All Things Come of Thee

Praise for the Lord #32

Words: 1 Chronicles 29:14
Music: Edward Hopkins, 1867

This is a short chant that I have not heard used in the Churches of Christ, at least in my part of the country (Oklahoma, Texas, and sometimes Tennessee). You can hear a MIDI file of it here. The attributed composer, Edward Hopkins, also wrote the music of "Savior, again to Thy dear name"(PFTL#566).

This statement from 1 Chronicles 29:14 is strong enough to stand on its own:

All things come of thee, O Lord;
And of Thine own have we given Thee.
Amen.

It reminds us that "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights."(James 1:17) It was not our deserving, but His goodness, that gave us what we have. And though Jesus was speaking in a somewhat different context in Matthew 10:8, the principle rings true for us as well: "Freely you have received, freely give."

But it is also well worth our while to explore the context of this verse. 1 Chronicles chapter 29 tells how King David, forbidden by God to build the temple himself, nonetheless did all he could to speed the work along (that in itself is powerful testimony to his sincere and humble desire to glorify God). He provided materials for the temple, not only by his royal authority, but from his own personal treasure as well. After a generous contribution of 3,000 talents of gold and 7,000 talents of silver, he asked, "Who then will offer willingly, consecrating himself today to the Lord?"(v.5) David understood the principle that Paul also stated about the Macedonian Christians, who "gave themselves first to the Lord", then contributed to the relief of the poor.(1 Corinthians 8:5) If we would all do so as well, then we would never raise the question of "How much do I have to give?" but rather "How much can I give?"

Inspired by David's example, the people also gave freely and an enormous amount was raised toward the building of God's temple. It would be tempting, perhaps, for David to feel self-satisfied at the great project that he had begun, but his dedicatory prayer shows again the humility that makes for a "cheerful giver":

"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from You, and of Your own have we given You. For we are strangers before You and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding. O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building You a house for Your holy name comes from Your hand and is all Your own. I know, my God, that You test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness. In the uprightness of my heart I have freely offered all these things, and now I have seen Your people, who are present here, offering freely and joyously to You. O Lord , the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of Your people, and direct their hearts toward You."(1 Chronicles 29:14-18)

May our giving to God also flow from such an humble, grateful relationship with our Father!

Among religious groups that have a more formal liturgy this chant is sometimes sung at the Offertory, which includes the bringing of offerings and reflection on our need to be grateful and responsible stewards of God's gifts.(Liturgy&Music) Obviously it would be a useful item in the same spot in our simpler services, and would serve as a brief time for mental separation of the offering from the communion, which the customary service order in the U.S. Churches of Christ can tend to blur.

About the music: The word "chant" is used to describe a number of types of music, not all of which sound anything at all alike. We tend to use it generally to describe music that is not in a measured rhythm or "meter", but is sung instead to the natural rhythm of speech (more or less). There are many different ethnic and historical traditions of chant, and even within a single culture there may be a wide range of styles that are classified as "chant". For example, "Gregorian chant" (the music of the Roman Catholic church, originating in the early Middle Ages and influenced by Pope Gregory I), contains chants that have broad, sweeping phrases that rise and fall quite dramatically, and also types of chants that linger on a single "reciting tone" for most of their duration. The latter type were those used to recite prayers and scripture passages, a practice similar to that heard in traditional Jewish synagogues, whence it no doubt originated.

The "chants" in Praise for the Lord are also of the latter type, and descend from the practices of chant in the Church of England. Most of them are of a type called a "sentence" (used in the Latin sense of a "sententia", or "thought"), with only two or four phrases. The chants may be measured or unmeasured (with a time signature and note values, or without). For example, in many hymnals the communion hymn "By Christ redeemed, in Christ restored" is written in 4/4 time, and the opening phrase is done in a series of quarter notes; in Praise for the Lord it is notated in the unmeasured style, with no time signature, and the opening phrase "By Christ redeemed, in..." under a whole note with hash marks on either side, indicating free rhythm.

Some other chants in Praise for the Lord are:

#146 "Father, we thank Thee"
#167 "Glory be to the Father"
#214 "Let the words of my mouth"
#471 "O God, our help in ages past"
#804 "We praise Thee, God"
#808 "The peace of God"

The best introduction I have found so far to the musical performance of this kind of chant is at http://www.ccel.org/cceh/chant/chantehi.htm, provided by the Christian Classics Ethereal Hymnary. For our context of a cappella congregational singing, my best recommendation is that the leader find the natural rhythmic stresses of the words, and feel the beat accordingly. If you want to beat time, just give single downbeats on the stresses.

References:

Episcopal Church. Liturgy & Music. Presentation of the offering. http://www.episcopalchurch.org/19625_15086_ENG_HTM.htm

Almost Persuaded

Praise for the Lord #31

Words & music: Philip P. Bliss, 1871

Philip Paul Bliss (1838-1876) was one of the founders of the 19th-century gospel style, and deserves a post of his own to put him in perspective. Despite his untimely death at 38 in a train accident, he wrote a huge number of successful songs.(Cyberhymnal) His 1874 publication Gospel Songs may have publicized that term to describe the new type of popular hymn being written for the urban revival movement. Though Ira Sankey was the songleader who (along with evangelist Dwight Moody) set the standards of the genre, it was Bliss whose energy and ability made Sankey's Gospel Hymns series a success. Suffice to say that he was the man who gave us the music for "It is well with my soul"(PFTL#345) and wrote both words and music to the fine communion hymn, "Hallelujah! What a Savior"(PFTL#203).

