Great (Hymn) One Liners 2. God's Hands

 In this series of blogs I'm looking at some of the great lines in hymns and songs in the Christian faith.  Of course these do not carry the weight of great texts from the Bible, but many summarise vast ideas in poetic genius. The series can be selected by using the 'hymnline' tag.

Two things that are easily but wrongly assumed are that:

1. Old hymns have depth and new ones don't

2. People who write many hymns and songs write lines that cannot have lasting significance.

This blog series will debunk Point 1. On Point 2, nearly all hymn/song writers have written vast amounts of material, much of which has long been discarded (in some cases by the writer themselves).

With this in mind my second one-liner in this series comes from my own lifetime - and Spring Harvest, and Graham Kendrick.:

Hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered.

No matter that the stars were not flung, this line profoundly describes the bewildering sacrificial love of God in Jesus Christ.  

My surrender to him can never match his surrender for me.

My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 2

Many people have tapped into the popularity of Christmas as a singing season and produced skilful or sad purpose-built carols.  John Rutter springs to mind as the most commercially successful, and Cliff Richard has his own commercial take on the genre.  On the whole I am not overly drawn to designer carols as evidenced in my other choices which are really poetry set to music or folk songs from no-one notable.  Nevertheless at No 2 I have just such a carol, written by the once hugely popular Graham Kendrick.

Like a candle flame
Flickering small in our darkness
Uncreated light
Shines through infant eyes

God is with us, alleluia (Men)
God is with us, alleluia (Women)
Come to save us, alleluia (Men)
Come to save us (Women)
Alleluia! (All)

Stars and angels sing
Yet the earth sleeps in shadows
Can this tiny spark
Set a world on fire?

Yet his light shall shine
From our lives, Spirit blazing
As we touch the flame
Of his holy fire

Graham Kendrick
Copyright © 1988 Make Way Music,
www.grahamkendrick.co.uk

It is my second choice because it is, in my opinion, utterly beautiful.  Added to which it is simple and somehow combines the simplicity of the Christ-child with the power of the Holy Spirit, the latter scarcely ever meaningfully referenced in carols which seem to often lead to Easter but never on to Pentecost.



Harvest-time Prayer

Servant

My friend Richard passed away on Tuesday. Some of you knew him too. He was a servant of the Servant King. This was his favourite song, and I post it in his honour and memory.

This song always reminds me that the Christian life is work as well as inspiration. Not only because of the meaning of the song words themselves but because Graham Kendrick wrote it not in some great flash of inspiration. Instead he grafted away with studies and commentaries to prepare a song for Spring Harvest 1984, an international Christian Conference with the theme that year of 'The Servant King'.

Sometimes our perspiration can become someone else's inspiration!