Beautiful Savior and/or Fairest Lord Jesus

Glory to God: 630

Text. Joseph A. Seiss 1823-1904 
Music Silesian Folk Song 

Beautiful Savior  

Beautiful Savior, King of creation,  
Son of God and Son of Man!  
Truly I'd love Thee, truly I'd serve thee,  
Light of my soul, my Joy, my Crown.  

Fair are the meadows, Fair are the woodlands,  
Robed in flow'rs of blooming spring;  
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer;  
He makes our sorr'wing spirit sing.  

Fair is the sunshine, Fair is the moonlight,  
Bright the sparkling stars on high;  
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer  
Than all the angels in the sky.  

Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations, 
Son of God and Son of Man!  
Glory and honor, Praise, adoration,  
Now and forevermore be Thine!  

Fairest Lord Jesus 

Fairest Lord Jesus, 
Ruler of all nature, 
O thou of God to earth come down, 
thee will I cherish, 
thee will I honor, 
thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown. 
 
Fair are the meadows, 
fairer still the woodlands, 
robed in the blooming garb of spring. 
Jesus is fairer; 
Jesus is purer, 
who makes the woeful heart to sing. 
 
Fair is the sunshine, 
fairer still the moonlight, 
and all the twinkling, starry host. 
Jesus shines brighter; 
Jesus shines purer, 
than all the angels heaven can boast. 
 
Beautiful Savior,  
Ruler of the nations, 
Son of God and Son of Man! 
Glory and honor, 
praise, adoration, 
now and forevermore be thine! 

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

Today’s hymn has a rich and curious history that is several centuries old. As you can see from the texts, there are two sets of text that convey the radiance of God, which makes this a beautiful hymn for Transfiguration or Christmas or anytime during the Epiphany season. 

The Words

The original German text is said to have first been published about 1677 in the Roman Catholic “Münster Gesangbuch” (Münster Hymnbook) and had five verses. It is assumed that Münster refers to the city of that name in northwestern Germany. It was sung through the ages.  As one can imagine, this hymn has seen many variations. 

Even today, there are two hymn texts:  Fairer Lord Jesus and Beautiful Savior. They are close in language but retain their individual titles. On Sunday the 11th, the choir sang a stirring arrangement of Beautiful Savior, while our Glory to God Hymnal has it listed as Fairest Lord Jesus. Take a quick look at the two texts side by side to see how they are similar and how they differ.  

How did this hymn makes it’s way to us?  Through a man by the name of Joseph A. Seiss in the 1800s.   Here is a brief bio of the translator who took the geramn hymn and translated into the version we know today. 

Joseph A. Seiss 

was born and raised in a Moravian home with the original family name of Seuss. After studying at Pennsylvania College in Gettysburg and completing his theological education with tutors and through private study, Seiss became a Lutheran pastor in 1842. He served several Lutheran congregations in Virginia and Maryland and then became pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church (1858-1874) and the Church of the Holy Communion (1874-1904), both in Philadelphia. Known as an eloquent and popular preacher, Seiss was also a prolific author and editor of some eighty volumes, which include The Last Times (1856), The Evangelical Psalmist (1859), Ecclesia Lutherana (1868), Lectures on the Gospels (1868-1872), and Lectures on the Epistles (1885). He contributed to and compiled several hymnals. 

What is even more fascinating is how Joseph Seiss and the tune seemed to come together.  Mr. Seiss was of Moravian descent.  It is believed that the Moravians had their beginnings in Moravia which is near Silesia and is part of what we now consider Czechoslovakia. 

The tune of this hymn, while having two similar translations (Fairest Lord Jesus and Beautiful Savior) also has two hymn tune names.  Crusaders Hymn is one title the tune is known by, while St. Elizabeth is another name for the very same tune.    This melodic tune is none other than a Silesian folk song which of course, we now know is from the region where Joseph Seiss’ family originally hailed from.  

The Music 

Silesia, a historical region consisting mainly of the basin of the upper and middle Oder River in what is now southwestern Poland, is an area that has seen many wars, conquests and rulers. One of the principal cities, Wroclaw, is about 170 miles east of Dresden, Germany and the area has had German immigrants through its history. 

The tradition that the tune was sung by German Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem has a great deal of appeal, but it is no longer accepted by a number of scholars.  “The Crusades” in this instance refer to Christian holy wars called by popes between 1095 and 1291 AD against external and internal enemies for the recovery of property or defense of the people. It is said that Crusaders took vows and were granted compensation for sin, or indulgences, by participating, and were also considered pilgrimages. Some limit these wars to those involving Jerusalem, but there were other wars in which crusaders took vows. One of the Jerusalem wars that could influence the story of the hymn tradition was the third crusade against the Egyptian Saladin in the twelfth century in which the German Emperor Frederick participated.  

The melody known as CRUSADER’s HYMN was first known to have been published by August H. Hoffman von Fallersleben in his 1842 volume of Silesian Folksongs. The first arrangement published in the United States is believed to have been done by Richard S. Willis in his 1850 volume of church choral works.  

Richard Willis was born in 1819 at Boston, Massachusetts, and is said to have graduated from Yale in 1841. He then studied music in Germany for six years, returning to work as a newspaper music critic and editor. He published several volumes of songs between 1850 and 1883. 

Enjoy the stirring choral arrangement. I love how this setting captures verse one as simply a hum. As if the Beauty of everything Christ is, is beyond words and our understanding. We finally hear text for verse two with the lovely alto solo, followed by full chorus resoundingly singing. 

-Philip

Glory to Thee, My God this Night

Glory to God: 675

Text: Thomas Ken (1637-1711) 
Hymn Published: 1674 

The first hymn is the original version, below it is the version used in our hymnal.  I invite you to look at how the tune remains the same and notice how the text has changed.  It’s always fun to try and decide why some words were changed and others were not.  Also, take a look at the verses that were deleted. 

Glory to thee, my God, this night 
for all the blessings of the light; 
keep me, O keep me, King of kings, 
beneath thy own almighty wings. 
 
Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son, 
the ill that I this day have done, 
that with the world, myself, and thee, 
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be. 
 
Teach me to live, that I may dread 
the grave as little as my bed; 
teach me to die, that so I may 
rise glorious at the aweful day. 
 
O may my soul on thee repose, 
and may sweet sleep mine eyelids close, 
sleep that may me more vigorous make 
to serve my God when I awake. 
 
When in the night I sleepless lie, 
my soul with heavenly thoughts supply; 
let no ill dreams disturb my rest, 
no powers of darkness me molest. 
 
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow, 
praise him, all creatures here below, 
praise him above, angelic host, 
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

Glory to God Hymnal:

All praise to thee, my God, this night, 
for all the blessings of the light! 
Keep me, O keep me safe from harm 
within the shelter of thine arm! 
 
Forgive me, Lord, through Christ, I pray, 
the wrong that I have done this day, 
that I, before I sleep, may be 
at peace with neighbor, self, and thee. 
 
O may my soul on thee repose, 
and with sweet sleep mine eyelids close. 
Refresh my strength, for thine own sake, 
to serve thee well when I awake. 
 
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; 
praise God, all creatures here below; 
praise God above, ye heavenly host; 
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

Today’s reflection is a paraphrase from Eric Routley’s 1954 book, Hymns and the Faith.   

Bishop Ken

Bishop Ken’s “Glory to thee, My God this night;” is the simplest, the oldest, and the most popular of the traditional English evening hymns. Many others have been modeled on it; some of these are inferior imitations. But this is written for the scholars of Winchester College (and carrying the rubric, “Be sure to sing the Morning and Evening Hymns in your chamber devoutly’) and is as solid and as sensible, and at the same time as lyrical, as the seventeenth century could make it. 

Evening Hymns

Evening hymns are to be found among the earliest Christian hymns written. The oldest hymn we sing is “O gladsome light” is an evening hymn from perhaps the 2nd century. More than the morning hymns, the evening hymns gather up into Christian devotion much that is primeval in human experience and aspiration. 

Mankind didn’t have to reach a very advanced state of self-awareness to know that the nighttime is a time of mystery and fear. The evening incantation, the invocation of the Great Spirit to ward off demons of the night, corresponds to any ancient religion. Our locks, alarms, and technology have led us away from this fear to being able to appreciate the beauty of nighttime. One can only appreciate the subtle pleasures of darkness when we are at leisure and at peace. Men are worried and busy and anxious by day are liable to be fretful at night. These hymns of protection and peace help put those anxieties at bay.    Sleep, as we all know, is a true gift from God that we all should be thankful for.  

 The hymn begins with an act of thanksgiving for the day past, and a prayer of protection for the night. It goes on with a prayer of forgiveness for all that was amiss in the day, and the plea that the singer may be at “peace with the “world, myself to Thee”. Then comes the best verse - Teach me to live… Teach me to Die. Life leads to death as day leads to night, and death leads to resurrection as night leads into day. The prayer is that life, death, and what follows may all be encountered without fear and without dishonor; theory; the man who is at peace with himself, the world, and God will be able thus to live and die. 

From here the hymn proceeds to a matter of fact petition for a sound sleep; a quiet mind brings good sleep, and good sleep brings renewed strength. If sleep doesn’t come, fear and the powers of darkness come to the door.But the singer prays for “heavenly thoughts”.   

Nothing can be more fortifying for the everyday life and common faith than this kind of simple and direct prayer, nor better for the advancement of the Christian in faith and love than the simple praise which closes the hymn.  “Praise God for whom all blessings flow” – that is the beginning and end of life; the humble creature’s prayer is in the end absorbed in universal praise.    

Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun 

Text: Thomas Ken
Hymn published: 1674

Awake, my soul, and with the sun  
thy daily stage of duty run; 
shake off dull sloth, and early rise 
to pay thy morning sacrifice. 

Lord, I my vows to Thee renew. 
Disperse my sins as morning dew; 
guard my first springs of thought and will; 
and with Thyself my spirit fill. 

Direct, control, suggest, this day, 
all I design or do or say, 
that all my pow'rs, with all their might, 
in Thy sole glory may unite. 

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; 
praise Him all creatures here below; 
praise Him above, ye heav'enly host; 
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

A Hymn for the Morning! 

Over the next few weeks, I want us to look at Ken Thomas’ Morning and Evening Hymns. Today’s reflection is a paraphrase from Eric Routley’s 1954 book, Hymns and the Faith.   

Trilogy

This hymn, as you read last week, is part of a trilogy of hymns. One dedicated to the Morning, another to Night, and a final one for Midnight. The Night hymn (Glory to Thee, My God, his Night) and this morning hymn have often been called twin brothers for they have both been in English hymnals for the last 150 years. But they are by no means identical twins. 

Within themselves and in relation to one another they may be described with some accuracy as non-identical twins, for in character and import they are not merely different – they are complementary. Where the evening hymn has a solemn grandeur, this morning hymn has springtime grace; where the evening hymn prays for protection, the morning hymn prays for strength – and so on. This is all obvious but here is another thing.

