there Is a Flower"

• "Natalie Sleeth," Lorenz Corp. website

• "Ronald E. Sleeth, Biographical Sketch," Iliff School of Theology website

• "Sleeth, Natalie," Hope Publishing Co. website

• Wikipedia, "Natalie Sleeth"

• Young, Carlton, Companion to The United Methodist Hymnal, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993.

Angels from the Realms of Glory

Glory to God Hymn 143

Text: Stanza 1-3 James Montgomery 1816,
Stanza 4, Salisbury Hymn Book 1857
Music: Henry Thomas Smart 1867

Angels, from the realms of glory,
wing your flight o’er all the earth;
you, who sang creation’s story,
now proclaim Messiah’s birth:
come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ, the newborn King!

Shepherds, in the fields abiding,
watching o’er your flocks by night,
God with us is now residing;
yonder shines the infant light:
come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ, the newborn king!

Sages, leave your contemplations;
brighter visions beam afar;
seek the great desire of nations;
you have seen his natal star:
come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ, the newborn king!

All creation, join in praising
God the Father, Spirit, Son,
evermore your voices raising
to the eternal Three in One:
come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ, the newborn king!

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

The more I read about and learn about hymns, carols, and folk songs, the more surprised I am at how free we have always been with text and tune over hundreds of years of usage.

Today I am mixing two experts in the field of hymnody and carol research. A lot of today’s information comes from an author I have used frequently, the Methodist and brilliant researcher of hymns, Dr. Michael Hawn. His insights are always so moving, but he comments on a fourth verse that is not used in our current hymnal. This fourth verse he talks about is from the Methodist hymnal and involves a drastic and intense reference to sinners and death. The other information comes from the book; The Carols of Christmas by Andrew Gant. I have edited the info as it can get a little long giving both scholars’ points of view. I am also including links if you want to read entire articles yourself. HERE

James Montgomery (1771-1854)

James followed in the footsteps of two poetic luminaries—Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley. In many hymnals, he is well represented, third only to Watts and Wesley for British hymn writers before 1850, with six original hymns in The UM Hymnal.

American hymnologist Albert Bailey notes “One cannot call him a great poet, but he knew how to express with sincerity, fervor, simplicity, and beauty the emotions and aspirations of the common Christian.” But British hymnologist J.R. Watson states, “James Montgomery was a well-known poet, highly thought of by his contemporaries such as Shelley and Byron.”

Montgomery’s father was a minister, and his parents later served as missionaries to the West Indies. He remained in Yorkshire, and from age 6 was raised in a boy’s boarding school run by the Brethren of Fulneck. Montgomery later said, “There, whatever we did was done in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, whom we were taught to regard in the amiable and endearing light of a friend and brother.”

He began writing poetry at age 10, inspired by the hymns of the Moravians, the same group that influenced John Wesley. Though he flunked out of school at age 14, Montgomery found a job in 1792 at a radical weekly newspaper, the Sheffield Register.

He assumed the leadership of the paper when the previous editor, due to his politics, had to flee the country for fear of persecution. Montgomery then changed the name of the paper to the Sheffield Iris and served for 31 years as editor.

“Angels from the Realms of Glory” was first published on Christmas Eve 1816 in the Sheffield Iris. The hymn has a sense of urgency and excitement, magnified by the use of imperative verbs throughout, especially in the refrain: “Come and worship . . .

The original final stanza is usually omitted in hymnals:

Sinners, wrung with true repentance,
Doomed for guilt to endless pains,
Justice now revokes your sentence,
Mercy calls you; break your chains . . .

While such language seems harsh to modern ears and indeed seems to end the Christmas hymn on a bit of a “downer,” it completes a thoughtful progression from the first to the last stanzas. The Angel’s song (stanza one) leads to the Shepherds’ adoration (stanza two), to the Sages’ gifts (stanza three), and to Saints’ praise in heaven (stanza four), and finally, to the Sinners’ repentance on earth (stanza five).

Mr. Watson points out that the final original stanza, “appealing to the sinners, is highly appropriate because it echoes the Psalm for Christmas morning, Psalm 85, especially verse 10: ‘Mercy and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other.’”