"Almost persuaded" was a widely popular hymn in its day, and is still sung by many congregations of the Churches of Christ, though I think it has faded somewhat in the last few decades. But in the late 19th century when it was still fresh, it was a powerful evangelistic tool. Ira Sankey wrote that "I should think Mr. Bliss' "Almost Persuaded" has won more souls to the Savior than any other hymn written by him."(Memoirs, 169)

Stanza 1:
“Almost persuaded” now to believe;
“Almost persuaded” Christ to receive;
Seems now some soul to say,
“Go, Spirit, go Thy way,
Some more convenient day
On Thee I’ll call.”

The song was reportedly inspired by a sermon of the same title, preached by a minister named Brundage,(Memoirs, 139) no doubt inspired in turn by the response of King Agrippa to Paul's message before him and the governor Festus, as rendered in the King James Version:

"Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: that Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles. ... King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest." Then Agrippa said unto Paul, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian."(Acts 26:22-23,27-28)

What Agrippa meant, of course, has been debated. Was he serious, or was he being sarcastic? English translators have taken different directions on this verse, depending on how his intent is perceived. But Paul's intent is crystal-clear: "I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost and altogether such as I am, except these bonds."(Acts 26:29)

"Almost" is good enough in some things. If you "almost" won the Boston Marathon, that is still worth a lot; but a bridge that "almost" reaches the other side of a gorge is no good at all. Sadly, many people hover for years at "almost" in their decision whether to obey the gospel. Bliss's text personifies the gospel call as the Spirit inviting the sinner ("for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit", Mark 13:11), and when the hearer rejects Him with "Go Thy way," we are haunted by the
thought of those whose "heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed."(Acts 28:27, Isaiah 6:10)

Bliss also references another possible response to the gospel invitation, illustrated by a different audience to Paul's preaching. The previous governor, Felix, was obviously disturbed by the message:

And as [Paul] reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."(Acts 24:25)

To our knowledge, of course, that "convenient season" never came around. Was Felix convicted of his sins? Apparently. Was Felix closer to true obedience than Agrippa? Probably. Did it make one bit of difference, once that opportunity passed? No.

Stanza 2:
“Almost persuaded,” come, come today;
“Almost persuaded,” turn not away;
Jesus invites you here,
Angels are lingering near
Prayers rise from hearts so dear;
O wanderer, come!

There is frequent and sobering evidence in Scripture that we are either getting closer to God or further away. In the parable of the sower (or really, of the soil types) in Luke chapter 8, the seed that fell on the path was snatched away by birds; the seed that fell on the rocky ground withered; the seed that fell on the thorny ground was choked out; the seed that fell on the good soil grew; but in no case did the seed enter a period of dormancy in which nothing happened at all. We are forever turning toward, or away from, our Lord. In 2 Timothy 3:13 Paul warned that the wicked "will go on from bad to worse", and the passage already mention from Isaiah 6:10 indicates that repeated hearing of God's word will actually drive some people away. A useful illustration is that the same sunshine that melts butter hardens clay; the gospel that touches one heart can cause another to move even further from the reach of God's grace, depending on the desires of that individual. How long until the conscience becomes "seared"?(1 Timothy 4:2) Only God and that individual know.

It is good to remember that it is the Lord's invitation we extend; over and over again Jesus said "Come, follow Me." The Christian life, from the first step to the last, is a process of responding to that call. We need also to remember that the angels are listening, for there is "joy in heaven over one sinner who repents."(Luke 15:7) Pray for those who need to respond to that invitation!

Stanza 3:
“Almost persuaded,” harvest is past!
“Almost persuaded,” doom comes at last!
“Almost” cannot avail;
“Almost” is but to fail!
Sad, sad, that bitter wail—
“Almost,” but lost!

Here Bliss references the chilling statement in Jeremiah 8:20, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." God is "patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."(2 Peter 3:9) But Amos chapter 4 illustrates the fact that God does not offer unlimited time for repentance. Warning after warning went unheeded, "yet you did not return to Me." Finally all the Lord could say was, "Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!"

This final verse is hard to hear, but the truth it speaks needs to be said. Perhaps it is best to close by quoting the final line of Brundage's sermon, which reportedly inspired Bliss's hymn: "He who is 'almost persuaded' is 'almost saved', but to be almost saved is to be entirely lost."(Memoirs, 139)

About the music: Bliss could write much more interesting music than this, as we will see (God willing) in later installments. This is a simple, utilitarian vehicle for the text, allowing the words to take preeminence.

References:

Cyberhymnal. Philip Paul Bliss. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/b/l/i/bliss_pp.htm

Whittle, D.W., ed. Memoirs of Philip P. Bliss. A.S. Barnes, 1877. Google books, http://books.google.com/books?id=1tFeaoTGv0cC

Alleluia! Sing to Jesus

Praise for the Lord #30

Words: William C. Dix, 1867
Music: Rowland H. Prichard, 1831; arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1951

This is a beautiful hymn that we just haven't traditionally sung in the Churches of Christ, at least in this country (you folks in the U.K. may have to come teach us). William C. Dix (1837-1898) is a good example of how a person can do one thing for a living, but truly excel in an avocation. He came by it honestly; his father was a surgeon who wrote literary criticism in his spare time. William settled into the life of a respectable Victorian businessman, managing a maritime insurance agency in Glasgow, but like his father, his first love was poetry. He wrote about 40 hymns, the most famous of which by far is "What Child is this?". The text at hand was originally published in his Verses on the Holy Eucharist, a fact that is important in understanding some of the alterations this text has undergone.(Cyberhymnal, "Dix") It was written for Ascension Sunday, as we will see on closer examination.

Stanza 1:
Alleluia! sing to Jesus! His the scepter, His the throne.
Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone.
Hark! the songs of peaceful Zion thunder like a mighty flood.
Jesus out of every nation has redeemed us by His blood.

The images of scepter and throne were more meaningful to Dix, of course, who wrote to a culture that shared the traditions of monarchy; but they are Biblical images as well. Psalm 45:6 says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom," and in Hebrews 1:8 this verse is applied to Christ himself.

