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.

Good Friday

Today I heard again these lines that so profoundly describe the meaning of this day:

From the "Holy, Holy, Holy,

We adore thee, O most high,"

Down to earth's blaspheming voices

And the shout of "Crucify!

Good Friday

From the “Holy, Holy, Holy, we adore Thee, O most High,”

Down to earth’s blaspheming voices and the shout of “Crucify.”

Good Friday defies metaphor or analogy.  

For all other human beings the glory of heaven is a future hope, scraping in through a mustard seed of faith a prospect beyond imagining that makes every earthly day a day of waiting and watching.

But for Him?

Heaven has loud voices.  No God so great, so totally, angel-mind-blowingly wonderful could be worshipped merely with a dignified silence or a quivering lip.  Shouts and trumpets, cries and echoes must have their place in the perfect song and the glorious sinless assembly.  This was his home.

But now this.

The savagery of soldiery, the clever mockings by the temple elite, the baying of the thoughtless crowd of copycats.

What did he do to deserve this?

No.  What did I do to deserve this.  What did he suffer that I deserved?