The themes of justice and mercy as well as the image of broken chains are also appropriate in the context of the poet’s life. His newspaper denounced the social evils of his day, especially the slave trade. Montgomery was even jailed for his radical views: once for publishing a poem that celebrated the fall of the Bastille, and another time for denouncing the actions of the Sheffield police during a riot. He used his time in prison to write poetry.

Even though the original final stanza may seem to put a damper on unbridled Christmas joy, Montgomery reminds us that the Nativity was more than a sweet manger scene.

As many texts from Isaiah and the prophets remind us, the Incarnation was an event celebrating the liberation of oppressed peoples by a just and merciful God taking on human form. Let us celebrate, in the words of Montgomery, that God’s “justice now revokes [our] sentence” and that God’s “mercy . . . break[s] [our] chains”!

Dr. Hawn is a professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology.

And now the music!

Angels from the Realms of Glory first saw the light of day in the Iris on Christmas Eve 1816. The path by which Montgomery’s poem became linked to the tune published three decades later as “Les anges dans nos campagnes is, as usual, complex and sometimes obscured by historical undergrowth.

Folks on this side of the pond know the hymn to go with the tune “Regent Square” while the Brits sing to the French tune listed above. Another carol that uses the French version is the text Angels We Have heard on High, from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Newcastle which appeared in 1860. The story of the Regent Square tune eventually wends its way to the south of London to a famous organist named Henry Smart. It is said he was quite the genius at congregational organ playing. In 1867 he edited the Songs and Hymns for Divine Worship. Among the tunes in this book are his very own Regent Square which is named for a wealthy bit of property in Regency Bloomsbury. While I could continue to go on for days about this hymn, I will leave you here and let you enjoy the youtube links I have attached.

You will hear Kings College Choir sing the French version with a fourth verse that is neither the one listed above or the Methodist one that Dr. Hawn talks about.

And here is the tune that we in the USA sing with a fourth verse that is neither the one Dr. Hawn talks about or the one in our hymnal.

If you’re scratching your head wondering how these hymns/carols we know and love come together, you are not alone. Celebrate all that these various versions offered to us. Gant, Andrew. The Carols of Christmas: A Celebration of the Surprising Stories Behind Your Favorite Holiday Songs. Nelson Books. Nashville, TN. 2015.

Hymn of the Week: O Come, All Ye Faithful
Glory To God: 133

O come, all ye faithful,
joyful and triumphant;
O come ye; O come ye to Bethlehem!
Come, and behold him,
born the King of angels!

O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him,
Christ, the Lord!

True God from true God,
Light from Light eternal,
born of a virgin, a mortal he comes;
very God, begotten, not created!

O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him,
Christ, the Lord!

Sing, choirs of angels;
sing in exultation;
sing, all ye citizens of heaven above!
Glory to God, all glory in the highest!

O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him,
Christ, the Lord!

Yea, Lord, we greet thee,
born this happy morning;
Jesus, to thee be all glory given;
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing!

O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him;
O come, let us adore him,
Christ, the Lord!

All over the world this Advent and Christmas season, worshippers will hear and sing along to some version of “Adeste Fideles.” It is traditionally the final anthem during Midnight Mass at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, just as “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” its English-language counterpart, is omnipresent at more modest Christmas celebrations. But where did it come from, and why is it so popular?

A call to worship, the Latin hymn’s words Venite, Adoremus (“O come, let us adore him”) are familiar from liturgies for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. And part of the song reproduces the Nicene Creed, a Christian statement of belief widely used in the liturgy.

The Irish musicologist William H. Grattan Flood concluded that the words and music of the song “go back to the first quarter of the 18th century, and are to be attributed to a Catholic source and for Catholic worship.” The song was described by Dom John Stephan, O.S.B., as having “something Handelian about it.”

Although its exact sources and origins remain unproven, musicologists agree that the hymn was first associated with the 18th-century Catholic layman and music copyist John Francis Wade. He lived in an English Catholic community that was exiled to France after the failed Jacobite rising of 1745. That rebellion tried to restore a Catholic monarch, Charles Edward Stuart, known informally as “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” to the throne of England. The UK musicologist Bennett Zon claimed that the hymn can be interpreted as a call to arms for faithful Jacobites to return with triumphant joy to England (Bethlehem) and venerate the king of angels, that is, the English king (Bonnie Prince Charlie).