Scepters represent authority from several angles. The most obvious connection, of course, is that they resemble a decorative or ceremonial mace, a weapon of war. In this sense a scepter embodies the power of punishment, and in the hands of a ruler, the power of judgment. (The judge's gavel is a similar symbol in our culture.) A scepter also resembles a staff, a symbol of leadership and shepherding. One survival of this in our culture is the ceremonial mace sometimes carried at the head of an academic procession. An even more vivid remnant is the mace used by the drum major of a traditional military-style marching band; here the mace is used to give orders, and once the group is called to attention every eye is to be kept upon it.

The authority of Christ is made absolutely clear in Matthew's record of Jesus' words before His ascension:

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in [fn] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."(Matthew 28:16-20)

Jesus had accomplished all that He had been sent to do, and His victory was complete. When the hymn says "His the victory alone", we might remember that anguished moment on the cross when His Father turned His back--it was truly a victory that Christ had to win on His own. For this and so many other reasons, the heavenly choir sings with voices "like the roar of many waters"(Revelation 14:2) the Song of the Lamb:

"Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."(Revelation 15:3-4)

Christ brought to fulfillment the great promise of God throughout the Bible, that a world divided by race, by language, by nation, and most of all by sin, would be brought together once more as God's people. God promised Abraham that "in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed."(Genesis 22:18) Here at last, in Revelation 15, we see "all nations" coming to worship the Lamb, who is now the "King of the nations."

Stanza 2:
Alleluia! not as orphans are we left in sorrow now;
Alleluia! He is near us, faith believes, nor questions how;
Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o’er
Shall our hearts forget His promise, “I am with you evermore”?

Here the author references Matthew 28 again, and the Lord's promise that "I am with you always." Jesus told His disciples before His death that,

"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."(John 14:18-21)

Jesus refers in the same passage, of course, to the coming of the Holy Spirit as an indwelling partner in the Christian life:

"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you."(John 14:16-17)

Paul's prayer for the Ephesians gives insight about how this takes place:

...that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith--that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.(Ephesians 3:16-19)

Faith, founded on love for God, invites the power of Christ and His Spirit into our lives, starting with our initial obedience to Him in baptism.(Acts 2:38) It continues as we grow in our knowledge and love of Him through prayer, fellowship, and study of His word. Where Ephesians 5:18 says "be filled with the Spirit", the parallel passage Colossians 3:16 says "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." (I do not agree with those whose views practically equate the Spirit with the word, but it also seems obvious that a Christian cannot have one without the other!)

There are times we might wish we had the apostles among us, or the gift of inspired teaching and other miracles as those in the early church did, but we should remember that many Christians even then had to get by without them, and did not even have all of the revealed word yet. We are in no way left out, and in many respects better off. Jesus provides for us too, and mentioned us in His prayers alongside the disciples of that era: "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word..."(John 17:20)

The first two lines of the next stanza were originally:

Alleluia! bread of angels, Thou on earth our food, our stay;
Alleluia! here the sinful flee to Thee from day to day:

Though it is not apparent to me why the second line was changed, the alteration of the first line is part of the de-contextualizing of this hymn, removing the directly Eucharistic language. I am not sure why this was done, though the expression "bread of angels" is a bit puzzling and perhaps best left off. There is also a fourth stanza along these lines, omitted in many hymnals:

Alleluia! King eternal, Thee the Lord of lords we own;
Alleluia! born of Mary, Earth Thy footstool, Heav’n Thy throne:
Thou within the veil hast entered, robed in flesh our great High Priest;
Thou on earth both priest and victim in the Eucharistic feast.

Once again the language is a bit awkward (e.g. "robed in flesh"), but I see nothing doctrinally objectionable; in fact, it I believe Dix meant it as a summary of Hebrews 9:24-26,

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

And perhaps the "awkwardness" of his terminology is no fault; one of the functions of poetry is to use language to cause us to see things in a different light, sometimes by startling us with unconventional expressions. Be that as it may, we are still left with a fine hymn.

Stanza 3:
Alleluia! Heav'nly High Priest, Thou on earth our help, our stay;
Alleluia! Hear the sinful cry to Thee from day to day:
Intercessor, Friend of sinners, Earth’s Redeemer, plead for me,
Where the songs of all the sinless sweep across the crystal sea.

It is easy for us, conditioned as we are to human perspectives of time, to read to the ends of the gospels and consider Jesus' work to be over at that point. In a sense it was, as He said on the cross when He won the victory and could say "It is finished."(John 19:30) But it is certainly mistaken to think that He is simply sitting in heaven unoccupied until the final judgment. Dix ends this fine text with a contemplation of Jesus' continuing work as our High Priest.

Jesus' work continues as He intercedes on behalf of those who accept God's offer of grace. Hebrews 7:25 says, "He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them."

Jesus' work continues as He advocates for His saved ones before God's throne, continuing to cleanse them from sins as they walk in His light. "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."(1 John 1:7) This is not license, but reassurance: "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."(1 John 2:1)

Jesus' work continues as He strengthens us and helps us against temptation. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."(Hebrews 4:15-16)

As Jesus said in John 5:17, "My Father is working until now, and I am working." Even though He has left this earth in physical form, what a joy to know that He is working in us still today, just as He promised!

About the music: Relatively little is known of Rowland Huw Prichard (1811-1887); from the fact that he was working as an "assistant loom tender" into his 70s, we may infer that he was poor and not well-connected in the musical world. In 1844 he published Cyfailly Can­to­ri­on ("The Sing­er’s Friend"), a children's songbook, which contained this tune, known as HYFRODOL (Welsh for "cheerful").(Cyberhymnal, "Prichard") Obscure though he may have been, he stood in a long tradition of great Welsh singers, and the graceful, rolling lines of this tune are exactly what we would expect from the land of the bards. A Cyberhymnal MIDI version can be heard here.