While evening hymns sound a note of resignation, almost sounding as if “well, none of us is getting any younger”, the morning hymns generally sound a note of praise and hope. Morning hymn writers evoke a feeling of hope and resurrection. Belief in the new day.  

Our morning hymn begins with imagery of the sunrise. The sun awakes to run her course, and we will do well to emulate her. The energy of the sun is immortally depicted in Psalm 19:4-6.    

In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat. 

Ken goes on to describe the morning sun, dew and light from heaven. All is done with a kind of Puritan characteristic in its efficiency and common sense. Christianity is a religion of the present the here and now, today!  We do well to live not by ends or beginnings but by daily manna. To live in the past is one error; to strain toward the future is another error. Between them we worry and despair about what has happened or what is about to happen. As day succeeds to day, the thought that that means one day less of our lives becomes more and more insistent. I woke up one-day thinking, I am now half-way to the day of my death by some estimates. Yet, I remember a gentleman in his 90s who was overjoyed and experiencing Beethoven he had not been familiar with and hearing it for the first time. It is possible to worry about the little life has left – that is wasting time. It is possible to pay no heed to the passing of time, as though any good deed and fresh vision can wait until tomorrow.- that also is wasting time. But to live as long as may be allotted, 30 years or over 100, and to let no day pass without some new knowledge of God’s goodness and some opportunity taken of doing good – that is living. That is redeeming the time we have. 

The question at the beginning of every day is:

Will the things that the day brings advance or set back my faith in God and knowledge of him? The beginning of the modern day is a particularly trying event in most lives. The morning news screams at you from your phones and computers, doom and gloom are announced from all sides. his children have to be packed off to school, the buses to and from are relentless; and with it all, that dark and ill-humored interval, which usually includes breakfast awakening our mental faculties. There is enough in one morning to make one morose and want to climb back into bed. The person who can cope with life’s daily travails is the person who has said his prayers and has said in them the words that we see in verse one of this week’s hymn. “Awake, My Soul”. If we have done that, and ended with doxology, we are more able to move into life responsibly and good humoredly than to allow life, in its blundering way, to move into us. 

Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun 

Text: Thomas Ken

Awake, my soul, and with the sun  
thy daily stage of duty run; 
shake off dull sloth, and early rise 
to pay thy morning sacrifice. 

Lord, I my vows to Thee renew. 
Disperse my sins as morning dew; 
guard my first springs of thought and will; 
and with Thyself my spirit fill. 

Direct, control, suggest, this day, 
all I design or do or say, 
that all my pow'rs, with all their might, 
in Thy sole glory may unite. 

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; 
praise Him all creatures here below; 
praise Him above, ye heav'enly host; 
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

Hymn Texts: A Devotional

A Hymn for the Morning! 

Over the next few weeks, I want us to look at Ken Thomas’ Morning and Evening Hymns.  This week we will begin with some biography about the author of the hymn and then next week look at the text as a devotion as Eric Routley gives the text a detailed going over in his wonderful book we have used throughout the years. 

Ken, Thomas

D.D. The bare details of Bishop Ken's life, when summarized, produce these results: —-Born at Berkhampstead, July, 1637; Scholar of Winchester, 1651; Fellow of New College, Oxford, 1657; B.A., 1661; Rector of Little Easton, 1663; Fellow of Winchester, 1666; Rector of Brighstone, 1667; Rector of Woodhay and Prebendary of Winchester, 1669; Chaplain to the Princess Mary at the Hague, 1679; returns to Winchester, 1680; Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1685; imprisoned in the Tower, 1688; deprived, 1691; died at Longleat, March 19, 1711. 

The parents of Ken both died during his childhood, and he grew up under the guardianship of Izaak Walton, who had married Ken's elder sister, Ann. The dominant Presbyterianism of Winchester and Oxford did not shake the firm attachment to the English Church, which such a home had instilled. His life until the renewal of his connection with Winchester, through his fellowship, his chaplaincy to Morley (Walton's staunch friend, then bishop of Winchester), and his prebend in the Cathedral, calls for no special remark here. But this second association with Winchester, there seems little doubt, originated from his three well-known hymns. In 1674 he published A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College, and reference is made in this book to three hymns, for "Morning," "Midnight," and "Evening," the scholars being recommended to use them. It can scarcely be questioned that the Morning, Evening, and Midnight hymns, published in the 1695 edition of The Manual, are the ones referred to. He used to sing these hymns to the viol or spinet, but the tunes he used are unknown. He left Winchester for a short time to be chaplain to Princess Mary at the Hague but was dismissed for his faithful remonstrance against a case of immorality at the Court, and returned to Winchester. A similar act of faithfulness at Winchester singularly enough won him his bishopric. He stoutly refused Nell Gwynne the use of his house, when Charles II. came to Winchester, and the easy king, either from humour or respect for his honesty, gave him not long afterwards the bishopric of Bath and Wells. Among the many acts of piety and munificence that characterised his tenure of the see, his ministration to the prisoners and sufferers after the battle of Sedgmoor and the Bloody Assize are conspicuous. He interceded for them with the king, and retrenched his own state to assist them. He attended Monmouth on the scaffold. James II. pronounced him the most eloquent preacher among the Protestants of his time; the judgment of Charles II. appears from his pithy saying that he would go and hear Ken "tell him of his faults." Among the faithful words of the bishops at Charles's death-bed, none were so noble in their faithfulness as his. 

He was one of the Seven Bishops who refused to read the Declaration of Indulgence, and were imprisoned in the Tower by James for their refusal, but triumphantly acquitted on their trial. At the accession of William III, he refused, after some doubt on the subject, to take the oaths, and was at length (1691) deprived of his see. His charities had left him at this time only seven hundred pounds, and his library, as a means of subsistence; but he received hospitality for his remaining years with his friend Lord Weymouth, at Longleat. The see of Bath and Wells had again offered him, but in vain, at the death of his successor, Bishop Kidder. He survived all the deprived prelates. His attitude as a conjuror was remarkable for its conciliatory spirit. The saintliness of Ken's character, its combination of boldness, gentleness, modesty, and love, has been universally recognized. The verdict of Macaulay is that it approached "as near as human infirmity permits to the ideal perfection of Christian virtue." The principal work of Ken's that remains is that on the Catechism, entitled The Practice of Divine Love. His poetical works were published after his death, in four volumes. Among the contents are, the Hymns for the Festivals, which are said to have suggested to Keble the idea of The Christian Year; the Anodynes against the acute physical sufferings of his closing years; and the Preparatives for Death. Although many passages in them are full of tender devotion, they cannot rank either in style or strength with the three great hymns written at Winchester. The best biographies of Ken are he Life of Ken by a Layman, and, specially, his Life, by the Very Rev. E. H. Plumptre, Dean of Wells, 1888. [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.] 

Bishop Ken,

Bishop Ken is known to hymnody as the author of the Morning, Evening, and Midnight Hymns, the first and second of which at least have found a place in almost every English collection for the last 150 years. The general history of these hymns, as we now know it, is as follows:—

1. In 1674 Ken published his Manual of Prayers for Winchester Scholars as

   A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College [here arms of William of Wykeham within a border]. London, Printed for John Martyn, 1674, 12 mo., pp. 69. 

   From a passage in this work, it may fairly be inferred that the author had already composed hymns for the use of scholars. He says: —

   “Be sure to sing the Morning and Evening Hymn in your chamber devoutly, remembering that the Psalmist, upon happy experience, assures you that it is a good thing to tell of the loving kindness of the Lord early in the morning and of his truth in the night season." 

   Two hymns only seem to be here referred to, but the expression "night season" may include both the Evening and Midnight hymns, and the latter would be only used occasionally. The hymns are not given in the Manual of 1674, or succeeding editions, until that of 1695, when the three hymns are added as an Appendix. The title of this edition is: —

   A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College. And all other Devout Christians. To which is added three Hymns for Morning, Evening, and Midnight; not in former Editions: By the Same Author. Newly Revised. London, Printed for Ctarles Brome at the Ovn, at the West end of St. Paul's Church, 1695.

2. In 1704 Richard Smith, a London publisher, issued a book similar in appearance to the Manual, and entitled Conference between the Soul and Body concerning the Present and Future State. This edition contained a strong recommendation by Dodwell, an intimate friend of Ken, but no hymns. To the 2nd edition, however (1705), were added two (Morning and Evening) hymns, with Ken's name appended, but containing two additional verses to the Evening hymn, differing in several other respects from the text of the Manual. Thereupon Charles Brome, to whom the copyright of the latter belonged, issued a new edition with an Advertisement stating that Ken "absolutely disowned" the hymns appended to the Conference, "as being very false and incorrect," and that the genuine text was that given in the Manual only. Brome's Advertisement reads: — 

   "Advertisement—-Whereas at the end of a Book lately Publish'd call'd, 'A Conference between the Soul and Body,' there are some Hymns said to be writ by Bishop Ken, who absolutely disowns them, as being very false and incorrect; but the Genuine ones are to be had only of Charles Brome, Bookseller, whose just Propriety the Original copy is." 

3. In 1709, however, the spurious hymns were again published as Ken's in a book entitled A New Year's Gift: in Two Parts: to which is added A Morning and Evening Hymn. By Thomas, late L. B. of Bath and Wells. The Third Edition with additions. London Printed by W. Olney. 1709. 

   Brome met this, as before, with a new edition of the Manual, in which the Advertisement of 1705 as above was repeated, but the text of the hymns considerably revised. This revised text was followed in all subsequent editions of the Manual, but as, until lately, it was thought to have appeared first in the edition of 1712, published soon after Ken's death, its genuineness was suspected by many. The question as it then stood was fully discussed in an able letter by Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord Selborne), prefixed to the reprint of Ken's Hymns, published by D. Sedgwick in 1864. Since that time the discovery in the Bodleian Library of a copy of the Manual of 1709 shows that the revision was made in that year and confirms the conclusion at which Lord Selborne had previously arrived, that it was Ken's genuine revised text. The title of this edition is: — A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College, and all other Devout Christians, to which is added three Hymns for Morning, Evening, and Midnight; By the same Author. Newly Revised. London: Printed for Charles Brome at the Gun, the West end of St. Paul's Church, 1709.

   The Advertisement before referred to is at p. 130. The alterations of 1709 may therefore be accepted as being made by Ken himself, and it seems not improbable that the revision was suggested by the recent republication of the spurious text in spite of Brome's disclaimer in 1705, and possibly by adverse criticism of the original text. Lord Selborne pointed out in his Letter that Ken altered a passage in his Practice of Divine Love (1st ed., 1685) because "some Roman Catholic writer professed to discover the doctrine of Transubstantiation" therein. This alteration was made in the 2nd ed., 1686, and explained in the Preface to have been made "to prevent all misunderstanding for the future." A passage also in the Manual—-"Help me, then, ye blessed Hosts of Heaven, to celebrate that unknown sorrow, &c." — was claimed in a Roman Catholic pamphlet as a passage that taught the scholars of Winchester to invocate the whole Court of Heaven." This passage Ken altered "to prevent all future misinterpretations," and prefixed an Advertisement to the 1687 edition of the Manual explaining why he had done so. In looking through the texts of the three hymns for 1695, and 1709, and especially at the doxologies, and at St. x. and xi. in the Evening Hymn, "You my Blest Guardian, whilst I sleep," &c. (1695); and "O may my Guardian while I sleep," &c. (1709), do we not see a good and sufficient reason to account for the revision of the hymns?