Even if this argument fails to convince, “Adeste Fideles” is identified in legend with Catholic creators. One such mythical attribution is to King John IV of Portugal, a 17th-century amateur composer whose works were reportedly destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. In addition to “Adeste Fideles,” he also supposedly wrote a setting of the “Crux Fidelis” (Faithful Cross), a hymn used on Good Friday during the adoration of the cross and in the Liturgy of the Hours during Holy Week. However, the same “Crux Fidelis,” a confident melody in a major key, first appeared in France in the 19th century, which is when most experts agree it was written.

“Adeste Fideles” was known in England for a time as “the Portuguese hymn,” because in the 18th century it was performed at the Portuguese embassy chapel in London. At the time, Latin hymns were looked upon with disfavor as papist by Anglican authorities.

The hymn was also attributed to anonymous Cistercian monks, the order that branched off from the Benedictines and shunned musical embellishment. Perhaps the plainness of “Adeste Fideles” made some early listeners recall simple Cistercian chants. The text itself was assigned by some, improbably enough, to St. Bonaventure, the 13th-century Franciscan theologian.

The English Version

Essential to the hymn’s ongoing popularity was its translation into English. The most influential of dozens of attempts was in 1841, by the Anglican priest Frederick Oakeley. Four years later, Oakeley became a Catholic, following the example of Cardinal John Henry Newman, whose community in Oxford he joined. A prolific author of lucid and concise manuals, including Catholic Worship (1872) and The Ceremonies of the Mass (1855), Oakeley referred to his books as “this little work” or “this little manual,” showing that he worked well in concentrated forms. This penchant for miniaturization ideally suited “O Come All Ye Faithful,” where a rapid sequence of images adds to the song’s vivacity.

Originally titled “Ye Faithful, approach ye,” Oakeley’s text began “O come, all ye faithful/ Joyfully triumphant,” but this was soon transmuted into “Joyful and triumphant.” One chorus by Oakeley may baffle modern worshipers: “God of God, light of light,/ Lo, he abhors not the Virgin's womb.”

Oakeley adapted Wade’s “carried in the maiden’s womb” (gestant puellae viscera) with terms from the “Te Deum” prayer: “you did not abhor the virgin’s womb” (non horruisti Virginis uterum). The point was to refute Gnostics who believed that the divine could not intermingle with corrupt humanity.

Modern Versions

Worshippers continue to fine-tune aspects of the English translation. In March 1973, one choirmaster alerted The Musical Times that groups should sing “Come and behold Him born” (Natum videte)/ The

king of angels (Regem angelorum) rather than the usual phrasing, “Come and behold Him [pause]/ Born the king of angels.”

When other words were set to the melody of “Adeste Fideles,” discomfort could result. In the 1870s at Bath Abbey in England, “Though troubles assail,” a poem by the curate John Newton, replaced Oakeley’s text. Worshipers were dismayed when “Adeste Fideles” ended: “We hope to die shouting,/ We hope to die shouting,/ We hope to die shouting,/ ‘The Lord will provide.’”

In Scotland, Rev. Robert Menzies, an 18th-century missionary, reported that the song “rapidly became the fashion in [Edinburgh]; apprentice boys whistled it in every street; it was even said that the blackbirds in the square joined in the chorus!”

Nigerian musicologists have pointed to the peril of well-meant Anglican translations of the hymn into African languages that failed to take into account multiple meanings of words with different stresses. In the Igbo language spoken in southeastern Nigeria, the line “True God, begotten not made” was translated as “God's pig, which is never shared,” implying that pork delicacies offered to mission clergy were not divided with the congregation.

And in the Yoruba language of Western Nigeria, another line of the hymn was mistranslated as “Go out and dig for palm kernels, ye who are fond of passing water.” As a result, the Nigerian musicologist Lazarus Nnanyelu Ekwueme noted, the hymn “often provokes giggles from choirboys.”

Cultural Echoes

“Adestes Fideles” resoundingly entered modern literature with its inclusion in the Irish Catholic author James Joyce’s experimental novel Finnegans Wake. In multi-layered puns, Joyce referred to “Ahdostay, feedailyones,” suggesting a call to remain for those who are nourished daily.

The American composer Charles Ives used “Adeste Fideles” in his orchestral work “Decoration Day.” Ives had previously written an organ prelude and slow march in which “Adeste Fideles” appeared. In “Decoration Day” (the former name of Memorial Day), Ives made the hymn appear in a context of death and resurrection akin to that of James Joyce’s martyrs.

