Missing things are often interesting.
Take jigsaw puzzles. If it has a thousand pieces and, on using all that are available, one is missing then that is the one that gains all your attention.
To me this works in other things. Not least hymns. How many times, for example, have churchgoers sung the Wesley hymn And can it be and assumed (because it flows) that it is intact? Well it isn't.
Including a little of the traditional verses four and then the final verse, here is the original verse 5:
. . . My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
Still the small inward voice I hear,
That whispers all my sins forgiven;
Still the atoning blood is near,
That quenched the wrath of hostile Heaven.
I feel the life His wounds impart;
I feel the Saviour in my heart.
No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine . . .
For any worship leader or organist the advantages of removing this verse are obvious. Its personal, reflective words would rudely interrupt the grand musical transition from the victorious end of verse 4 to the equally victorious beginning of the final verse. The musician has an ally in many a theologian. What's all this about hostile Heaven? How could a cuddly god be hostile toward sin? If god loves us she/he must at least love in a small way all the stuff we do - she/he could never inhabit a hostility? Why, we'd have to put her/him on a register if she/he wasn't careful!
But then again. What if God really hates sin? What if having rose up and followed thee I begin to share his loathing of it. Then I do not just need a tuba stop or drum roll of confidence - I need a whisper. A whisper that God and I can walk together even though he hates sin and I still at times like it rather too much.
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