The harmony is by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, music editor of the English Hymnal, also the arranger of "All creatures of our God and King"(PFTL#16). Unlike that arrangement, this one is quite singable by an a cappella congregation, with a little work; it is probably not more difficult than, for example, "O sacred head now wounded"(PFTL#484) or "Christ the Lord is risen today"(PFTL#97). Particularly enjoyable is the way Vaughan Williams creates interesting, melodious lines for each of the voices, matching the fluid nature of the soprano and creating rich, interesting harmony. I would strongly recommend singing this with a 1-beat-per-measure feel, rather than counting beats on all three quarters, to keep it from bogging down.

References:

Cyberhymnal. William Chatterton Dix. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/d/i/x/dix_wc.htm

Cyberhymnal. Rowland Huw Prichard. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/p/r/prichard_rh.htm

All to Jesus I Surrender

Praise for the Lord #29

Words: Judson W. Van De Venter, 1896
Music: Winfield S. Weeden, 1896

Van De Venter was educated at Hillsdale College and pursued a career as an art teacher until entering ministry a few years later. He spent his later years as a hymnology teacher at the predecessor of Trinity Bible College in St. Petersburg, Florida.(Cyberhymnal) Van De Venter and Weeden also wrote the gospel song "Sunlight, sunlight, in my soul today"(PFTL#604) in 1897, and probably several others--one fine example of turn-of-the-century sentimental ballad is their song My mother's prayer. "I surrender all", however, is by far their greatest work. (Incidentally, these two are a good example of the fact that 19th-century gospel was just as much a Northern as a Southern phenomenon--both were from Northern states.)

Stanza 1:
All to Jesus, I surrender;
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.

Refrain:
I surrender all, I surrender all,
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.

The completeness of the surrender God requires is nothing new. Deuteronomy 6:4-5, the time-honored Shema, says: "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." The Lord did not ask to be first among Israel's gods; He was to be their only God.(Exodus 20:5) And though He demanded only a tenth of their goods as an offering, it is clear from Exodus forward that all they had, and even their own persons, were His in reality--He had redeemed them.(Exodus 6:6)

Mere belief in God is not surrender--James 2:19 tells us that "even the demons believe, and tremble," but this in no way forgives their rebellion. A partial surrender and obedience is also not enough, as the rich young ruler learned in Luke chapter 18. He had much to commend him in his walk with God, but Jesus, knowing his heart and his circumstances, challenged him to surrender the one thing that stood between them--his love of money. Unwilling to give over this area of his life to the Lord's control, he was unwilling to follow.

The hymn text emphasizes, "All to Him I freely give." The demons (if we understand their history correctly as fallen angels) met a day when they could no longer deny the lordship and authority of God, but it was far too late. The rich young ruler was willing to surrender, but only on his own terms. Likewise, a day is coming to this world when "every knee shall bow" to Christ.(Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11) But only those who freely surrender to Him now can hope for salvation.

Finally, this stanza emphasizes that surrender to Christ is a daily act. Certainly we are not even on the right road until we have surrendered to Him in baptism:

We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. ... We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ... So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.(Romans 6:4,6,11-13)

But every day after, we must surrender our lives anew. As Jesus said in Luke 9:23, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

Stanza 2:
All to Jesus I surrender;
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.
(Refrain)

There are things to be given up in order to follow our Lord. Abraham left his home and "went out, not knowing where he was going."(Hebrews 11:8) Moses "refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin."(Hebrews 11:24-25) The faithful prophets of Judah and Israel often gave up the positions of power and wealth they might have had at court, because they said with Micaiah, "As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak."(1 Kings 22:14)

Nothing changed by the time Jesus began His ministry. He warned a scribe who wished to follow Him that, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."(Matthew 8:20) This would be true of many of the early disciples, as Paul said:

To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.(1 Corinthians 4:11-13)

Paul himself had given up a great deal in worldly success, and in the potential for even greater things. If he had not become a Christian, there is no telling how high a man of his intellect and drive might have gone in Jerusalem. But he said, "this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."(2 Corinthians 4:17-18)

The following stanza is omitted in hymnals among the Churches of Christ, at least as far as I have found:

All to Jesus, I surrender;
Make me, Savior, wholly Thine;
Let me feel the Holy Spirit,
Truly know that Thou art mine.
(Refrain)

This obviously treads on the delicate ground of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Christian's life--how exactly do we "feel" the Holy Spirit? The answers to that question have launched many a discussion! I argue in my paper "A place in the soul" that hymnal editors among the Churches of Christ historically have chosen to omit songs (or sometimes just stanzas) that bring these matters up, rather than be labeled as taking a particular position on the indwelling of the Spirit.

The fourth line is just as problematic, in context: if we are waiting to "feel the Holy Spirit" to "truly know that Thou art mine", it begins to sound as though the writer is looking for a second experience of grace in the Wesleyan/Holiness sense. This, of course, is going a good bit further, and I can see why our editors have left this stanza out.

The final stanza of the original text has also been left off by many hymnals:

All to Jesus I surrender;
Now I feel the sacred flame.
O the joy of full salvation!
Glory, glory, to His Name!
(Refrain)

This pretty much confirms the implications of the other omitted verse, and it is consistent to omit this one as well. Fortunately, our editors did not jettison the song altogether--a judicious bit of omission turned this text into a more general plea to make a complete, daily surrender to Christ.

Stanza 3:
All to Jesus, I surrender;
Lord, I give myself to Thee;
Fill me with Thy love and power;
Let Thy blessing fall on me.
(Refrain)

Jesus does not as us to empty ourselves of worldliness, though, without anything to take its place. As in the natural world, so in the spiritual, a vacuum must be filled if there is material at hand. The unusual parable of Luke 11:24-26, in which a cast-out demon returns to the empty house with seven worse demons, well illustrates the fact that we cannot simply strive to not be sinful. We need to be filled with the power that Jesus offers, and let our lives be animated by that new ownership.