Sometimes “Adeste Fideles” has appeared out of context, as the screen composer Miklós Rózsa recalled. Preparing the 1959 Hollywood epic “Ben-Hur,” the director William Wyler suggested that a nativity scene with the star of Bethlehem in view would be an ideal occasion for including “Adeste Fideles” as a “Christmas song.” Rózsa pointed out that putting the hymn in a first-century tale would be anachronistic, but the director was unpersuaded, even after Rózsa ironically suggested also adding Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”

Much of the appeal of the song in contemporary culture is clearly due to its accessibility to amateur singers; those in the pews delight at Christmastime in this eminently singable hymn which appears to be aimed at them. And as the Dictionary of North American Hymnology opines, the tune’s repetitions enforce a “sense of urgency” that entirely suits the context: “Imagine a child, tugging at your hand, saying insistently, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!’”

Enjoy the most traditional setting of this timeless carol. The Lessons and Carols at Kings College. Carols from King's 2016 | #18 "O Come, All Ye Faithful" arr. David Willcocks - King's College - YouTube

Hymn of the Week: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
Glory To God: 129

Text German Carol
Translator Elizabeth Francis Cox. 1864
Music Alte Catholische Geistliche Kirchengesang 1599. Arr. Michael Praetorius 1609

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung,
Of Jesse’s lineage coming,
by faithful prophets sung.
It came, a floweret bright,
amid the cold of winter,
when half spent was the night.
Isaiah ‘twas foretold it,
the Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it,
the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright
she bore for us a Savior,
when half spent was the night.

This flower, whose fragrance tender
with sweetness fills the air,
dispels with glorious splendor
the darkness everywhere.
Enfleshed, yet very God,
from sin and death he saves us
and lightens every load.

“Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” is a familiar and beloved Advent hymn. The hymn’s origins may be traced back to the late 16th century in a manuscript found in St. Alban’s Carthusian monastery in Trier in the original German, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.” The original stanzas (sources list at least 19 and as many as 23) focused on the events of Luke 1 and 2 and Matthew 2.

The origin of the image of the rose has been open to much speculation. For example, an apocryphal legend has it that on Christmas Eve, a monk in Trier found a blooming rose while walking in the woods, and then placed the rose in a vase on an altar to the Virgin Mary.

Some Catholic sources claim that the focus of the hymn was originally upon Mary, who is compared to the symbol of the “mystical rose” in Song of Solomon 2:1: “I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.”

It has been suggested that at a later date Protestants took the hymn, altering its focus from Mary to Jesus. Citing Isaiah 11:1—“And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”—some controversy arose as to the original German word in the first line of stanza one: Was it “Ros” (rose) or “Reis” (branch)?

The third passage from Isaiah 35:1 suggests a stronger biblical basis for the image: “The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.”

The image of the rose has had amazing resilience over the centuries. I have an icon that I purchased in a desert monastery in Greece some years ago. Anna, the mother of Mary, is dressed in green and is the larger figure; her daughter Mary is seated in front of her in red. At first, it appears that the figure of Jesus, so common with images of Mary, is not present. Then, upon closer examination, one notices that Mary is holding a flower—Isaiah’s promise fulfilled.

Theodore Baker (1851-1934) provided the most commonly sung translation of stanzas one and two in 1894. Born in New York and educated in Leipzig, he is remembered primarily for his monumental Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, the first edition appearing in 1900 with subsequent editions continuing to the present.

Layritz’s final stanza expands the metaphor of the Rose image, adding fragrance. The author would appear at first to mix his metaphors, but he then petitions the “Flower” to “dispel in glorious splendor the darkness everywhere.” Of course, this is no ordinary flower and it represents Christ, the Light of the World. The hymn ends with an allusion to the Nicene Creed—“True man, yet very God”—and petitions the “Flower” to “from sin and death now save us, and share our every load.”

Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878), the famous 19th-century translator of German hymns, offers another beautiful version of the first two stanzas from the German. It is interesting to compare her version of stanza one with the stanza we commonly sing:

A Spotless Rose is growing,
sprung from a tender root,
Of ancient seers’ foreshowing,
Of Jesse promised fruit;
its fairest bud unfolds to light,
amid the cold, cold winter,
and in the dark midnight.

