Liturgy Lessons: April 2, 2017
Call to Worship: Isaiah 55:1-3a; Psalm 63:1-5 (responsively)
Hymn: I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art (#168)
Confession: “Jesus, Master, Have Mercy on us” – Simon Browne, 1720
Assurance: based on Ezekiel 36:25-27 and 2 Corinthians 1:20
Song(s) of Assurance: Depth of Mercy (Kauflin); O Great God (Kauflin)
Catechism/Congregational Prayers
Tithes/Offerings
Gloria Patri: #735
Sermon
Meditation
Lord’s Supper: O Sacred Head (#247); Blessed Assurance (#693)
Closing Hymn: Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies (Morton)
Benediction
“Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; his greatness no one can fathom.
One generation will commend your works to another; they will tell of your mighty acts.”
–Psalm 145:3-4
“We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the lord, his power, and the wonders he has done.”
–Psalm 78:4
Recent neuroscience has proven that the music of our youth is embedded in our memory for a lifetime. It seems that during the adolescent years, while the brain is mapping and molding, music seeps deep into those fissures and cracks, and firmly plants itself into our psyche in intractable ways. Of course, we don’t need science to tell us this when experience confirms it. I’m sure we all can remember trite tunes or insipid lyrics from our teenage soundtracks that we wish we could forget. It is also why a person with advanced dementia can still sing or hum those familiar old songs. Music—especially a familiar song—has the mental and emotional impact equivalent to sinking into your living room couch. It’s a kind of coming home. This phenomenon is a gift from the Great Composer, and it explains our strong connection to the songs we love.
My wife and I desire to create a living memory of God-honoring songs for our children. We want truth and beauty to resonate and radiate in their minds and hearts. “Jingle Bells” is an earworm and a fun diddy, but it provides little meat when the soul is hungry. Some of the great hymns of the faith can be mental and emotional places that our children can “come home” to later in life. Even the sound of the word “hymn” is close to “home.” Yet because many hymns come from another era, with its archaic language, it is easy to treat them as museum pieces. This is a mistake. Hymns are not academic oddities that we admire from a distance, outdated relics that are no longer useful for today’s hip and novel generation. The hymnal is not a musical nursing home where we put the old songs that are considered useless. No, my good friends. The hymnal is a treasure box, an unparalleled devotional companion to the Bible itself. The hymnal is a storehouse of food for the soul, preserved by previous generations for our feasting. Do not gloss over it simply because it is not in the modern vernacular. It contains some of the greatest sacred poetry ever penned. I am so deeply grateful for this heritage of hymns that gives expression to the faith that we sing. Let us sing them with the passion and fervor that they require, and may we add to the canon of hymnody so that the worship life of the next generation may be enriched and encouraged.
I Greet Thee, Who My Sure Redeemer Art
Text: Strasbourg Psalter (1545), English translation (1868 )
Tune: TOULON, Genevan Psalter (1551)
This text—a close sibling to the Roman Catholic hymn “Salve Regina”—was originally written in French. It was published as “Je te salue, mon certain Redempteur,” in the 1545 Strasbourg edition of Clement Marot’s Psalms. The French version was later printed in the 1868 edition of John Calvin’s works, and has been attributed to Calvin himself, although that is unlikely. Calvin (unlike Luther) was not in the habit of adapting Roman Catholic texts. The bold and fearless text of “I Greet My Sure Redeemer” declares many aspects of Christ that are an anchor of hope in all aspects of Christian living. The verses celebrate Jesus as our “Sure Redeemer” (vs. 1), “king of mercy” (vs. 2), source of life and strength (vs. 3), perfect gentleness (vs. 4), and our only hope (vs. 5). It is a broader expression of the prophet Isaiah’s words: “Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation” (Isa. 12:2).
The tune is a typical reformation era melody. It is musically spartan and simple. Nothing florid here, just the repetitive use of five notes, providing the sturdy skeleton on which to place the meat of the text. Calvin was suspicious about ornate music in worship, and wanted the truth content in the texts to always be paramount in the mind and hearts of the believers as they sang:
“It is true that every bad word (as St. Paul has said) perverts good manner, but when the melody is with it, it pierces the heart much more strongly, and enters into it; in a like manner as through a funnel, the wine is poured into the vessel; so also the venom and the corruption is distilled to the depths of the heart by the melody. As for the melody, it has seemed best to moderate it in the way we have done, so as to lend it the gravity and majesty that befits its subject.”
Calvin doesn’t pull any punches here. Though I disagree with his muzzling of music out of concerns for idolatry, I appreciate his reverence for the sung word. In this hymn, that word of assurance in Christ is a strong one.
Link to sheet music: http://www.hymnary.org/page/fetch/TH1990/175/high
Suggested Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZPZ8x82oX8
Blessed Assurance
Tune: Phoebe P. Knapp (1873)
Text: Fanny Crosby(1873)
Other than “To God be the Glory”, this is probably the most well-known hymn by Fanny J. Crosby. It is a rare example of hymn text being composed for the music. Of its inspiration, Fanny Crosby said:
“Sometimes a tune is furnished me for which to write the words. My dear friend Phoebe Palmer Knapp had composed the tune; and it seemed to me one of the sweetest I had heard for a long time. She asked me what it said. I replied, ‘Blessed assurance.’ I felt while bringing the words and tones together that the air and the hymn were intended for each other”.
Brought to popularity through many of the Billy Graham crusades, the hymn was originally published in John R. Sweney’s Gems of Praise (1873) and Ira D. Sankey’s hymnals in America and England. It is one of those hymns that every churchgoer of a certain generation would know, and it was my Grandfather Harold “Sandy” Snowden’s favorite. A typical Crosby evangelical hymn, it is more testimonial and emotional than theological. Though the hymn does focus on Christ’s redemptive work (mostly verse 1), it’s primarily about the joyful personal experience of serving Jesus and praising him “all the day long” as one awaits the glories of heaven. It is this “foretaste of glory divine” that we all share in during corporate worship. For those of us in the reformed tradition, there may be discomfort with the use of the word “rapture” in the second verse.
“Perfect submission, perfect delight, visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
angels descending, bring from above echoes of mercy, whispers of love.”
I would argue that associated claims of dispensationalist thinking are unmerited here. Without going into too much detail, it is unlikely that this is what Crosby meant by the word. Rather, in keeping with the spirit of the hymn, and remembering that Fanny Crosby was blind most of her life, it is more likely that the word took on its non-theological definition, meaning “expression of ecstatic delight.” Believing God’s promise to “make all things new,” Crosby gazes through the darkness with hope of the glories she will one day see. I encourage you to sing it in context with this understanding. “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8)
Link to sheet music: http://www.hymnary.org/media/fetch/97642
Link to “Billy Graham Crusade” recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1x66L8t0lI