4. With regard to the text given in the Conference, Lord Selborne observes that it is not improbable that alterations and various readings, originating with Ken himself, might have obtained private circulation among his friends, long before he had made up his own mind to give them to the public; a suggestion which may possibly help to explain the fact, that a writer, patronized by Dodwell, was misled into believing (for such a writer ought not lightly to be accused of a willful fraud) that the text, published in the Conference in Ken's name was really from his hand. That Ken occasionally altered passages in his writings when for any reason he considered it necessary, is certain; and there can be little doubt that the text of the three Winchester hymns was more or less unsettled before 1695. At any rate, before their first appearance in that year in the Manual the Evening hymn had found its way into print. It was published in ”Harmonia Sacra; or Divine Hymns and Dialogues ... Composed by the Best Masters . . . The Words by several Learned and Pious Persons. The Second Book," London, Henry Playford, 1693. 

   The first volume of this work appeared in 1688 and was dedicated to Ken. It is not improbable therefore that Playford, when collecting materials for his second volume, obtained the words of the Evening Hymn directly from the author.
   The hymn was set by Clarke as a Cantata for a solo voice, with the Doxology as a chorus in four parts.

5. The various Morning Hymns by Ken which have appeared in the Appendix to Tate and Brady's Version of the Psalms, and in most hymnals published during the past 150 years are compilations from this hymn, with, in many instances, slight alterations of the text either of 1695 or of that of 1709. In some modern hymnals the difficulty of the length of the hymn is overcome by dividing it into two or more parts.
   A reference to the text given in Harmonia Sacra shows that the change from "Glory" to "All praise" in line 1. is only a restoration of the original reading; and without being aware of this fact, Lord Selborne points out that the expression "All praise" is remarkably consistent with Ken's frequent use of it in other writings. The same alteration was made in 1709 in the Morning Hymn, stanza 9, and in the Midnight Hymn, St. 7; while at the same time "Glory" in the Morning Hymn, St. v. 1. 4, is changed to "High Praise."
   As in the case of "Awake my soul," this hymn has been divided, subdivided, and rearranged in a great many ways during the last 150 years. In one form or another, it will be found in most hymnals published during that period.
   Like the Morning and Evening Hymns, this hymn has been divided and rearranged in various ways and is found in one form or another in most hymnals published during the last 150 years.

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.

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

Baptized in Water

Glory to God: 482

Text: Canon Michael Saward 1932-2015
Music: BUNESSAN

Baptized in water, 
Sealed by the Spirit, 
Cleansed by the blood of Christ our King: 
Heirs of salvation, 
Trusting his promise, 
Faithfully now God's praise we sing. 

Baptized in water, 
Sealed by the Spirit, 
Dead in the tomb with Christ our King: 
One with his rising, 
Freed and forgiven, 
Thankfully now God's praise we sing. 

Baptized in water, 
Sealed by the Spirit, 
Marked with the sign of Christ our King: 
Born of one Father, 
We are his children, 
Joyfully now God's praise we sing. 

Today’s Devotion:

Canon Michael Saward (pronounced “say-word”) has been a leader in the revival of English-language hymnody for over 40 years. Through Jubilate Hymns, an organization devoted to revising older hymns and composing newer texts that reflect the language and concerns of contemporary life, he has made a significant contribution to recent hymnody, moving beyond the notion of Victorian hymns as normative. 

Jubilate Group

The Web site for the Jubilate Group, www.jubilate.co.uk, discusses the organization’s founding “in the early 1960s by Michael Baughen (at one time rector of All Soul’s, Langham Place, London, and then Anglican Bishop of Chester) and his friends who were closely involved in work among young people.

The group pooled its talents to meet the challenge of a new generation in the UK, a generation which wished to extend its singing beyond the foursquare ways of metrical hymnody.” Canon Saward serves as the current director of Jubilate Hymns, Ltd.  

Canon Saward

Born in 1932 at Blackheath in Southeast London, Canon Saward grew up in Petts Wood and was educated at Eltham. He was ordained a priest at Canterbury Cathedral and served as a curate in two London suburbs, Croydon and Edgware.  
 
His varied career in the Anglican Church includes secretary of Liverpool Council of Churches, radio and television officer to the archbishop, and vicar of St. Matthew’s, Fulham, (1972-78) and Ealing (1978-91).  
 
Canon Saward served as the chairman of the Billy Graham London Mission 1989 media task group and was a judge of the London Times “Preacher of the Year” competition in 2000.  
 
The author of a dozen books, he served as canon treasurer of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London at the time of his retirement in 2000. This post led to meeting most of the royal family and many other national and international dignitaries. It was Canon Saward who announced the passing of Princess Diana from the pulpit of St. Paul’s Cathedral within hours of her death.  
 
Canon Saward has written nearly 100 hymns and has been text editor of three hymnbooks, including the British hymnals, Hymns for Today’s Church and Sing Glory. His hymns appear in over 80 hymnals worldwide. His best-known hymn worldwide is “Christ Triumphant,” a text that draws upon images of Christ that are most effective in a monarchial political context.  

Baptismal Images & Scriptural Allusions

“Baptized in Water” is rich in baptismal images and scriptural allusions. The opening stanza cited above draws upon several passages including Hebrews 1:14: “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?” (KJV)  
 
Romans 6:3-5 provides the central biblical grounding for stanza two: “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death: as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.”  
 
Stanza two reflects the image of dying and rising with Christ. We are “dead in the tomb with Christ, our King.” Then we are “one in his rising, freed and forgiven....”  
 
Ephesians 4:4-6 provides the basis for stanza three: “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.” This Scripture appears in the poetry of the hymn as “born of one Father, we are his children.”  
 
Canon Saward and his wife, Jackie, have four children, seven grandchildren and one great-grandson. Known for his sense of humor, Canon Saward’s commentary on his life notes, “He has twice preached in the Tower of London and, amazingly, they let him out on both occasions. As the Church of England newspaper once said of him, “He is never, but never, boring.” 

*© 1982 Jubilate Hymns, admin. by Hope Publishing Co., Carol Stream, IL 60188. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

The hymn tune that is so famous and made even more famous in America by the singer John Denver is called BUNESSAN as a hymn tune. It is a Scottish folk tune first associated as a Christmas Carol Child in a Manger. The hymn writer Mary M. MacDonald wrote the first hymn to this tune. The village of Bunessan is located just east of the Isle of Iona.   

Enjoy the tune and wonderful words as we celebrate the baptism of Jesus. 

All Beautiful the March of Days

Page 292 in the 1955 The Hymnal

Text:  Frances Whitmarsh Wile 1911 
Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams 

All beautiful the march of days, 
As seasons come and go; 
The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought 
The crystal of the snow; 
Hath sent the hoary frost of heaven, 
The flowing waters sealed, 
And laid a silent loveliness 
On hill and wood and field. 
 
O'er white expanses sparkling pure 
The radiant morns unfold; 
The solemn splendors of the night 
Burn brighter through the cold; 
Life mounts in every throbbing vein, 
Love deepens round the hearth, 
And clearer sounds the angel hymn, 
"Good will to men on earth." 
 
O Thou from whose unfathomed law 
The year in beauty flows, 
Thyself the vision passing by 
In crystal and in rose, 
Day unto day doth utter speech, 
And night to night proclaim, 
In ever-changing words of light, 
The wonder of  Thy name. 

Today’s Devotion:

This week’s Hymn of the Week invites you to read the text and sing along with the choir as we begin another year together. This past year has been filled with fantastic hymns and I continue to enjoy sharing the stories of these hymns with you.   

Snow and Roses

The story for this hymn is very minimal.  A Rev. Garnett asked Frances Wile to write a winter hymn for a new hymnal he was compiling. This is the result. I love the nature imagery of snow and roses.   It fits the rhythm of the tune O Little Town of Bethlehem or FOREST GREEN, as we think about it in church music circles.  

This hymn did not make it into the 2014 Glory to God hymnal but is found on hymn 292 in the blue 1990 hymnal.  

Enjoy the video of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and have a Very Happy and Blessed 2024! 

Philip 

I Wonder as I Wander  

Text  John Jacob Niles 
Music American Folk Song 

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky, 
how Jesus the Savior did come for to die 
for poor ordinary people like you and like I; 
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky. 

When Mary birthed Jesus, 'twas in a cow's stall 
with wise men and farmers and shepherd and all. 
but high from God's heaven a star's light did fall, 
and the promise of ages it did then recall. 

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing, 
a star in the sky, or a bird on the wing, 
or all of God's angels in heaven for to sing, 
he surely could have it, 'cause he was the King. 

I wonder as I wander, out under the sky, 
how Jesus the Savior did come for to die 
for poor ordinary people like you and like I; 
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky. 

Today’s Devotion:

Today’s Christmas Devotion comes to us from the wonderful book by Andrew Gant, The Carols of Christmas: A Celebration of the Surprising Stories Behind Your Favorite Holiday Songs Nelson Book 2015.  P. 127 and ff. 

Turkey & Cranberry Sauce

Folk songs and Christmas go together like turkey and cranberry sauce.  They are as much a part of our traditional Christmas festivities as fairy lights and traffic jams.

They didn’t always get there in a straight line. Sometimes the connection between folk imagery and Christmas is obscure, to say the least. Others originally had nothing to do with Christmas. Composers and clerics have draped seasonal associations all over them like tinsel on a tree.  

All these songs owe their place in our repertoire to the person who first wrote them down. This, too, is not as straightforward a process as it sounds. Folk songs, by definition, exist in many different versions. They change from one village to the next, one generation to another. Which version should the collector use? What gives this person the right to set one particular version in stone? By preserving the oral tradition, are we not also ending it? 

On the other hand, is the collector permitted to add something, to consider his own version just one variant among many? Is he/she allowed to polish up the original, or finish something that he finds incomplete? “I Wonder as I Wander” is an Appalachian folk song. Or at least a bit of it is. 

The Collectors

The first collector to make a serious attempt to record the folk music of the Appalachian Mountains was an Englishman, Cecil Sharp. Sharp was unquestionably top of the class among collectors, a dedicated and sing-minded pioneer, going out along the highways and hedges of the south and west of England and elsewhere in search of songs, dances, melodies, ballads, and anything else he could find.  The huge, wonderful archive based at Cecil Sharp House in London is his legacy.  