The famous composer Michael Praetorius (1571-1621) helped the popularity of this tune immensely by harmonizing it in his collection Musae Sioniae (Zion’s Music) in 1609. His harmonization of this German tune, or adaptations of it, may be found in most hymnals.

Dr. Hawn is a professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology, SMU.

Hymn of the Week: Give Thanks
Glory to God: 647

As we come into this week of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d share a hymn that while not as old as Now Thank We All Our God or We Gather Together, has come to be beloved in our time.

Henry Smith Text and Music 1978

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given
Jesus Christ, His Son

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given
Jesus Christ, His Son

And now let the weak say, I'm strong
Let the poor say, I'm rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us
And now let the weak say, I'm strong
Let the poor say, I'm rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us
Give thanks

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given
Jesus Christ, His Son

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given
Jesus Christ, His Son

And now let the weak say, I'm strong
Let the poor say, I'm rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us
And now let the weak say, I'm strong
Let the poor say, I'm rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us
Give thanks

Henry Smith Jr. (b. 1952) has composed approximately three hundred worship songs, but “Give Thanks” (1978) is the only one to be published and extensively recorded. During the early years of the song’s use, the composer was unknown. Occasionally credit was ascribed to someone else. Smith was born in Crossnore, North Carolina. Though he started piano lessons in his early years, his brother’s guitar piqued his interest in music. He taught himself to play by reading a guitar manual and soon began composing songs.

During his years as a student at King’s College (Bristol, Tennessee), music became more important to him, deciding that “I only wanted to write songs for Christ” (Terry, 2002, p. 58). “Give Thanks” was written in 1978 in response to a sermon given by the pastor at Williamsburg New Testament Church (Virginia), preaching on 2 Corinthians 6:10. Soon afterward, Henry and his future wife Cindy sang the song at the church on several occasions. A military couple attending the church took the song with them to Germany, where they were stationed. The song then developed a life of its own.

It was not until 1986 that a friend brought Smith a cassette tape of a recording of the song by Integrity Music, who had listed the author as “unknown.” Henry Smith contacted the publisher. They informed him that they had been trying to locate the composer because the song had been recorded more than fifty times and published in several collections. The song first appeared as an octavo, “Give Thanks” (Mobile, AL, 1978). Donald Hustad’s The Worshiping Church (Carol Stream, IL, 1990) may have been the first standard hymnal to carry it. Evangelical British/American hymnwriter Bryan Jeffery Leech (1931–2015) heard the song at Billy Graham’s “Mission England” Crusade in 1989 and recommended it to the hymnal committee (Hustad, 1990, no. 496). It started to spread beyond Evangelicals. Twenty-first-century hymnals continue to publish the song, attesting to its sustained use.

Contemporary Christian artist Don Moen (b. 1950) met Henry Smith in Washington, D.C., at an Integrity Music conference and played a recording of the song in Russian. “My wife and I began to weep. We were overwhelmed to hear my song in that language. Moen had no idea we were in the audience” (Terry, 2002, p. 59).

The song’s strength lies in the text’s biblical foundation, rhetorical construction, and the music's coherence. The biblical underpinnings are cited above. The effective repetition of the imperative “Give thanks” at the beginning of three successive lines in the first part of the refrain (anaphora) has a cumulative effect. The composer repeats section one, giving a total of six reiterations of “Give thanks.” The scriptural basis for whole-hearted thanks is abundant throughout the Psalms (9:1; 86.12; 111:1; 138:1). The second part of the refrain continues effectively with “let the weak” and “let the poor” in successive lines. Each section concludes with a “because” clause that balances the anaphora of the earlier phrases: “because he’s given Jesus Christ his Son” (section one); “because of what the Lord has done for us” (section two). Carl Daw Jr. identifies the characteristics of the effective melody: “Much of the coherence of this tune comes from the use of sequences. The second phrase, for example, is a third-lower sequence of the first phrase. Then in the repeated middle section there are three successive phrases, each one step lower than the preceding one” (Daw, 2016, p. 615). In short, the song is a perfect blend of simplicity, symmetry, and artistry.

Henry Smith composed the song during a time of unemployment, financial insecurity, and an uncertain future due to a degenerative visual impairment that would eventually lead to his becoming legally blind. No doubt he found strength in Paul’s words, “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10, NIV).