The beginning and ending of the book of Romans shows the incredible contrast between the depraved state of a sinful humanity without God, and the saved state of the believers:

They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.(Romans 1:29)

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another.(Romans 15:13-14)

The surrender of our lives to Jesus brings us the greatest victory we can ever know.

About the music: Winfield S. Weeden (1847-1908) also wrote the music for "Sunlight"(PFTL#604) to words of Van De Venter, and "Somebody did a golden deed"(PFTL#591) to a text by John R. Clements. "I surrender all" has aged the most gracefully of these, probably owing to the ease and simplicity of its melody. The original version had just the soprano and tenor parts singing as a duet in the stanza, with the alto and bass parts joining for the refrain. In Praise for the Lord, however, the editors chose to supply full four-part harmony to such passages in almost all of the songs, for reasons unknown to me. This hymn is very effective sung rather slowly and softly, which seems to invite individual contemplation; it also works well sung vigorously at a faster "processional" tempo, which gives it a very different character of "rallying the troops". It can be absolutely dreadful, however, sung at a moderately slow and tempo, and will tend to drag badly. It is well worth the songleader's time to experiment with different tempos and styles.

References:

Cyberhymnal. Judson Wheeler Van De Venter. http://www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/v/a/n/vandeventer_jw.htm.

Am I Nearer to Heaven Today?

Praise for the Lord #28

Words: Jessie Brown Pounds, 1916
Music: Fred A. Fillmore, 1916

Jessie Brown Pounds (1861-1921) was a prominent and respected writer among the Disciples in Ohio, editing such prominent journals as Christian Standard and Christian Century. She wrote hundreds of hymns, dozens of short stories, and six historical novels about the Disciples on the Western Reserve.(Thomas) The following hymns by Pounds are included in Praise for the Lord:

Anywhere with Jesus (#48)
Are you coming to Jesus tonight? (#61)
Beautiful isle of somewhere (#69)
I know that my Redeemer lives (#283)
I know that my Redeemer liveth (#284)
Soul a Savior thou art needing (#587)
The way of the cross leads home (#653)
Will you not tell it today? (#783)

Some of these are still standard fare in the traditional worship music of the Churches of Christ, and all of them were in common use at one time. Pounds's texts are well-written, though their musical settings do not always do them justice; and sometimes, they have simply been sung so much that they are "worn out". (Consider, for example, "Why not tonight?", and imagine you haven't heard it a million times before--it's really a pretty good text, it's just been over-used, and the music is so-so.) "Am I nearer to heaven today?" is one of her hymns that has not been over-used, but unfortunately the reason is (most likely) the music, which is not very friendly to a cappella congregational singing.

Stanza 1:
O the yesterday's moments for pleasure or woe,
Have been stealthily carried away;
I am nearer the valley of shadows, I know--
Am I nearer to heaven today?

Refrain:
Am I nearer today? Am I nearer today?
Am I nearer to heaven today?
Am I nearer the gate where the blessed ones wait?
Am I nearer to heaven today?

The refrain is a bit of a throwaway, and I am tempted to think it was contrived by Fillmore in the same way that Robert Lowry tacked on a refrain to Isaac Watts hymns in the cases of Alas! And did my Savior bleed?(PFTL#12) and Come we that love the Lord(PFTL#111).

The point of Pounds's text is well taken. Ecclesiastes 2:16 offers the sobering observation, "For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool!" For better or worse, the days that have gone by cannot be recalled. Likewise, we know that every day that passes brings us one day closer to that appointment that no one will miss: "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."(Hebrews 9:27) Jesus also said, "And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?"(Luke 12:25) We can prolong our lives (sometimes) by taking proper care of our bodies, or by medical science, but in the end "we bring our years to an end like a sigh. ...it is soon cut off, and we fly away."(Psalm 90:9-10)

But we need not "grieve as others do who have no hope." (1 Thessalonians 4:13) If we are daily drawing nearer to the end of life on this earth, Pounds points out, we are also drawing nearer to our hope of heaven. The question then becomes not one of despair over our inevitable end, but of anticipation and preparation for the life to come. "The time that is past suffices", says 1 Peter 4:3, for living according to the ways of this world and following our own desires. "The hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed."(Romans 13:11)

Stanza 2:
I am nearer the time for the breaking of ties,
That are holding my loved ones to me;
I am nearer the time for my latest goodbyes--
Am I nearer, O Father, to Thee?
(Refrain)

Even for those who put their hope in heaven, parting with loved ones is one of the most difficult things to bear. In Acts 8:2, for example, we read that after the martydom of Stephen, "devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him." These "devout men" no doubt had assurance of Stephen's spiritual destination, and had hope of meeting him there one day; but they had lost a good man, an inspiration and a friend. It would be impossible for the human heart to be untouched by such a parting.

Likewise, we do not wish to be parted from our loved ones. But lest we dwell too much on this natural human emotion, we need to remember Christ's words in Matthew 10:37, "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." This is hard to hear, but He said it and we need to come to terms with it. As Pounds rightly points out, we need to cultivate and cherish our relationship with the Lord, even more than our relationships with our loved ones whom we someday must leave.

It is the wonderful truth, of course, that we need not love them less because we love Him more. In fact, we will love them better. The godly man, for example, who loves his Lord first and best of all, will in the process be a man who can love his wife more generously and unselfishly. He can love his children more tenderly and raise them more wisely, and he will have done all he can to guarantee a heavenly reunion of his loved ones after this life.