Two decades later, John Jacob Niles enters the scene. Unlike his English predecessor, he was a child of the region this song comes from. He states the following: 

When I was a child growing up in Kentucky, we made what we needed.  The daily life of my people at home was full of interesting snatches of music – perhaps just a single couplet and four measures of melody . . . we made our own fun, we made our own music, we even made our own instruments.  When I was quite small, my father bought me a three-string dulcimer.  But when I was up in my teens and wanted a bigger and better dulcimer, my father told me to get busy and make one.  I’ve been making my own dulcimers ever since.”

This same hands-on creative approach applies to the music as well as the instruments it is played on.  If a song exists as just a few “interesting snatches” but could potentially be “usable in an extended and adapted form,” then your job as the singer is to finish it and use it.  As Niles said later in life, “As I look back across fifty years of public performances, I’m convinced that a concert singer who is not also a composer and a poet is a definite disadvantage.” 

“I Wonder as I Wander” grew out of three lines of music sung for me by a girl who called herself Annie Morgan. The place was Murphy, North Carolina, and the time was July 1933. The Morgan family, revivalists all, were about to be ejected by the police, after having camped in the town square for some little time, cooking, washing, hanging their wash from the Confederate monument and generally conducting themselves in such a way as to be classed a public nuisance. Preacher Morgan and his wife pled poverty; they had to hold one more meeting in order to buy enough gas to get out of town. It was then that Annie Morgan came out—a tousled, unwashed blond, and very lovely. She sang the first three lines of the verse of “I Wonder as I Wander.” At twenty-five cents a performance, I tried to get her to sing all the song. After eight tries, all of which are carefully recorded in my notes, I had only three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea. 

Niles began including this song in his concerts. One of the clips below is Niles accompanying himself on the dulcimer. His lovely falsetto voice rings clear and true.  The effect of putting it in a key where falsetto (light high singing for the male voice) creates an “other world” intriguing and compelling version. 

The song, as we know in the 21st century, caught on quickly. It entered the repertoire of soloists and choirs from all over.    

Whatever the details of this now timeless song, we have a gorgeous, haunting song with a kind of lilting, modal melody, and dialect-tinged lyrics that leap from every page. This is the voice of the authentic Appalachian hills. 

The words have a strange mixture of the English Puritan and an earthier American religious accent that appears from the early days of the Bay Psalter and beyond.  You can hear some of the English influence in phrases such as “The promise of ages” or “come for to die” and “it then did recall.” “Any wee thing” sounds strangely Scottish.  At the same time, birthed and on’ry are distinctively American.  (On’ry has of course connotations of cranky or cantankerous while also calling to mind the word ordinary).   

We owe this lovely song to a chance encounter between a young girl and a musician of creativity and imagination. Niles, and others like him, have preserved for us uncountable musical riches. How many Anne Morgans have wandered off into silence and darkness, their motor car spluttering out of the town square they were evicted from, their washing retrieved from hanging on the Confederate statue, Silent Sam, the statue itself long vanished? 

And how many songs are still out there? 

So, I couldn’t decide which video to share so I am including three.  You can hear John Jacob Niles sing the tune himself; my playing a jazz arrangement of it arranged by Michael Hassell; and finally, an elegant and phenomenally moving arrangement by the group, Chanticleer.     

Lo, How a Rose e’er Blooming

Text: Charles Wesley, 1744 
Tune: HYFRODOL, 1830
Arranged by: Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906 

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. 

Today’s Devotion:

Today’s devotion is paraphrased from the wonderful book entitled:  Songs for the Waiting Devotions Inspired By the Hymns of Advent.  2016. Magrey R. de Vega.  Published by Westminster John Knox Press. 

Scripture Read: Luke 1: 5-25, 57-80 

Silence…

In the opening verse of the Advent hymn, “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” we see a beautiful and peculiar phrase that describes the ancestors of our faith: “Of Jesse’s lineage coming as those of old have sung.” And in the story of Advent, one particular man of old sang of the coming of the promised one of Jesse’s lineage. But he was not able to come to that place of singing until he learned to incorporate silence. 

The author of this book of Advent carols relates how he had the lead in a musical version of The Christmas Carol and through the rehearsals became hoarse and lost his voice. He tried many remedies including an awful drink prepared by his assistant.  Having the drink ready for him as he came through the door to work, he discovered the drink did the trick. Instead of drinking it, he finally had the good sense to walk back out the door, go home, rest, live with the silence of not talking, and take care of himself as he should have.   

So, it is with us – The best remedy for your overworked and overwrought soul is silence, prayer, and quiet time with God.  And if you can do that, you will experience great healing.   

Just ask Zechariah. 

Zechariah was a religious leader, and a priest in the temple. One day, while doing his daily routine he was visited by an angel: Gabriel. 

The angel said “Don’t be afraid Zechariah, your prayers have been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will give birth to your son, and you must name him John” (Luke 1:13).  

Despite the great news, Zechariah doubted. His soul was troubled and confused, something we all can relate to. He asked, “How can I be certain of this? My wife and I are very old” (v. 18).  

We’re not certain why Zechariah doubted, but he did. Because of his doubt, God made him mute. Gabriel said:  

“I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” (vs. 19-20). 

It's easy to go to the assumption that God was angry with Zechariah’s doubt and wanted to punish him, but maybe an alternative viewpoint would be that God was giving Zechariah a gift. Maybe God felt Zechariah needed time to quiet his soul and mind. He needed 9 months to hear nothing but his thoughts and others around him. 

Zechariah was not ready to sing songs of hope because his lips were singing songs of despair, doubt, and uncertainty.   

As his wife Elizabeth went through her pregnancy, he remained silent, unable to contribute to the excitement of what was happening. As she went into labor, no words of solace. As he was born, there were no words of rejoicing.   

The day comes when the baby is to be named. His neighbors thought they would name the child after his dad, but Elizabeth replied that his name would be John, as decided by Gabriel. They were confused because of course there was not a John in the family. When Zechariah grabbed up a pen and paper and wrote the name, John, he finally got it. He understood the angel’s words and accepted God’s exciting promise for his life. His nine months of silence and reflection had worked. As his voice opened, the first thing he did was sing a song of Hope with everyone. 

If Zechariah’s story offers a lesson to us, what might it be? I think it reminds us that there is a value in a time of silence. 

If Zechariah were alive today, he would give us this simple advice: Quiet your life and hear the song. The song of Hope starts with a quiet whisper but ends in reverberant praise. This song can be quickly drowned out by worldly noise and ignored by human doubts. This song is for the world to hear and for you to sing.   

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Glory to God: 83

Text: Charles Wesley, 1744 
Tune: HYFRODOL, 1830
Arranged by: Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906 

Come, thou long-expected Jesus, 
born to set thy people free; 
from our fears and sins release us; 
let us find our rest in thee. 
 
Israel’s strength and consolation, 
hope of all the earth thou art; 
dear desire of every nation, 
joy of every longing heart. 
 
Born thy people to deliver, 
born a child and yet a king, 
born to reign in us forever, 
now thy gracious kingdom bring. 
 
By thine own eternal Spirit 
rule in all our hearts alone; 
by thine all-sufficient merit 
raise us to thy glorious throne. 

Today’s Devotion:

Today’s devotion is paraphrased from the wonderful book entitled: Songs for the Waiting Devotions Inspired By the Hymns of Advent, 2016, Magrey R. deVega.  Published by Westminster John Knox Press. 

Scripture Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-20 

Hope…

is one of Advent’s recurring themes. The biblical substance of hope is summarized beautifully in the second verse of “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.” It begins with the human condition, portraying humanity as needing deliverance. It speaks of the incarnation of Jesus, capturing both the humanity (child) and divinity (king) of Christ. It sweeps into the future, envisioning the rule and reign of Christ in the kingdom of “thy glorious throne.” 

There is a lot of hope in this hymn and the season of Advent. Hopefully, we can sing it. We can sing it hopefully. 

It has been noted that the word “Hopefully”, in the AP Stylebook agreed to change the usage of the word to take on a meaning that hopes to superimpose Hope onto whoever is being Hoped for.  “Hopefully, the team will make it to the playoffs.” “Hopefully the two sides can come together as one.” 

Hopefully (wink wink) you can see how this word has been manipulated into a third-person usage. 

For Advent pilgrims like us, the news of Christ’s upcoming birth reinforces what we should already know. It's more than just remembering the main characters of the Christmas pageant. Yes, we sense the hopeful anticipation of Mary’s heart and the hopeful obedience that marked Joseph’s spirit. We remember the hopeful words of the angels who broke through with amazing news to the shepherds and the hope that was born and wrapped in manger hay. 

But this is also the hope that we might find for ourselves. The second verse of today’s hymn names the hope deep within us for a God who would be born anew into the world: born to deliver us, born to be a king, born to reign forever, born to usher in a new kingdom. And it is a hope that this Jesus would fill the deepest parts of our existence, “in all our hearts alone, to cleanse us from our sin and heal us of our brokenness.” 

Advent Candles

When we light the Advent candles, when we gaze at the twinkling star lights on our Christmas trees, when we pause during our busy days and refocus our attention on the God who leads us on our journeys, then hopefully, hopefully, we become people of hope ourselves. 

This is not simply a time of fondly recollecting stories from long ago; it's also an invitation to allow these stories to sort through and soothe our conflicted lives so that the hope that God offers can become our own. For whatever reason you need hope today, may God’s richest promises and possibilities come to you and those you love. 

Let us then be full of hope. 

Today’s video inserts a middle verse between the two discussed today but I think you’ll love the arrangement. 

Philip 

Now Thank We All Our God

Text: Martin Rinkhart  1636
Translated by: Catherine Winkworth 

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

O may this bounteous God 
through all our life be near us, 
with ever joyful hearts 
and blessed peace to cheer us, 
to keep us in his grace, 
and guide us when perplexed, 
and free us from all ills 
of this world in the next. 

All praise and thanks to God 
the Father now be given, 
the Son and Spirit blest, 
who reign in highest heaven 
the one eternal God, 
whom heaven and earth adore; 
for thus it was, is now, 
and shall be evermore.  

Today’s Devotion:

IF it were possible to wish that the Canon of Scripture had been settled other than the way it has come to be known to us all, there are many who might have welcomed the Book of Ecclesiasticus.

Perhaps…

Its better to say it like this.  If a person were to read anything biblical that’s NOT a part of the Old and New Testaments, they would add one more book to the 66 that we already have.  That of the Book of Ecclesiasticus; for in that rich and ample treatise there is such deep wisdom, and much that would make a shrewd appeal to any modern reader who came on it for the first time.

A few might know the 38th chapter on the community of labor, and perhaps also the 39th on the religious physician; and most people know very well the scripture passage Rev. Chakoian read during All Saints service; Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. 