SOURCES:

• David Cain, “Give Thanks—Henry Smith,” Song Scoops (October 23, 2010), https://songscoops.blogspot.com/2010/ (accessed September 4, 2021).

• Carl P. Daw Jr. Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2016).

• Donald P. Hustad, ed. The Worshiping Church: Worship Leader’s Edition (Carol Stream, IL: 60188).

• Lindsay Terry, The Sacrifice of Praise (Nashville: Integrity Publishers, 2002).

Enjoy the composer singing his own song with his wife Cindy

Hymn of the Week

There is a Longing in Our Heart

Glory to God: 470

Text and Music Anne Quigley 1992
 

There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord,
For you to reveal yourself to us.
There is a longing in our hearts for love
we only find in you, our God.

For justice, for freedom, for mercy;
Hear our prayer. In sorrow, in grief:
Be near; hear our prayer O God.

For wisdom, for courage, for comfort:
Hear our prayer. In weakness, in fear:
Be near; hear our prayer O God.

For healing, for wholeness, for new life:
Hear our prayer. In sickness, in death,
Be near; hear our prayer O God.

Lord save us, take pity, Light in our darkness.
We call you, we wait:
Be near; hear our prayer O God.

There is not a lot of information out there about this marvelous hymn. Anne Quigley leads a very private life but her hymns are full of beauty, lyricism, and poignant poetry. I encourage you to let the words wash over you as you listen. The hymn itself is found in the section of our hymnal entitled Prayer. Let this hymn be a prayer we all can say together on this day.

A respected composer and liturgist, Anne Quigley has her music featured in the Decani Choral Music Series in England. She was also a member of the St. Thomas More Group of composers, who were associated with a study center in the parish of St. Thomas More, North London, from 1969 until 1995.

Anne may be best known for her song, “There is a Longing,” but also composed the beautiful compositions “The Seven Last Words from the Cross” and “Take, Lord, and Receive.”

Hymn of the Week: Take Up Your Cross, the Savior Said
Glory to God: 718

Text Charles William Everest 1833
Music Attr. William Freeman Lewis 1814

Take up your cross, the Savior said,
If you would my disciple be;
take up your cross with willing heart,
And humbly follow after me.

Take up your cross; let not its weight
fill your weak spirit with alarm;
Christ's strength shall bear your spirit up
and brace your heart and nerve your arm.

Take up your cross; heed not the shame,
and let your foolish pride be still;
the Lord for you accepted death
upon a cross, on Calvary's hill.

Take up your cross, then, in Christ's strength,
and calmly every danger brave:
it guides you to abundant life
and leads to victory o'er the grave.

So today’s hymn has as many variants in text and tune as one hymn can have. Enjoy the various versions and the way the texts can be different and evoke different spiritual responses yet the text commends us to a life of discipleship in spite of the variants in tune.

A passage from the synoptic gospels sets the stage for this hymn: "And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it" (KJV, Mark 8:34-35; also in Matthew 16:24-25 and Luke 9:23-24).

Everest, Charles William, M.A., born at East Windsor, Connecticut, May 27, 1814, graduated at Trinity College, Hartford, 1838, and took Holy Orders in 1842. He was rector at Hamden, Connecticut, from 1842 to 1873, and also agent for the Society for the Increase of the Ministry. He died at Waterbury, Connecticut, Jan. 11, 1877 (See Poets of Connecticut, 1843). In 1833 he published Visions of Death, and Other Poems; from this work his popular hymn is taken:— Take up thy cross, the Saviour said. Following Jesus. The original text of this hymn differs very materially from that which is usually found in the hymn-books. The most widely known form of the text is that in Hymns Ancient & Modern, where it appeared in 1861. It was copied by the Compilers from another collection, but by whom the alterations were made is unknown. The

nearest approach to the original is in Horder's Congregational Hymn Book, 1884. Original text in Biggs's English Hymnology, 1873, p. 24.
[Rev. F. M. Bird, M.A.]
-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

This particular text has seen several alterations over the years. It has appeared in countless hymn collections and even in our very own Glory to God, this text is different from other versions.

This is the version that hymnary.org lists as its first and most popular usage. From the Breaking Bread Hymnal Volume 39 #702

Take up your cross, the Savior said,
If you would my disciple be;
Deny yourself, the world forsake,
And humbly follow after me.