Stanza 3:
I am nearer the close of my labor below,
I am nearer the end of my way;
I am nearer the edge of the valley, I know--
Am I nearer to heaven today?
(Refrain)

Whatever God has given us to do on this earth, we need to get about that business. "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil."(Ephesians 5:15-16) First in that order of business, of course, is to be "buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life."(Romans 6:4) Once we have started that walk, we are moving closer to a destination. 1 John chapter 1 encourages us to "walk in the light" and not "in darkness", and each step we take, each day, is either one or the other.

A dear friend has a saying, "Life is a series of choices." When I am traveling home from my workplace in South Dallas, I have to make many correct choices on the freeway. If I do not take the correct exits at the major junctions (two right exits, then two left exits), I will end up going around in circles in downtown Dallas. At certain points, if I do not get in the correct lane well ahead of time, I will stand little chance of making the exit no matter how hard I try. The difference between a safe, relatively easy trip and getting completely lost is making the right choices at the right times.

The Christian life is a lot more complicated, of course, but we are all a day closer to our destination today than we were yesterday--it deserves our full attention.

About the music: Fred A. Fillmore (1856-1925) was the son of Disciples preacher Augustus Dameron Fillmore (1823-1870), and a partner in the family music business, Fillmore Brothers Publishing, established in Cincinatti in 1874.(Osborne) This tribe increased in both sacred and secular music, and was such a major force in gospel song during the late 19th century that they deserve their own post. Fred A. Fillmore also composed "I know that my Redeemer lives"(PFTL#282), "In the desert of sorrow and sin"(PFTL#332), and "Sowing the seed of the kingdom"(PFTL#589), thus showing the family penchant for the military march style (his nephew James H. Fillmore, Jr., would become one of America's most prominent bandleaders).

"Am I nearer to heaven today?", though, has not aged as well as some of his other efforts. It was probably intended as a choir piece, with the stanza sung by a soprano-tenor duet, and it might have worked in that format; but the melody is simply too awkward for congregational singing, from the unexpected downward leap of a sixth in the first measure, to the (over)use of successive chromatic steps. It might have done well enough in the era of American pseudo-Victorian art song, but that style has long passed from fashion, and this is not a particularly outstanding example of it to begin with. For comparison, see "I come to the garden alone"(PFTL#805), which (in its original format with soprano-alto duet on the stanza) is very similar in style but more musically satisfying.

References:

Thomas, Theodore N. Jessie Brown Pounds. Encyclopedia of the Restoration Movement. Eerdmans, 2004, p. 600.

Osborne, William. Music in Ohio. Kent State University Press, 2004.

All Things Work Together for Good

Praise for the Lord #27

Words: Thomas O. Chisholm, 1935
Music: Lloyd O. Sanderson, 1935

Here we come to the first of several collaborations from one of the most fruitful songwriting teams to be found in our hymnal. Lloyd O. Sanderson was the music editor (among other roles) for the Gospel Advocate company in Nashville, Tennessee, and produced three editions of the influential Christian Hymns songbook, in 1935, 1948, and 1966. Thomas Obadiah Chisholm (1866-1960) is no doubt best known for his fine hymn "Great is Thy faithfulness"(PFTL#190), and among the Churches of Christ, for the text of "Be with me, Lord"(PFTL#40) which is sung to music by Sanderson.

I have not been able to discover the origin of the Sanderson-Chisholm connection, but it existed well before Sanderson's first hymnal appeared. Because of limited means on the part of each, they developed what became a rather close friendship by means of mail. Sanderson had been raised in the Methodist church, and no doubt might have become a minister in that faith as Chisholm did, had he not determined in his early adult life to be baptized into the simple New Testament faith. His autobiographical statement shows a feeling of kinship to Chisholm; despite their doctrinal differences, they shared a deep love of the Scriptures that made their cooperation in songwriting possible.(Sanderson)

Their collaborations that we have in Praise for the Lord also include "Be with me, Lord"(#40), "Bring Christ your broken life"(#67), and "Buried with Christ"(#85). All of their work in our hymnal was originally written for and published in Gospel Advocate's Christian Hymns of 1935. Chisholm's other texts in Praise for the Lord are "Great is Thy faithfulness"(#190), "Living for Jesus"(#402), "O to be like Thee!"(#499), and "Only in Thee"(#519). Like most hymnwriters, he wrote many more texts that are forgotten; but this is an impressive list. Most of these songs might be heard on any given Sunday at more traditional Churches of Christ around the U.S.

Stanza 1:
Whatever may come to me,
In this changeful life below,
My Father will make it all
Work for good to me, I know.

Refrain:
All things work together for good, for good,
According to His purpose,
According to His word;
All things work together for good, for good,
To all His redeemed ones,
To those who love the Lord.

Change is the constant of our lives. It may be good, bad, or indifferent, and it may be hard to tell at the time which of those it will prove to be. Proverbs 27:1 warns, "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." But we should be reassured that the changes that come in life are in God's hands. The life of Joseph is a great example. Most, if not all, of the changes he saw looked to be for the worse--until God set him up as the number two man in the world's most powerful empire. Truly, "He changes times and seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding."(Daniel 2:21)

We can also be assured from the story of Joseph that whatever else may change, God does not. Apart from His committment to protect and provide for Joseph as an individual, God had promised to make of Abraham a great nation. When God's plan came to fruition, not only was Joseph vindicated, but a broken family was healed, and a nation was saved from famine. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."(James 1:17)

But most of all, Joseph's story shows us in vivid detail how God may "work all things together for good". Many of the "things" themselves were not good at all--the favoritism of a father, the murderous jealousy of some brothers, the vindictiveness of an adulterous wife, even the crushing famine that affected many scores of people beyond those directly concerned in Joseph's circle. Our reassurance comes, not from any promise that we will be sheltered from evil events, but from God's ability to work from these things even greater goods than we could have imagined. Chisholm's text is obviously a rendition of Romans 8:28, "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." The emphasis is on God's working of good, and on "those who love God" who learn to see those good ends toward which He bringing us.