The 44th chapter begins the final section of the book which consists of a great pageant of history, rehearsing the glories of the heroes of Israel from Abraham to Nehemiah – like Hebrews chapter 9 but on a much larger scale and with a different intention.  The pageant closes in the 50th chapter with these words: 

And now, bless ye the God of all, 
Which everywhere doeth great things, 
Which exalteth our days from the womb, 
And dealeth with us to his mercy. 
May he grant us joyfulness of heart, 
And that peace may be in our days in Israel for the days of eternity; 
To intrust his mercy with us; 
And let him deliver us in his time! 

And there, of course, you have the original of “Now Thank We All Our God.” 

This most famous hymn of thanksgiving is known throughout churches across the globe, It is one of the truly universal hymns.  No serious attempt is ever made to sing it to any other tune but the one we have always sung it to.  It has gained and kept its popular place because of its brevity, its simplicity, its commonplace and unpretentious celebration of that brightest of Christian graces, gratitude.   

In our country, the hymn is usually kept for some occasions that particularly call for gratitude – the harvest festivals, a proclamation of peace, or some impressive deliverance.   

The true message of the hymn is not precisely that as much as we might want it to be.  Indeed it is almost a direct contradiction of its intention if we keep it only for feast days or national holidays, and all in all days we find it easy to thank God.  It is the mark of a person of faith, not that they distinguish between that for which they are grateful and for that which they are not grateful, but that they are grateful for ALL things, distinguishing only between those occasions when gratitude is a simple pleasure and those when it is a fortifying discipline.   

Recall Ecclesiaticus.  The point here is that God has done mighty things for his people over a period that historians may estimate at a mere 2500 years ago, but which was, for our purposes, the whole of history.  Gratitude is always due to God for what God has done through history’s heroes, through the Luthers, the Livinstones, the Pasteurs and Einsteins and Martin Luth Kings and Nelson Mandela and Gandhi; through faithful parents and teachers and men and women of God, through saints and preachers and doctors.  Those achievements of God in history stand as history.  Time does not reduce the debt of gratitude.  And now, more than this, more than all, a person can hardly feel like much of a mensch until they are able to feel at least once a day a sense of gratitude to God for Jesus Christ – for this birth and life and Passion and Resurrection:  for Christ’s skill and patience and courtesy and for all the gifts of the spirit, and for the mighty acts which he did and which men and women have done in his name.  “Who wondrous things have done:  in whom his world rejoices’  - gratitude is not a matter of humor or temperament; it is not even a duty that must be performed at stated and conventional times (though to practice it as a duty is better than to not practice at all).  Gratitude is the very breath of a Christian’s life.  

On one essential point let there be no mistake. Thankfulness between one person and another, and between God and mankind are two very different things.   

Gratitude between two people usually results in a debtedness.  Many folk fly in fear of being in debt to any one person. “I don’t want your charity” they cry in desperate defense of their self-respect. There are many who are great at collecting those debts of gratitude putting that person into an almost spiritual counterpoint to a Debtors prison.   

But there is nothing servile about our gratitude to God because the love of God is not smeared with patronage or pride. “It is a good thing,” the psalmist says “to give thanks to the Lord, yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful.”  That is literally true.  There are some saints on earth of whom you feel that it is a privilege to be grateful for them, not a humiliation.  It is so with God.  It is a poor act of public worship that contains no prayer of thanksgiving, no hymn of praise.  It is better to have too much gratitude in life than too much caution and calculation. 

It is no accident – it is, on the contrary, a great blessing and a great judgment – that this most famous hymn comes from the deep and gross darkness of the Thirty Years War.  Its context is not really the context of the idyllic country church decorated with cornflowers and fruit.  It is plague and bereavement and slaughter and famine.  And they say that the hymn began its life not as a choral hymn for cathedrals but as hymns sung as Grace before mealtimes. 

Thanksgiving in the midst of darkness, thanksgiving every day – these are the worship and the joy of Christian folk everywhere.  

Enjoy this hymn, arranged by John Rutter and sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir 

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
Glory to God: 366

HYFRODOL
Charles Wesley 1747 Text
Music Rowland Pritchard 1831

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of Heav’n to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation,
Enter every trembling heart.

Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit
Into every troubled breast!
Let us all in Thee inherit;
Let us find the promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.

Come, Almighty to deliver,
Let us all Thy life receive;
Suddenly return, and never,
Nevermore Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing,
Serve Thee as Thy hosts above,
Pray and praise Thee without ceasing,
Glory in Thy perfect love.

Finish, then, Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee;
Changed from glory into glory,
Till in Heav’n we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

This week I went into the vaults and pulled out a beloved hymn that I’ve talked about before. Enjoy! I’ve also included this time around some great biographical information about Charles Wesley. We cannot know enough about this awesome hymn composer who has given us so many of our beloved hymns.

Charles Wesley

(1707-1788) was a prolific hymn writer, writing over 9000 hymn texts in his lifetime. “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” was first published in a collection of hymns entitled Hymns for those that Seek, and those that Have, Redemption in the Blood of Christ (1747). The beginning of the text was a play on the opening line of John Dryden’s (1631-1700) poem “Fairest Isle, All Isles Excelling” set to music by Henry Purcell (1659-1695) in the generation before Charles Wesley was born.

The tunes BEECHER or HYFRYDOL typically accompany the text in most hymnals. The hymn is written around a progression of thoughts: (1) our prayers for the Holy Spirit, (2) praying for the return of our Lord through the second coming, and (3) prayers for the finalization of his new creation.

Charles Wesley, M.A. was the great hymn-writer of the Wesley family, perhaps, taking quantity and quality into consideration, the great hymn-writer of all ages. Charles Wesley was the youngest son and 18th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley and was born at Epworth Rectory, on Dec. 18, 1707. In 1716 he went to Westminster School, being provided with a home and board by his elder brother Samuel, then usher at the school, until 1721, when he was elected King's Scholar, and as such received his board and education free. In 1726 Charles Wesley was elected to a Westminster studentship at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took his degree in 1729 and became a college tutor. In the early part of the same year, his religious impressions were much deepened, and he became one of the first bands of "Oxford Methodists."

In 1735 he went with his brother John to Georgia, as secretary to General Oglethorpe, having before he set out received Deacon's and Priest's Orders on two successive Sundays. His stay in Georgia was very short; he returned to England in 1736, and in 1737 came under the influence of Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, especially of that remarkable man who had so large a share in molding John Wesley's career, Peter Bonier, and also of a Mr. Bray, a brazier in Little Britain. On Whitsunday, 1737, [sic. 1738] he "found rest to his soul," and in 1738 he became curate to his friend, Mr. Stonehouse, Vicar of Islington, but the opposition of the churchwardens was so great that the Vicar consented that he "should preach in his church no more." Henceforth his work was identified with that of his brother John, and he became an indefatigable itinerant and field preacher. On April 8, 1749, he married Miss Sarah Gwynne. His marriage, unlike that of his brother John, was the happiest one; his wife was accustomed to accompanying him on his evangelistic journeys, which were as frequent as ever until the year 1756," when he ceased to itinerate and mainly devoted himself to the care of the Societies in London and Bristol. Bristol was his headquarters until 1771 when he moved with his family to London, and, besides attending to the Societies, devoted himself much, as he had done in his youth, to the spiritual care of prisoners in Newgate. He had long been troubled about the relations of Methodism to the Church of England, and strongly disapproved of his brother John's "ordinations." Wesley-like, he expressed his disapproval in the most outspoken fashion, but, as in the case of Samuel at an earlier period, the differences between the brothers never led to a breach of friendship. He died in London, on March 29, 1788, and was buried in Marylebone churchyard. His brother John was deeply grieved because he would not consent to be interred in the burial ground of the City Road Chapel, where he had prepared a grave for himself, but Charles said, "I have lived, and I die, in the Communion of the Church of England, and I will be buried in the yard of my parish church." Eight clergymen of the Church of England bore his pall. He had a large family, four of whom survived him; three sons, who all became distinguished in the musical world, and one daughter, who inherited some of her father's poetical genius. His widow and orphans were treated with the greatest kindness and generosity by John Wesley.

As a hymn-writer Charles Wesley was unique. He is said to have written no less than 6500 hymns, and though, of course, in so vast a number some are of unequal merit, it is perfectly marvelous how many there are that rise to the highest degree of excellence. His feelings on every occasion of importance, whether private or public, found their best expression in a hymn. His own conversion, his own marriage, the earthquake panic, the rumors of an invasion from France, the defeat of Prince Charles Edward at Culloden, the Gordon riots, every Festival of the Christian Church, every doctrine of the Christian Faith, striking scenes in Scripture history, striking scenes which came within his own view, the deaths of friends as they passed away, one by one, before him, all furnished occasions for the exercise of his divine gift. Nor must we forget his hymns for little children, a branch of sacred poetry in which the mantle of Dr. Watts seems to have fallen upon him. It would be simply impossible within our space to enumerate even those of the hymns that have become really classical. The saying that a really good hymn is as rare an appearance as that of a comet is falsified by the work of Charles Wesley; for hymns, which are really good in every respect, flowed from his pen in quick succession, and death alone stopped the course of the perennial stream.

It has been the common practice, however for a hundred years or more to ascribe all translations from the German to John Wesley, as he only of the two brothers knew that language; and to assign to Charles Wesley all the original hymns except such as are traceable to John Wesley through his Journals and other works.

The list of 482 original hymns by John and Charles Wesley listed in this Dictionary of Hymnology have formed an important part of our hymnody and show the enormous influence of the Wesleys on the English hymnody of the nineteenth century.

-- Excerpts from John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907) 

This arrangement of the HYFRODOL tune, by Joel Raney.

Give Thanks, O Christian People

Glory to God: 644

Text: Mary Jackson Cathey b. 1926

Give thanks, O Christian people, for workers of our day
Who heed the call to service and make it their life’s way
To go to feed the hungry, to tend to those in need,
To work for equal justice, till all God’s folk are freed.

Give thanks, O Christian people, for leaders of our years
Who live to share with others our joy when Christ appears,
To teach the ones who seek light, to guide the faltering feet,
To lead the followers forward. our living Lord to meet.

Give thanks, O Christian people, for all who love the Lord
Who live each day believing in God’s eternal Word:
To share Christ’s love in living, to witness with each deed,
To use the talents given to plant the gospel seed.

Give thanks, O Christian people, for life in fellowship
With all who trust our Savior their serving to equip:
To ease another’s burdens, to cope in joy and stress,
To magnify God’s message and Christ’s great love confess.

Today’s Devotion:

“Give thanks, O Christian people, for workers of our day who heed the call to service and make it their life’s way to go feed the hungry, to tend to those in need, to work for equal justice, till all God’s folk are freed.”

This and the other verses were written to honor the ministry of a colleague and are an effective reminder that God’s people serve in many vocations and ministries.

Mary Jackson Cathey

The author is Mary Jackson Cathey (b. 1926), an Elder at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and former Director of its Christian Education program. Mary Jackson Cathey (b. 1926) was born in Florence, SC, and educated at Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC. She received an advanced degree from Union Seminary - Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond.