Take up your cross, be not ashamed!
Let not disgrace your spirit fill!
For God himself endured to die
Upon a cross, on Calvary's hill.

Take up your cross, which gives you strength,
Which makes your trembling spirit brave:
'Twill guide you to a better home
And lead to vict'ry o'er the grave.

Take up your cross, and follow Christ,
Nor think till death to lay it down;
For only they who bear the cross
May hope to wear the glorious crown.

While the test bears many differences, the idea of discipleship is the same. Note the scripture that has inspired the various versions of this timeless hymn.

"And when he had called the people unto him with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it" (KJV, Mark 8:34-35; also in Matthew 16:24-25 and Luke 9:23-24).

The timeless BOURBON tune comes to us from the Shape Note Tune songs of the Appalachian region. There are even two hymn tunes associated with this tune. The first youtube clip is an organ alone playing the hymn tune BOURBON. The second comes from a group entitled Gesualdo Six who gave a concert this past weekend here in Columbus as part of the Early Music Series.

Hymn of the Week: Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above
Glory to God: 465

Text Johann Jakob Schutz 1675
Translator Elizabeth Francis Cox. 1864
Music Bohemian Brethren’s Kirchengesang 1566

Sing praise to God who reigns above,
the God of all creation,
the God of power, the God of love,
the God of our salvation.
With healing balm my soul is filled,
and every faithless murmur stilled:
To God all praise and glory!

What God’s almighty power has made
God's gracious mercy keepeth;
by morning glow or evening shade
God's watchful eye ne'er sleepeth.
Within the kingdom of God's might,
lo! all is just and all is right:
To God all praise and glory!

The Lord is never far away,
but, through all grief distressing,
an ever-present help and stay,
our peace and joy and blessing,
As with a mother's tender hand
God gently leads the chosen band:
To God all praise and glory!

Thus all my toilsome way along
I sing aloud thy praises,
that all may hear the grateful song
my voice unwearied raises.
Be joyful in the Lord, my heart;
both soul and body, take your part:
To God all praise and glory!

Cox, Frances Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. George V. Cox, born in Oxford, is well known as a successful translator of hymns from German. Her translations were published as Sacred Hymns from the German, London, and Pickering. The 1st edition, pub. 1841, contained 49 translations printed with the original text, together with biographical notes on the German authors. In the 2nd edition, 1864, Hymns from the German, London, Rivingtons, the translations were increased to 56, those of 1841 being revised, and with additional notes. The 56 translations were composed of 27 from the 1st ed. (22 being omitted) and 29 which were new. The best-known of her translations is "Jesus lives! no longer [thy terrors] now"; and ”Who are these like stars appearing ?" A few other translations and original hymns have been contributed by Miss Cox to the magazines, but they have not been gathered together into a volume.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

Schütz, Johann Jakob, was born Sept. 7, 1640, in Frankfurt am Main. After studying at Tübingen (where he became a licentiate in civil and canon law), he began to practise as an advocate in Frankfurt, and in later years with the title of Rath. He seems to have been a man of considerable legal learning as well as of deep piety. He was an intimate friend of P. J. Spener; and it was, in great measure, at his suggestion, that Spener began his famous Collegia Pietatis. After Spener left Frankfurt, in 1686, Schütz came under the influence of J. W. Petersen; and carrying out Petersen's principles to their logical conclusion, he became a Separatist, and ceased to attend the Lutheran services or communicate. He died at Frankfurt, May 22, 1690 (Koch, iv. 220; Blätter fur Hymnologie, Feb. 1883).

Take a listen to both versions of the same hymn. They each bring a different emotional and spiritual response.

Hymn of the Week: Lord, You Give the Great Commission
Glory to God: 298

Text Jeffrey W. Rowthorn 1978
Music Cyril Vincent Taylor 1941

Lord, you give the great commission:
“Heal the sick and preach the word.”
Lest the church neglect its mission,
and the gospel go unheard,
help us witness to your purpose
with renewed integrity:

With the Spirit’s gifts empow’r us
for the work of ministry.

Lord, you call us to your service:
“In my name, baptize and teach.”
That the world may trust your promise,
life abundant meant for each,
give us all new fervor, draw us
closer in community:

With the Spirit’s gifts empow’r us
for the work of ministry.