Stanza 2:
So little I understand,
Much is veiled in mystery,
"His ways are past finding out,"
'Tis enough He telleth me:
(Refrain)

Scripture is plain on this point--there is much we do not know or cannot understand about this life. "For who knows what is good for man while he lives the few days of his vain life, which he passes like a shadow? For who can tell man what will be after him under the sun?"(Ecclesiastes 6:12) Job wanted answers about the tragedies that befell his life, but had to admit, "Who will say to [God], 'What are you doing?'"(Job 9:12) Chisholm is quoting here from Romans 11:33-34, "How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor?"

A verse well worth the memorizing, in full, is Deuteronomy 29:29--"The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." As Jesus said to His apostles just before His ascension, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority." But it is most definitely for us to study His word, and to trust in great promises such as Romans 8:28.

Stanza 3:
There's nothing I need to fear,
Be it loss or tears of pain,
A blessing will follow sure,
As the sunshine follows rain.
(Refrain)

Numerous times in Scripture we are counseled with the words "Be not afraid." Most famously, perhaps, was when Jesus said it to His disciples during a storm on the Sea of Galilee.(Matthew 14:27) He also said it after His transfiguration,(Matthew 17:7) before His crucifixion,(John 14:27) and after His resurrection.(Matthew 28:10) Angels even said it in announcing His birth. Often, it seems, the times when people were most afraid were the times when the Lord was about to do something wonderful. Sometimes in life we feel like the Israelites in the Exodus, with the Red Sea before them and the Egyptian army behind them, and no way out. Like them, we need to "fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today."(Exodus 14:13)

James 1:2-4 counsels us as well,

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

We understand this to be true in many areas of life. There is an old saying, "People are like watermelons; you don't know if their any good or not until you thump them." Or, as I have told my son about losing chess matches, "You will learn more from your defeats than you will ever learn from easy victories." The natural world gives us great examples as well. I remember being trained, when I was a groundskeeper at Oklahoma Christian, how to prune roses. I was sure that we were killing those poor flowers! But I came to understand that we were "opening up" the plant to more productive growth, and that what we were removing would only hold it back. Additionally, the stress of pruning would force the rose to react by growing more energetically, and would ultimately make it stronger and more beautiful.

Stanza 4:
'Tis mine but to do His will,
His to weave the pattern fair,
'Tis mine to accept by faith
What mine eyes shall see up there.
(Refrain)

Weaving is a fascinating craft to watch being done, and has long been used as a metaphor for lives and destinies. In both weaving and in life, you cannot determine what the finished product will look like by examining individual threads. There are endless potential combinations, and only as the pattern is set down do we gradually see what the resulting image might be. Chisholm relates this familiar metaphor to Romans 8:28, picturing God as the Weaver of life, who works all the threads together into a finished product that we cannot yet see. But "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,"(Hebrews 11:1) and even though we have not seen the end result, we know that like the rest of God's creations, it will be "very good".(Genesis 1:31)

A little bit of criticism: This is not Chisholm's best text. The rhythm is a little awkward at the beginning of the second line of the stanza, where the natural anapaest "In this CHANGE-" becomes forced in stanzas 2 and 4: "much is VEILED" and "His to WEAVE". The tone of the language is inconsistent, using the rather elevated "changeful" (a legitimate English word!) and "mine eyes" along with somewhat vague, casual expressions such as "up there". Still, it is a thoughtful approach to a great subject, and shows evidence of Chisholm's desire to write scriptural songs. One wonders whether Sanderson suggested the Romans 8:28 text, given the fact that he addressed the subject of providence himself in "The Lord has been mindful of me!"(PFTL#638) and also set to music "The providence of God"(PFTL#640) by Walter Brightwell.

About the music: Sanderson's choice of 6/8 meter for the stanzas was a good way to handle Chisholm's text, and smoothes over some of the awkwardness previously mentioned. The melody of the stanza, however, is a little too repetitive, and is hampered especially by returning to G at the end of the first three phrases. The decision to change meter for the refrain is another example of Sanderson's admirable penchant for experimentation. James McGranahan had done something like this in "I will sing of my Redeemer"(PFTL#300), moving from 9/8 to 12/8, and "Sinners Jesus will receive"(PFTL#588), going from 3/4 to 12/8. Sanderson's refrain is better than the music of the stanza, but has one clinker at the line "To all His redeemed ones": in my opinion the word "all" should have come on the downbeat of this measure, and "To" on the fourth beat of the measure before. As it is written, the rhythmic emphasis of the line is "TO ALL His re-DEEMED ones", when it would be much more natural as "to ALL His re-DEEMED ones".

References:

Sanderson, Lloyd Otis. "The Lord has been mindful of me": an autobiography of L.O. Sanderson." http://www.therestorationmovement.com/sanderson.htm

An Empty Mansion

Praise for the Lord #26

Words: Beuna Ora Bryant Karnes, 1937
Music: Clarence A. Luttrell, 1939

This is a challenging hymn for me, because on the one hand I have trouble relating to it myself, and on the other hand I have known some fine Christians who love it very much. Having spent most (but not all!) of my life in suburbia, in relative luxury compared to most of the world, I confess that I have a hard time relating to the hardships expressed in this text. Therein, perhaps, is the disconnect that those of my generation have to get past in order to understand the attachment older Christians sometimes have to such hymns.