As a Christian Educator, she finds hymn text writing a profound way to express her faith. Her hymns have won contests sponsored by The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, and a number of her poems have been published by John Knox Press, The Pilgrim Press, and Hope Publishing. She has four hymns to her credit in The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990) and others published by Selah Press, Choristers Guild, and Zimbel Press. She is an elder at the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC. She finds hymn writing as a profound way to express her faith.

The tune, “Es Flog ein Kleins Waldvogelein” (the flight of a small forest bird), is a German folk tune that first was published in an early 17th-century manuscript collection from Memmingen, Germany.

Come, Ye Thankful People Come

Glory to God: 367

Text: Henry Alford 1844
Music: George Job Elvey 1858

Come, ye thankful people, come,
raise the song of harvest home;
all is safely gathered in,
ere the winter storms begin.
God our Maker doth provide
for our wants to be supplied;
come to God's own temple, come,
raise the song of harvest home.

All the world is God's own field,
fruit as praise to God we yield;
wheat and tares together sown
are to joy or sorrow grown;
first the blade and then the ear,
then the full corn shall appear;
Lord of harvest, grant that we
wholesome grain and pure may be.

For the Lord our God shall come,
and shall take the harvest home;
from the field shall in that day
all offenses purge away,
giving angels charge at last
in the fire the tares to cast;
but the fruitful ears to store
in the garner evermore.

Even so, Lord, quickly come,
bring thy final harvest home;
gather thou thy people in,
free from sorrow, free from sin,
there, forever purified,
in thy presence to abide;
come, with all thine angels, come,
raise the glorious harvest home.

Today’s Devotion:

I love the hymn this week. I originally shared it on November 8, 2021, and it deserves to be shared again as I have been hard at work to prepare once again for the Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service and Pie Reception, yes, it has returned!

As we prepare for Thanksgiving, I wanted to share one of the most beloved hymns of this time of year. It will also be sung at the Ecumenical Thanksgiving Service on November 19 at 7 p.m., here at First Presbyterian.

Henry Alford

Born into a long line of Anglican clergymen, Alford was raised early by his father and later by his uncle, Rev. Samuel Alford, due to his mother’s death during his birth. This instability resulted in his early education being scattered between private tutoring and a variety of schools, but in 1827 he became a scholar at Trinity College where he received all his secondary education (B.A. 1832, M.A. 1835).

He was ordained a priest in the Anglican church in 1834, served in the vicarage at Wymeswold in Leicestershire (18 years), at Quebec Street Chapel in Marylebone, London (4 years), and as Dean of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Christ Church, Canterbury, England (14 years).

This hymn first appeared in Alford’s Psalms and Hymns adapted to the Sundays and Holy days throughout the year (1844). Methodisthymnologist J. Richard Watson details several revisions of the text both by Alford and others, resulting in the author’s final revision in 1868 (Watson, Canterbury Dictionary, n.p.). In this hymn, Alford used traditional language and imagery of the rural community to lend words of thankfulness for God’s provision and to expand upon Matthew 13:24–30

Tom Stewart, in his writing, says:

[The hymn] addresses the common theme of harvest festivals, called in England the Harvest Home, which is celebrated in English churches usually during the month of September. A thanksgiving service would be held in the church, where the bounty of the harvest is collected, displayed with the fall trappings of pumpkins and autumn leaves, and then dispensed to the needy. And, of course, unlike the humanist that is essentially grateful to only himself, a true Harvest Home celebration acknowledges the provision of God, as did the Pilgrims in 1621 and the ancient Hebrews in their Feast of First Fruits in the spring on the first day after Passover at the time of the barley harvest. (Stewart, 2016, n.p.)

The eminent minister and hymnologist, Erik Routley(1917–1982), took great offense at this hymn in his book, Hymns Today and Tomorrow. For the most part, his criticism concerns the musical setting, ST. GEORGE’S WINDSON, yet Routley feels that it is “extremely doubtful whether the [imagery of the last judgment] makes any impact on congregations at all”(Routley, 1964, p. 126). The hymn is complex, but it is by no means obscure or opaque.

The first stanza focuses directly on the physical harvest, an image used throughout scripture from early in Genesis through Revelation. We give thanks for the physical harvest as we give thanks for our daily bread in the Lord’s Prayer. Thanksgiving begins with the most concrete blessings in our lives. As well as a physical harvest, the first stanza alludes to Jesus’ remark in all three synoptic gospels—the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, and the thankful people who are called to come are those who have already been sent by the Lord of the harvest, Jesus Christ.

The second stanza begins Alford’s expansion upon the parable of Jesus concerning the wheat and the tares (weeds) from Matthew 13:24–30. It is a challenging parable, which Alford interprets in this hymn to describe how joy and sorrow grow together in life, and how God does not eliminate sorrow until after the final harvest when God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4. (NRSV).

The third and fourth stanzas move more directly to the apocalyptic reference, “For the Lord our God shall come.” Erik Routley felt this imagery out of place. However, connecting thanksgiving with the coming of Jesus is imagery that is used at every celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

The hymn tune ST. GEORGE’S WINDSOR, composed in 1856 by George J. Elvey (1816–1893) for the hymn “Hark! The Song of Jubilee,” has been associated with “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come” since the publication of Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861). As noted above, some reviewers of the hymn have pointed to the incongruity of this sturdy and joyful tune with these words, but there is some beauty in this pairing as well, especially with text painting at some points. Among others, one such case is the use of a dotted rhythm, balanced throughout the music, as a compelling invitation to sing, notably on the opening “Come.” One might also notice the phrase “all is safely gathered in” where the pitch begins and ends on A but feels “gathered” by the use of the neighboring tones, Bb and G. Midway through the hymn, the phrases, “first the blade and then the ear, then the full corn shall appear,” are sung in an ascending sequence that seems almost like corn growing in the field. Later, the leap upward for ‘raise the song’ and ‘raise the glorious’ helps to paint the intent of the final phrases in stanzas 1 and 4.

Regardless of Routley’s misgivings, the discerning hymn singer cannot help but appreciate the vibrant eschatological final stanza that amplifies Christ’s parable. It is offered here in the author’s original language and punctuation:

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

William Cowper (1731-1800)
Text: 1774

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
of never-failing skill;
He treasures up His bright designs,
and works His sov'reign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
the clouds ye so much dread
are big with mercy and shall break
in blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
but trust Him for His grace;
behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
unfolding every hour;
the bud may have a bitter taste,
but sweet will be the flow'r.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
and scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
and He will make it plain.

Today’s Devotion:

I love the hymn this week. You will see that, even though it was written in 1774, it’s text still rings true today. Be sure to check out the varied interpretations of the text in the YouTube examples below. Today’s article comes to us once again from Eric Routley’s wonderful book; Hymns of the Faith printed in 1954.

St. John 8:7

The author of this hymn (the only great classical English poet who was also a hymn writer) wrote above his verses, “St. John 8:7’; and the reference is to the saying of Jesus, “What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.” This is a hymn of a very rare and gracious kind, a hymn of the mystery of God’s being and acts.

It runs so smoothly, its lines are so neat and quotable, its thought so familiar, that it is easy to miss the genius of it. But let a man attempt a description of the mystery of God, let him attempt it in prose, let alone in verse, and it is tolerably certain that the statement in the end will be a series of negatives. It’s easy to use superlatives like Immortal, Invisible, Unapproachable, Incomprehensible, Uncreated and all the rest. These are far better than most men can conjure but they are no help in our faith. When a man can present us with the mystery, the otherness of God, and then put it all so positively that our belief and confidence are strengthened, when such a man can tell us of God’s bright designs, his generous mercy, and his grace, then we are in the presence of a true prophet.

The Old Testament is full of superlatives of God; God the Absolute, the object of devout adoration. We cannot rob God of those titles which are his prerogative to keep. “God moves in a mysterious way” is the work of a humble and sensitive man, whose own way became darker as life went on until he fell into a total mental night; but it is still a hymn of great and outward-looking faith.

It has, of course, but one thing to say, and It says it over and over again. God’s ways are not our ways, it says, but this we know, and can trust, that God is love, and that all his acts are subject to that. Of this, the Old Testament is particularly full, especially the second part of Isaiah. Tracing the works of God in history, the relation between God’s plan and the movements of the great political powers, he cries out, “Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself!’ Making a final appeal to men to leave the fashionable frivolity of a prosperous commercial society and return to what can be bought without money and without recourse to the black market, he says, ‘My ways are not your ways, saith the Lord, neither are my thoughts your thoughts’ (chapter 55). A lesser man might have been well content to say “Go to church and all will be well.”

Who will believe in the grace and power of a God who can be reduced to trivial human categories? Who will be comforted by news of such a God? Who will be judged and brought to repentance by such a one? The very mystery of God, the very remoteness and otherness of him is bound up in his grace. He has promised his protection, his healing, his friendship. ‘ Seek the Lord, for he may be found; call ye upon him for he is near’; yes indeed, but when you find him, when you know him near, still he is God, and his thoughts are not your thoughts; he holds the secrets of life and unlocks them at his own discretion, not at our request. “God is his own interpreter’; trust him for his grace.

The lines we know were born of great suffering by the poet, Cowper. They come not from a man about to emerge from darkness, but a man about to descend into it. They are the more powerful for that. TO all who now walkin darkness or dear they bring a message their author could not, in the end make his own – the very darkness, the withholding of light and clear guidance, are a sign of God’s grace and power – “Put your hand into the hand of God” – so runs that passage which King George VI made famous during the war-“Put your hand into the hand of God: that shall be better than a light, and safer than a known way. Better and safer: for it is safer to trust a God that doesn’t tell you his plans but promises victory than to some lesser being who has neither the mystery or the power.

Taken by itself, the hymn may leave us slightly chilled. Is faith then, blind? By what authority can a man say that we know nothing, yet God is loving and merciful in his purposes? On what authority may a man trust this kind of proposition when he lies wasting away with an incurable disease, or when bereavement has taken away the light of his house? The author answers that question in his Scripture reference, by reminding men of Christ. The love of God made clear and tangible in Christ is the authority. The course of that life and that victory are enough to make an honest man able to believe that the purposes of God are both irresistible and also loving, that God acts in history with a royal gentleness. With the figure of Christ before him, that man can trust the purposes of God.

Where Charity and Love Prevail

Glory to God: 316

Text: Latin, 8, century 
Translated by: Omer Westendorf, 1960 
Music: Lucius Chapin 1812 

Where charity and love prevail, 
There God is ever found; 
Brought here together by Christ’s love, 
By love we thus are bound. 

Let us recall that in our midst 
Dwells Christ, God’s holy Son. 
As members of each body joined, 
In him we are made one. 

Let strife among us be unknown; 
Let all contentions cease. 
Be God’s the Glory that we seek; 
Be his our only peace. 

Let us forgive each other’s faults 
As we our own confess, 
That we may love each other well 
In Christian gentleness. 

