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.

Fallow

I was looking back a year and noticed that last January I highlighted this beautiful song with Sandra McCracken.  And on reflection it is hard to imagine a song that was more appropriate, a few weeks before we were plunged into the fallow life of Covid.

I love the simple truth of this song.  Not every Sunday is a high experience.  Not every Church is in revival.  There is more to the Kingdom than days of feasting . . .

Happy Birthday Kim!

Kim Walker-Smith is 39 today.  Happy Birthday, Kim!  If this was the only worship she had sung we would be grateful for her, her voice and her Lord.

How can I keep from singing?

It has been a surreal experience to return to the church building for Sunday morning worship these past two weeks.  Certainly things were feeling pandemically safe, but then again so is the local cemetery (for its residents).  We have some imaginative ideas for worship in the weeks ahead: but singing with our voices seems a distance away.

It is easy to OVERestimate the importance of singing.
The viral rise of the Contemporary Christian Music industry (CCM) has left most of us wondering how we ever found God without five of this year's new songs being sung.  Yet astonishingly we did.  You don't have to be a Quaker to object that God is at work when songs are silent.  Countless believers have spent years or lifetimes imprisoned or isolated in such ways as to render congregational singing a distant dream.  The Bible enjoins and reports praying far more often than singing (especially in the New Testament!).

But it is easy to UNDERestimate the importance of singing.
Most religions have some kind of music and song, but Christianity is full of it.  Whole service forms are based around singing, and whole church traditions defined by its forms (Anglican Evensong, Hillsongs, Gaelic Psalms).  One look at our church building gives the clue that singing is part of it . . .

. . . the organ, the choir stalls, the piano, the drums, the screen (mainly for projecting song words).
Singing, in Christianity, is an expression of the fundamental joy of a saving faith.  It is not a necessary rite; it is more than that.  Christianity is a new song.

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 8. You Raise Me Up (Westlife)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 8 - You raise me up, popularised by Westlife, covered by half the music industry . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

Norwegian Rolf Lovland originally wrote the music for his own mother's funeral. (Brendan Graham wrote the lyrics).

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It doesn't contain God (unless you supply him by how you mean the words).

Line that's most like a Christian song:

You raise me up to more than I can be

Line that's least like a Christian song:

[Not applicable - as Brendan Graham was for a while a Catholic Seminarian it all has Christian echoes]

A Quote from (writer) Brendan Graham:

'Keep a green bough in your heart and the singing bird will come'.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

It is so much like a hymn I might as well have a real hymn which honours God rather than one that reflects a hopeful ideal.

A better Christian alternative:

.

[There is a Redeemer . . .]

When I stand in Glory

I will see His face

And there I'll serve my King forever

In that Holy Place

Thank you, oh my father

For giving us Your Son

And leaving Your Spirit

'Til the work on Earth is done

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 10. Always look on the Bright Side of Life [Eric Idle]

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs now contains no Christian songs or hymns at all - for the first time.  So let's take a look at the merits and demerits of the top ten, starting with 10th place : Always look on the bright side of life;

Why it's good for a funeral:

It makes you feel you can laugh.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It doesn't give you any grounds to laugh in death

Line that's most like a Christian song:

You know, you came from nothing

Line that's least like a Christian song:

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true

A Quote from (writer) Eric Idle:

Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

The song is originally sung to the Jesus figure (Brian) on the cross in Monty Python's Life of Brian film.  So not only is it meaninglessly defiant rubbish, it's origin is blasphemous too.

A better Christian alternative:

On that bright and cloudless morning when the dead in Christ shall rise,

And the glory of His resurrection share;

When His chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the skies,

And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.

[A brightness of a better sort.]

Heat

There must be many places to be on a 95 degree day, but London certainly isn't one of them. 

 

I feel strangely satisfied sitting in my study before doing an afternoon visit.  I've just been on the phone to someone who, it turned out, was answering their phone from Hampton Court Garden Show.  Far from feeling jealous I felt sorry for my friend.

 

The atmosphere changes everything, doesn't it?  Ordinary places become extraordinary on an unusual weather day.  I find myself paying attention to shaded streets so I can walk comfortably, minimising my time outside, closing my curtains.

 

A song that is a few steps past my current church's style but which I love is the only one I know with the word atmosphere in.  It's a reminder that although we have meetings that try to change things, the only really big change comes when God turns up the heat.  Then nothing is the same.

 

 

A Greater Love, A Higher Vow

Here's the video we used in this morning's service.  It repays waiting for the remarkable transitioned coda at the end - it'll give me words to sing along with at the next royal wedding or coronation.  Jesus is what it's all about . . .

 

John Pac

The death of John Paculabo this week takes to glory a man who was a pioneer of folk worship which, for better or for worse, is now the standard form in evangelical churches the world over (yep, that includes Hillsongs . . .).  I first heard John Pac and Parchment in isolated halls in the middle of the Suffolk countryside.  No self-respecting church would let the likes of them near a town sanctuary.

Still in the depths of Mission Praise you can find Colours of Day, a folk song that I never really understood then and still don't (so I doubt it's a children's song as performed here).  But what a great tune to inject into lives previously lived in the parameters of Free Church Victoriana.  Thanks, John!

 

 

A song for a day with two funerals

Happy Christmas!!

Here's why!

River

This evening we looked at Jesus' amazing promise of the Holy Spirit.  He is the river that flows from Jesus for us.  Springing from the perfect Saviour, from the hill where Jesus died, from - as Ezekiel saw it - the altar, this river gives life in a world that is otherwise a spiritual desert.  A river of living water, never stagnant.  Never stopping, it is yet a place to rest.

Why is this 'amazing'?  Because the River is God himself.  Not a religious metaphor for a long ritual or an ecstatic spinning.  God himself comes to us.

When the General Election is over I do not expect to hear from the politicians much until we meet again at the next election.  Yet when Jesus went up to somewhere more exalted than Westminster or Washington or Brussels, God immediately came back to give us more and more life.  If only we could, we'd certainly elect God!  In fact, and more amazingly still, he elects us!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

'Valentine' comes from the word for 'worthy'. Many of the first Christian martyrs had this name, and it is a reasonable guess that they earned the name for their bravery before they were put to death. St Valentine's Day celebrates martyrs of that name.

What has that to do with Jack and Jill giving each other kisses and chocolates?

Not much perhaps. But love and worthiness (or 'worship') go together quite well when focused in the right place . . .

Harvest-time Prayer

Risen!

Don't miss this reflection too! This is an all-or-nothing day.

While it's great for a Christian preacher to have the rest from preaching that a sabbatical brings this is a frustrating day to keep silent. But I point you to this sermon as an inspiration.

Indescribable

Laura Story's amazing song, Chris Tomlin's worship passion with a great pictures as an accompaniment.

Scripture

This month we celebrate the translation of New Testament into the language of the Gabri people in southern Chad.

Our church has sponsored this translation by supporting the couple who have devoted ten years to the task. 138,000 words later the people of Kimri and its surrounds can now read, in their own tongue, the ancient words that resound with God's own heart, words of life, words of hope.

Stunning

Just sometimes you have to praise God for technology. Here is a stunning Norwegian choir singing in a Dutch church (St Jan's Gouda) in English a song written by an American!

It's my daughter's favourite, and she has good taste!