Lord, you make the common holy:
“This my body, this my blood.”
Let us all, for earth’s true glory,
daily lift life heavenward,
asking that the world around us
share your children’s liberty: 

With the Spirit’s gifts empow’r us
for the work of ministry. 

Lord, you show us love’s true measure:
“Father, what they do, forgive.”
Yet we hoard as private treasure
all that you so freely give.
May your care and mercy lead us
to a just society:

With the Spirit’s gifts empow’r us
for the work of ministry. 

Lord, you bless with words assuring:
“I am with you to the end.”
Faith and hope and love restoring,
may we serve as you intend
and, amid the cares that claim us,
hold in mind eternity:

With the Spirit’s gifts empow’r us
for the work of ministry.

“Lord, You Give the Great Commission” is a skillful exposition of Christ’s Great Commission found in three of the Gospel accounts, perhaps the most famous of which is Matthew’s version: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:19-20, NIV)

The five stanzas provide a thorough exposition of the scripture—a kind of sermon in poetic form—as well as a blueprint for ministry.

Stanza one states boldly the mission of the church: “Heal the sick and preach the word” and “witness to your purpose with renewed integrity.” The second stanza focuses on our “service” which is to “baptize and preach” in Christ’s name. The subject of stanza three is the Eucharist—a sacrament that offers all “liberty” by “lift[ing] life heavenward.” Stanza four calls for a “just society” through the sacrifice that Christ modeled for us on the cross. Having served in “faith and hope and love,” the final stanza points us toward “eternity.”

The poet skillfully weaves a quotation from Christ’s ministry into each stanza:

• “Heal the sick and preach the word.” (Matt. 10:7-8)

• “In my name baptize and teach.” (Matt. 28:19)

• “This my body, this my blood.” (Matt. 26:26-28)

• “Father, what they do forgive.” (Luke 23:34)

• “I am with you to the end.” (Matt. 28:20)

A brief refrain invokes the Holy Spirit to empower the work of the church in its ministry.

The text, commissioned by the students of the 1978 graduating classes of Yale and Berkeley Divinity Schools, first appeared in a collection edited by the poet, Laudamus: Services and Songs of Praise (1984), a hymnal supplement used at Yale Divinity School.

It was written for the majestic tune ABBOT’S LEIGH, composed by Anglican priest Cyril V. Taylor (1907-1992), who held such distinguished posts as precentor at Bristol Cathedral, warden and chaplain of the Royal School of Church Music, and precentor and residentiary canon at Salisbury Cathedral. The tune was named for a little village near Bristol where Taylor served in the wartime headquarters of the Religious Broadcasting Department of the British Broadcasting Company. He composed the tune in 1941 for John Newton’s text, “Glorious things of thee are spoken.”

Jeffery William Rowthorn (b. 1934) was born in Wales. His education includes the institutions of Cambridge, Oxford, Union Theological Seminary in New York, and Cuddeson Theological College, Oxford. He was ordained as a priest in 1963 and served as curate and then rector of churches in London and Oxford.

After serving as an associate professor of pastoral theology and worship for 14 years at Berkeley Divinity School, he was consecrated as a bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut in 1987. In 1994 he was appointed Bishop in Charge of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe, with his office at the American Cathedral in Paris.

Bishop Rowthorn was a founding faculty member of the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University in 1973. In addition to Laudamus, his hymnological credits include A New Hymnal for Colleges and Schools (1992)—sometimes called The Yale Hymnal—edited with Russell Schulz.

Bishop Rowthorn and his wife Anne were honored by the Convocation of American Churches in Europe with the establishment of the “Jeffery and Anne Rowthorn Endowment Fund for Mission in Europe.” The Rowthorn Fund is dedicated to supporting development of new mission congregations in the Convocation and of youth ministry.

He retired in 2001 after completing eight years as the Bishop-in-Charge of the Episcopal churches in Europe. He is also the author of The Wideness of God’s Mercy (1995), a collection of 150 litanies compiled and adapted for ecumenical public worship, and Singing Songs of Expectation: Food for Today’s Pilgrims (2007), a collection of 22 of his hymn texts.

*Words © 1978 Hope Publishing Co., Inc., Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Dr. Hawn is a professor of sacred music at Perkins School of Theology, SMU.