Love can exclude no race or creed 
If honored be God’s name; 
Our common life embraces 
All whose Maker is the same. 

Today’s Devotion:

Today’s Hymn of the Week, outside of Maundy Thursday and Ash Wednesday services, has wonderful text; in that it can be sung when singing about the Unity with Christ. 

Omer Westendorf,

one of the earliest lyricists for Roman Catholic liturgical music in English, died on October 22, 1997, at the age of eighty-one. 

Born on February 24, 1916, Omer got his start in music publishing after World War II, when he brought home for his parish choir in Cincinnati some of the Mass settings he had discovered in Holland. He was educated at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.  He took the position as Music Director of St. Bonaventure Catholic church in Cincinnati and recorded and composed with this choir for many years.  

Interest in the new music being published in Europe led to his creation of the World Library of Sacred Music, initially a music-importing firm that brought much of this new European repertoire to U.S. parishes. Operating out of a garage in those early years, Omer often joked about the surprised expressions of visitors who stopped by and found a wide range of sheet music in various states of “storage” (read disarray). Later, as World Library Publications, the company began publishing some of its own music, including new works with English texts by some of those same Dutch composers, for example, Jan Vermulst. In 1955 World Library published the first edition of  The Peoples Hymnal, which would become the People's Mass Book in 1964, one of the first hymnals to reflect the liturgical reforms proposed by Vatican II. Omer also introduced the music of Lucien Deiss to Catholic parishes through the two volumes of  Biblical Hymns and Psalms. 

Using his own name and several pen names, Omer composed numerous compositions for liturgical use, though his best-known works may be the texts for the hymns “Where Charity and Love Prevail,” “Sent Forth by God’s Blessing,” and especially “Gift of Finest Wheat.” As he lay dying, his family and friends gathered around his bed to sing his text “Shepherd of Souls, in Love, Come, Feed Us.” NPM honored Omer as its Pastoral Musician of the Year in 1985. 

“Where Charity and Love Prevail” (1961) provides an English hymn version of a 9th-century Latin hymn, “Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est” (Where there is charity and love, God is there) based on 1 John 4:16. Traditionally, this is the final hymn on Maundy Thursday, called in the Latin tradition  Mandatum novum (New Commandment), referring to the act of washing of the disciples’ feet initiated by Jesus. 

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

--liturgicalleaders.blogspot.com/2008

I Love You, Lord

Glory to God: 627

Text: Laurie Klein 1976

I love you, Lord
And I lift my voice
To worship you
Oh my soul rejoice
Take joy, my king
In what you hear
May it be a sweet sweet sound
In your ear

Today’s Devotion:

Today’s Hymn of the Week comes from Discipleship Ministries. History of Hymns.

Laurie Klein

The brief lyrics (see https://genius.com/Laurie-klein-i-love-you-lord-lyrics) penned by Laurie Klein (née Brendemuehl, 1950) in 1976 are some of the most widely recorded in all of contemporary Christian worship, having been covered at least 70 times by the year 2000.

Beyond that, they are some of the most sung by believers the world over, appearing in more than 25 hymnals. Their elegant simplicity, theological openness, and sincerity have made them an endearing and enduring contribution to Christian hymnody. Yet interestingly, they do not arise from a popular, or polished, or even professional composer, but rather seem to have arisen out of austerity and longing.

Klein, a native of Wisconsin, displayed musical talent and interest at a young age. Encouraged by her mother, she learned to play piano, autoharp, and guitar. She started writing songs at age 16, the first one titled “Loving Unconditionally.” At age 24, she met and married Bill Klein while at Central Oregon Community College. Their life was simple and difficult, as they started a family with no money to spare. Laurie described “I Love You, Lord” as “a gift from heaven” – as the lines flowed effortlessly, one after the other. She has published about a dozen songs and is a freelance writer of poetry, devotional thoughts, and personal experience (Terry, 2002, 97-100).

As Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald note, Laurie Klein was a young mother, living in a small camper while her husband attended college in 1974 (by Klein’s own account it was 1976). Isolated in the Oregon wilderness, she had no community, no nearby friends, and no local church body to call home. Making things worse, she did not drive, so she could not go visit friends or family who lived farther away than within walking distance. Her loneliness drove her to invest more fully in her daily time of devotion to God. The song rose out of her daily quiet time in the morning before her toddler woke up. The words tumbled out of her mouth as she was quietly playing guitar. Recognizing that they had some merit, she quickly wrote them down (Christensen and MacDonald, 2000, 68-69; Klein, 2001, n.p.).

Later, she sang the song for her husband, who suggested she play it for a local pastor and some musicians. The song found its way to Jack Hayford’s Church on the Way in Van Nuys, California, and was recorded by several musicians of the budding Christian music scene, including Buck and Annie Herring (2nd Chapter of Acts). The song gained greater recognition when it was released on Maranatha! Music’s Praise 4: In His Time (1980). Since then, the song has “quietly made its way around the world” (Klein 2001, n.p.).

Klein describes herself as a “lifelong creative with a growing contemplative streak,” and notes that she has “switched hats more often than hobos in a vaudeville skit.” Currently, she “scribes” on her blog, lauriekleinscribe.com, which includes reflections on nature, beauty, and human experiences—all through the lens of an ongoing relationship with God. She wrote a short account of her life at the time she penned “I Love You, Lord” titled “Tulips in the Desert” which she was kind enough to send me during my research for this essay. (She notes that it was originally published in Stories for the Spirit Filled Believer [2001, 94-97].) In it, Klein describes the wilderness of life in her mid-twenties as a time of waiting on God.

The Significance of This Hymn

The significance of “I Love You, Lord” does not lie in the celebrity of its composer, nor in its magnificence as a work of art, but in its sustained ability to interact with other songs and productions in the contemporary worship music (CWM) oeuvre. It expresses something profound about our relationship with God that resists efforts to co-opt it into some sort of political agenda— the attempts of popular preachers such as John Piper to bend the song’s theology to fit their schemes, notwithstanding.

While the story of the song’s origin is no doubt told in a way that reflects a late-evangelical/neo-charismatic theology of human agency coupled with God’s immanent and ongoing engagement with humanity, the song itself does not preclude other theological positions. This is perhaps nowhere as obvious as in its manifold covers and recordings. While Christensen and MacDonald note that the rock band Petra had recorded the song on Petra Praise 2, the song has also been featured by less accessible acts, such as hardcore-ska act Five Iron Frenzy, who closed many concerts with a performance of the piece during their initial iteration (1995-2003) and included the first few lines in the fadeout of their live album, Proof that the Youth are Revolting (1999).

As I read Klein’s account in “Tulips,” I found myself thinking back to when I was that age and remembered my own wildernesses. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t occasionally sing “I Love You, Lord” softly as I traversed those barren lands. There is something very honest about that song, something that continues to resonate, quietly, through the forests and deserts, hilltops and valleys of life. There is something theologically rich about it—the central ethic of our faith: love of God. Even when we don’t feel it. Even when God is silent. Maybe that’s when God is listening. May our words be a “sweet, sweet sound” in that ear.

SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

Christine Boley, ed., Stories for the Spirit-Filled Believer (Croydon Park, South Australia: Starburst Publishers, 2001).

Phil Christensen and Shari MacDonald, Our God Reigns: The Stories Behind Your Favorite Praise and Worship Songs (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 2000).

Laurie Klein, “Scribe: Immerse in God, Emerge Refreshed,” https://lauriekleinscribe.com. _____, “Tulips in the Desert,” personal correspondence with the author.

Lindsay Terry, The Sacrifice of Praise: Stories Behind the Greatest Praise and Worship Songs of All Time (Nashville: Integrity Publishers, 2002).

Nathan Myrick, a native of Warroad, MN, received his M.A. in theology from Fuller Seminary, and PhD in church music from Baylor University. His research focuses on musical activity and human flourishing in the context of Christian communities. He has produced two musical albums and numerous articles and book chapters. He is currently an assistant professor of church music at the Townsend School of Music, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia.

Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty

Text: Joachim Neander 1680 
Music Hymn Tune: Lobe Den Herren 

Praise ye the Lord, the Almighty,  
the King of creation! 
O my soul, praise him,  
for he is thy health and salvation! 
All ye who hear, 
now to his temple draw near; 
join me in glad adoration! 
 
Praise ye the Lord, who o'er all things  
so wondrously reigneth, 
shelters thee under his wings,  
yea, so gently sustaineth! 
Hast thou not seen 
how thy desires e'er have been 
granted in what he ordaineth? 
 
Praise ye the Lord! O let all  
that is in me adore him! 
All that hath life and breath,  
come now with praises before him! 
Let the amen 
sound from his people again; 
gladly for aye we adore him. 

Today’s Devotion:

Today’s information about the interesting life of Joachim Neander comes to us from the website, www.hymnary.org  

Neander, Joachim,

was born at Bremen, in 1650, as the eldest child of the marriage of Johann Joachim Neander and Catharina Knipping, which took place on Sept. 18, 1649, the father being then master of the Third Form in the Paedagogium at Bremen. The family name was originally Neumann (Newman) or Niemann, but the grandfather of the poet had assumed the Greek form of the name, i.e. Neander.

After passing through the Paedagogium he entered himself as a student at the Gymnasium illustre (Academic Gymnasium) of Bremen in Oct. 1666. German student life in the 17th century was anything but refined, and Neander seems to have been as riotous and as fond of questionable pleasures as most of his fellows. In July 1670, Theodore Under-Eyck came to Bremen as pastor of St. Martin's Church, with the reputation of a Pietist and holder of conventicles. Not long after Neander, with two like-minded comrades, went to service there one Sunday, in order to criticise and find matter of amusement. But the earnest words of Under-Eyck touched his heart; and this, with his subsequent conversations with Under-Eyck, proved the turning-point of his spiritual life. In the spring of 1671 he became tutor to five young men, mostly, if not all, sons of wealthy merchants at Frankfurt-am-Main, and accompanied them to the University of Heidelberg, where they seem to have remained till the autumn of 1673, and where Neander learned to know and love the beauties of Nature. The winter of 1673-74 he spent at Frankfurt with the friends of his pupils, and here he became acquainted with P. J. Spener (q.v.) and J. J. Schütz (q.v.) In the spring of 1674 he was appointed Rector of the Latin school at Düsseldorf (see further below). Finally, in 1679, he was invited to Bremen as unordained assistant to Under-Eyck at St. Martin's Church, and began his duties about the middle of July. The post was not inviting, and was regarded merely as a stepping stone to further preferment, the remuneration being a free house and 40 thalers a year, and the Sunday duty being a service with sermon at the extraordinary hour of 5 a.m. Had he lived, Under-Eyck would doubtless have done his best to get him appointed to St. Stephen's Church, the pastorate of which became vacant in Sept., 1680. But meantime Neander himself fell into a decline, and died at Bremen May 31, 1680 (Joachim Neander, sein Leben und seine Lieder. With a Portrait. By J. F. Iken, Bremen, 1880; Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, xxiii. 327, &c.) 