A genealogy site reveals that Beuna Ora Bryant Karnes (1889-1974) lived and died in Tarrant County, Texas (the Fort Worth area, just west of Dallas County). According to Mike Baker's informative post on this hymn, Mrs. Karnes met with a series of misfortunes throughout her adult life. Her husband's business--a lumberyard--burned to a complete loss; being uninsured, as many small businesses were at that time, they had to start over again. They had managed another modest success in business when the Great Depression hit; they lost all the money they had in a series of bank failures. With twelve children, they turned to sharecropping, cotton-picking, and any other means of support they could find. The year this text was written, Mrs. Karnes's father was killed by a drunk driver; her grief-stricken mother passed only three months later.(Baker)

This puts the hymn in an entirely different light. I have never sharecropped or picked cotton, but I have heard about it from those who have. And though we are concerned about unemployment and the economy today, we are talking about an era that saw unemployment at more than twice the rate of current levels--in a good year! Many lost their homes, or could not afford a first home, and had to live crowded in with relatives. Other families were separated as men traveled the countryside looking for work, hoping to send something back to their wives and children. Sometimes entire families were uprooted from where they had lived for generations, moving off to unfamiliar places where opportunities might be better. It is a perspective that makes me look differently at "heavenly reward" hymns from that era.

Stanza 1:
Here I labor and toil as I look for a home,
Just an humble abode among men,
While in Heaven a mansion is waiting for me
And a gentle voice pleading "come in".

Refrain:
There's a mansion now empty, just waiting for me
At the end of life's troublesome way.
Many friends and dear loved ones will welcome me there
Near the door of that mansion some day.

Jesus himself was without a home during much of His ministry: "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."(Matthew 8:20) He spoke this proverb to those who expressed a desire to follow Him, warning that they must be ready to give up seeking a comfortable position in this world. Paul remarked on the truth of this in the case of the apostles:

To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.(1 Corinthians 4:11-13)

This may not be the situation for you individually, but it is not far from the mark for many Christians in the past, and in parts of the world even today. It is also not impossible for such times to return; life is uncertain. Job, for example, went from pillar-of-society to pariah in a matter of days. In view of this fact of life, how reassuring to know that we have a home waiting for us on the other side that is guaranteed:

Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.(John 14:1-3)

"Mansions", of course, is the English word chosen by the King James Version scholars in 1611, when it had a rather broader meaning than it does today. Used in the plural, it typically meant "a separate dwelling-place, lodging, or apartment in a large house or enclosure", as in Eden's A treatise of the Newe India of 1553, "They came to a low cottage... having in it two mansions," or in Potter's Antiquities of Greece of 1697, "Grecian houses were usually divided into two parts, in which the men and women had distinct mansions assigned."(OED) The wonders Jesus has prepared for us, of course, will be far beyond any earthly palace we could imagine anyway:

"He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."(Revelation 21:3-4)

Not least among our joys will be the reunion with the saints already gone to their reward, as Paul reassured the Thessalonians, when "we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will always be with the Lord."(1 Thessalonians 4:17)

Stanza 2:
Ever thankful am I that my Savior and Lord
Promised unto the weary sweet rest;
Nothing more could I ask than a mansion above,
There to live with the saved and the blest.
(Refrain)

Hebrews 4:9 contains the sweet promise that "there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God." Just as God found a time to cease from His labors in creation, there will come a time to cease from the hurry and bustle of this world. When we are young and full of plans and dreams, this is less apparent; but I notice with the encroaching of middle age that there is a weariness and dull sameness to the cycle of life, as Solomon said:

All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.(Ecclesiastes 1:8-9)

If you don't believe it, just turn on the evening news. The wicked take advantage of the innocent; fools make the same mistakes and the wise have to rescue them; politicians make promises and then break them; the hero of one day is the goat of the next; and on and on. But there is a place of Sabbath rest with God, where "nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life."(Revelation 21:27)

Stanza 3:
When my labor and toiling have ended below
And my hands shall lie folded in rest,
I'll exchange this old home for a mansion up there
And invite the archangel as guest.

It is probably the last line of this hymn that causes younger people to squirm the most, and you have to admit it is a little corny. After reading the awe-inspiring (and to me, somewhat terrifying) descriptions of the heavenly beings that surround God's throne (Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, Revelation 4), I cannot imagine sending one a social invitation. (Though it is worth noting that even the angels exhibit a great humility, as when John tried to worship the angel in Revelation 21:8-9, and was told, "You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book."

The problem still remains, for those of my generation, that we did not share the Depression-era experiences that color this text. But perhaps we can learn to see texts like this in a different light. First of all, respect the fact that many of our seniors did in fact live under such circumstances, or remember parents who did, and have a strong emotional attachment to such hymns.

And secondly, even if we do not experience the upheaval and potential homelessness as did the Depression-era poor, we certainly have experienced a loss of "home" in another sense. Perhaps no generation prior to mine (Generation X) experienced such a concerted onslaught on home and family, and it has not gotten better with those who have followed. Broken homes are so common that we learn early not to ask questions of our school friends that might embarrass them on the subject. As I type this, I cannot think of a family that I know that has not been touched in a direct way by divorce, or troubled marriages, or out-of-wedlock children. Truly, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge."(Ezekiel 18:2) "Home" in the spiritual sense is something many younger people have lost, or are fearful of losing. Like Abraham, they are "looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God."(Hebrews 11:10)

About the music: There was a Clarence A. Luttrell who lived and died in the town of Mansfield in Tarrant County, Texas, who is probably the same as the composer of this hymn. The Stamps-Baxter copyright on this song is further evidence of a Dallas-Fort Worth connection. The style is that of the commercial Southern gospel ballad, with a simple folk-like tune embellished with barbershop-style chromatic harmonies. Not surprisingly, according to Allmusic.com it has been recorded by well-known traditional country artists such as Grandpa Jones and the Oak Ridge Boys.

References:

Baker, Mike. An empty mansion. Our daily walk. 6 September 2007. http://ourdailywalkdevo.blogspot.com/2007/09/empty-mansion.html

Mansion. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. vol. 9, p. 332.