Neander was the first important hymn-writer of the German Reformed Church since the times of Blaurer and Zwick. His hymns appear to have been written mostly at Düsseldorf, after his lips had been sealed to any but official work. The true history of his unfortunate conflict has now been established from the original documents, and may be summarized thus.

The school at Düsseldorf was entirely under the control of the minister and elders of the Reformed Church there. The minister from about July, 1673, to about May, 1677, was Sylvester Lürsen (a native of Bremen, and only a few years older than Neander), a man of ability and earnestness, but jealous, and, in later times at least, quarrelsome. With him Neander at first worked harmoniously, frequently preaching in the church, assisting in the visitation of the sick, &c. But he soon introduced practices which inevitably brought on a conflict. He began to hold prayer meetings of his own, without informing or consulting minister or elders; he began to absent himself from Holy Communion, on the ground that he could not conscientiously communicate along with the unconverted, and also persuaded others to follow this example; and became less regular in his attendance at the ordinary services of the Church. Besides these causes of offence he drew out a new timetable for the school, made alterations on the school buildings, held examinations and appointed holidays without consulting any one. The result of all this was a Visitation of the school on Nov. 29, 1676, and then his suspension from school and pulpit on Feb. 3, 1677. On Feb. 17 he signed a full and definite declaration by which "without mental reservations" he bound himself not to repeat any of the acts complained of; and thereupon was permitted to resume his duties as rector but not as assistant minister. The suspension thus lasted only 14 days, and his salary was never actually stopped. The statements that he was banished from Düsseldorf, and that he lived for months in a cave in the Neanderthal near Mettmann are therefore without foundation. Still his having had to sign such a document was a humiliation which he must have felt keenly, and when, after Lürsen's departure, the second master of the Latin school was appointed permanent assistant pastor, this feeling would be renewed. 

 Neander thus thrown back on himself, found consolation in communion with God and Nature, and in the composition of his hymns. Many were without doubt inspired by the scenery of the Neanderthal (a lovely valley with high rocky sides, between which flows the little river Düssel); and the tradition is probable enough that some of them were composed in a cave there. A number were circulated among his friends at Düsseldorf in MS., but they were first collected and published after his removal to Bremen, and appeared as:— 

A und Ώ, Joachimi Neandri Glaub-und Liebesübung: — auffgemuntert durch ein fällige Bundes Lieder und Danck-Psalmen, Bremen, Hermann Brauer, 1680; 2nd ed. Bremen, 1683 ; 3rd ed. Bremen, 1687; 4th ed. Frankfurt, 1689. These editions contain 57 hymns. In the 5th ed., Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1691, edited by G. C. Strattner, eight hymns were added as being also by Neander. [The whole of these eds. are in the Royal Library, Berlin. The so-called 3rd. ed. at Wesel, 1686, also found in Berlin, was evidently pirated.] Other editions rapidly followed till we find the complete set (i.e. 57 or 58) formally incorporated as part of a hymnbook, e.g. in the Marburg Reformed Gesang-Buch, 1722, where the first part consists of Lobwasser's Psalter, the second of Neander's Bundeslieder, and the third of other hymns.

Neander's Bundeslieder also form a division of the Lemgo Reformed Gesang-Buch, 1722; and of a favourite book used in the meetings conducted by G. Tersteegen, which in the 5th ed., Solingen, 1760, has the title Gott-geheiligtes Harfen-Spiel der Kinder Zion; bestehend in Joachimi Neandri sämtlichen Bundes-Liedern, &c. In this way, especially in the district near Düsseldorf and on the Ruhr, Neander's name was honoured and beloved long after it had passed out of memory at Bremen.  

Many of Neander's hymns were speedily received into the Lutheran hymnbooks, and are still in universal use. The finest are the jubilant hymns of Praise and Thanksgiving, such as his "Lobe den Herren”, and those setting forth the Majesty of God in His works of beauty and wonder in Nature, such as his "Himmel, Erde", and "Unbegreiflich Gut"; while some of his hymns of Penitence, such as his "Sieh hier bin ich, Ehrenkönig" (q.v.), are also very beautiful. Many are of a decidedly subjective cast, but for this the circumstances of their origin, and the fact that the author did not expect them to be used in public worship, will sufficiently account. Here and there there are doubtless harshnesses, and occasionally imagery which is rather jarring; and naturally enough the characteristic expressions and points of view of German 17th cent. Pietism and of the "Covenant Theology" are easily enough detected. But the glow and sweetness of his better hymns, their firm faith, originality, Scripturalness, variety and mastery of rhythmical forms, and genuine lyric character fully entitled them to the high place they hold. 

Earth and All Stars
Glory to God: 26

God’s Work, Our Hands

Earth Text: Herbert Frederick Brokering, 1964

Earth and All Stars

Earth and all stars, loud rushing planets, sing to the Lord a new song! 
Hail, wind, and rain, loud blowing snowstorms, sing to the Lord a new song! 
God has done marvelous things. We, too, sing praises with a new song! 

 Trumpet and pipes, loud clashing cymbals, sing to the Lord a new song! 
Harp, lute, and lyre, loud humming cellos, sing to the Lord a new song! 
God has done marvelous things. We, too, sing praises with a new song! 

 Engines and steel!  Loud pounding hammers! Sing to the Lord a new song! 
Limestone and beams!  Loud building workers! Sing to the Lord a new song! 
God has done marvelous things. We, too, sing praises with a new song! 

 Knowledge and truth, loud sounding wisdom, sing to the Lord a new song! 
Daughter and son, loud praying members, sing to the Lord a new song! 
God has done marvelous things. We, too, sing praises with a new song! 

God’s Work Text: Wayne Wold, 2019

God’s Work, Our Hands

God's work, our hands: working together, 
building a future, repairing the world, 
raising up homes, planting new gardens, 
feeding the hungry and sheltering the cold. 
Bless, God, our hands as we work in your name, 
sharing the good news of your Gospel. 

 God's work, our feet: traveling together, 
following Jesus to places unknown, 
walking as friends, marching for freedom, 
running the race with God's future the goal. 
Bless, God, our feet as we follow your way, 
sharing the good news of your Gospel. 

 God's work, our voice: singing together, 
praising, proclaiming to all who will hear, 
praying for peace, shouting for justice, 
claiming God's love for the lost and the least. 
Bless, God, our voice as we speak in your name, 
sharing the good news of our Gospel. 

 God is at work in and around us: 
seedlings are sprouting and bread's on the rise! 
Washed and set free, humbled and honored, 
gifted by grace, we respond in God's love. 
Bless, God, our lives as we answer your call, 
sharing the good news of your Gospel. 

Today’s Devotion:

Two Hymns for One! This week’s hymn is a tune with 2 different texts and messages.

Our First Hymn,

Earth and All Stars is a hymn that was written back in 1964 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN.   It quickly made its way into the Lutheran hymnal in 1969.  

It, like many of the hymns of Wesley and Watts, contains many verses that address a variety of celebrations within the church.  While not listed in our hymnal, this is the hymn tune that contains a verse about learning at school with text that includes test tubes, athletes, and bands.  There are also stunning verses that reflect on the Easter season.  

About this hymn, Brokering has said the following: I tried to gather into a hymn of praise the many facets of life that emerge in the life of community. So, there are references to building, nature, learning, family, war, festivity. Seasons, emotions, death and resurrection, bread, wine, water, wind, sun, spirit. . . have made great impressions on my imagination. 

"Earth and All Stars" is a catalog text, inviting us to join with a whole host of natural and cultural phenomena to "sing to the Lord a new song!" The text alludes to Psalm 96:1 in each stanza and to Psalm 98:1 in the refrain. But Brokering presents a modern list of natural, manufactured, and inanimate things that join in praising the Lord: planets in cosmic order (st. 1); weather and vegetation (st. 2); musical instruments (st. 3); technology and building (st. 4); learning and athletics (st. 5); wisdom, and all of God's people (st. 6). 

A prolific author, Brokering is currently a freelance consultant on worship and ministry. Specializing in religious education, he studied at Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa; the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Columbus, Ohio; the University of Iowa; and the University of Erlangen, Germany. Brokering is a prominent figure in the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches and has served as a parish pastor in several Lutheran congregations. His writings include Lord, Be with Me (1969), Lord, If (1977), and texts for hymns, anthems, cantatas, and musicals. 

God’s Work, Our Hands

A hymn titled “God’s Work, Our Hands,” written by Wayne Wold, was selected as the winning entry in the ELCA’s “God’s work. Our hands.” Sunday hymn contest in 2019. More than 120 entries were submitted to be considered as a hymn for the ELCA’s annual dedicated day of service. The selected hymn represents the official tagline of the ELCA and expresses how the people of this church live in service for the life of the world. The selected hymn includes music to a familiar tune as well as music to an original composition. The hymn is available as a year-round worship resource.   

Wayne Wold is a professor and chair of the music department at Hood College in Frederick, Md., where he also serves as concert manager and college organist. He is also the director of music ministry at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ellicott City, Md. 

Enjoy reading the different texts and listening to how the text fits this now well-known tune.  

Hymn of the Week: O Jesus I Have Promised

This week's Hymn was originally sent on September 13, 2021.

O Jesus I Have Promised
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.

John Ernest Bode (1816-1874) has given the church one of its most enduring hymns of Christian discipleship. It was so popular that Bishops in the Church of England were weary of singing it and discouraged its use at confirmations. Born in London, John Ernest Bode was educated at both Eton and Charterhouse, as well as Christ Church, Oxford (B.A., 1837; M.A., 1840). His service as a Fellow of Christ Church (1841-1847) included taking Holy Orders as a deacon in 1841 and priest, 1843. Bode served as a vicar at Westwell, Oxfordshire and Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire.

A high point in his life was an invitation to deliver the prestigious Bampton Lectures at Oxford (1855). The lectures were later published as The Absence of Precision in the Formularies of the Church of England, scriptural and favorable to a State of Probation, and anti-Catholicism tract delivered in the face of the rising success of Catholicism in England at the time. His academic aspirations were sidetracked when he was defeated for a Professorship of Poetry at Oxford in 1857 by the distinguished and influential poet Matthew Arnold (1822-1888). In addition to books of poetry, his major hymn publication was Hymns from the Gospel of the Day for each Sunday and Festivals of our Lord (1860).

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).

Stanza two is particularly appropriate for confirmation, discouraging the ways of the world – “the sights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear” – and evil influences – “my foes are ever near me, around me and within.” Stanza three dissuades the confirmand from the ways of the flesh: to rise “above the storms of passion, the murmurs of self will.”

More than fifty years after its publication, composer and hymnal editor Percy Dearmer noted its overuse in his Songs of Praise Discussed (1933), “Bishops have been known to implore their clergy that this hymn should not be sung at all the Confirmations they attend.”

C. Michael Hawn is a University Distinguished Professor of Church Music, Perkins School of Theology, SMU.