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Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Verse 1

Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
mount of God’s redeeming love.

Verse 3

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.

There is much that is similar in the texts for this piece and “O God Beyond All Praising” which I looked at last week. I think that is appropriate as both songs were chosen for our wedding to bring focus on God and our reliance on Him, something we wanted to be a part of our marriage from day one.

But there is a theme in Come Thou Fount that I wanted to look at this week: our tendency to wander. The song up to this line in the third verse is filled with a great message: we need God to be able to experience and rightly praise God. The song is one of reliance on Him because He is the only one equipped to do the things He asks. So, after all of this confession and praise, pointing out God as the source of their faithfulness, the hymn sets up the reason for that need and later presents a solution.

“Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love;”

It strikes all of us from time to time, this urge to wander. It may come physically wandering, avoiding the places we ought to be and frequenting those we should be avoiding. It may come in the utilization of our gifts, exercising them with pride instead of humility. Or, as is most likely in my instance, it comes as our thoughts wander, leaving the things of God and settling in the depths of the lost. I think we tend to do this because it feels safer, not satisfying, and immediately pays off. But no matter why, it is wandering, and the more we do it, the farther we stray.

“Here’s my heart, o take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above.”

The lyrics give us the first component of the solution to this dilemma: realizing we aren’t in control and surrendering to the one who is. What the song speaks to, but never explicitly states is God’s response and promise which follows such a request. God doesn’t just let us wander alone after that. Sure, we may still veer off the path time to time, but the promise is that we don’t have to try and find God again; He never leaves us. He has sealed our hearts, never to wander off as we do. His love is perfect and eternal, which is why He helps us fulfill His commands, and never leaves our side in the process.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

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O God Beyond All Praising

Verse 1:
O God beyond all praising, we worship you today
and sing the love amazing that songs cannot repay;
for we can only wonder at every gift you send,
at blessings without number and mercies without end.
We lift our hearts before you and wait upon your Word,
we honor and adore you, our great and mighty Lord.

I struggled to decide on how to categorize this piece. When my wife played the music for me, saying she wanted to walk down the aisle at our wedding to it, I knew it was a hymn, though I couldn’t have told you the words. Digging through my hymnal collection at the time yielded no results. This was because only one hymnal I have seen in recent memory even has this hymn included. Thus, it is a forgotten gem to those of us who once have heard it and a hidden treasure to those who need its magnificence in their life.

I say magnificence completely without sarcasm. First, this melody is nothing short of incredible. If you’ve not heard it, especially the transcription for organ, I recommend you stop reading this and go find it. It will be worth your time, to say the very least.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, are the words paired with this tremendous score, written by Michael Perry. The verse printed above shows the magnificence I spoke of. The words paint a picture of God being fully and completely out of our grasp. He is beyond our praising. We can only sit in wonder. And though we try to sing, those songs are wholly inadequate.

Now it is tempting here to write about God’s mercy and how His ultimate transcendence is of no consequence, but I feel that to be a cop-out. For all we know about God’s making a path for us to return to Him, we must never forget that He is still God. He is so far beyond us, limitless in all He can give, and speaking words which offer supreme authority. We will never be Him; we could never take His place. He offers us relationship because He loves us, not because we deserve it or, in many ways, can even handle it.

And this staggering transcendence, this overwhelming awe we ought to experience every time we think on Him, is exactly the reason why we can trust and wait on His perfect, holy ways.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

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O come, O come, Emmanuel

Verse 1:
O come, O come, Immanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

Refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
shall come to you, O Israel.

Verse 4:
O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem,
unto your own and rescue them!
From depths of hell your people save,
and give them victory o’er the grave.
Refrain

Ah, another entry into the “You’re Singing It Wrong” series. O come, Emanuel offers another instance of poor phrase breaking. Looking at the first verse, there is only a single period, meaning that the whole thing is one sentence. That is something we too often forget, especially when looking to the meaning of this text. If you look through all six verses, the hymn is a plea for deliverance, for guidance, and for hope.

Why, then, post this so far from advent? I mean, keep it in a back pocket for a few months and do a Christmas in the summer, right? Well, maybe… But the reason I want to write about it now is because I think we have lost sight of something in the season of lent, which has just begun. Often, we phrase advent as the season of light, joy, and togetherness while we treat lent as a season of death, mourning, and darkness. Both celebrate something incredible done by God: life.

Advent is a Church season which culminates in Christmas, celebrating the coming of the Christ child. It is the incarnation of God into human flesh. The birth of our savior is truly something to celebrate. Lent is also a Church season which ends at Easter*, a celebration of new life. Christ’s death is meaningless without His resurrection, thus the story cannot end on Friday. The buildup to Easter ought to be as exciting or more than Christmas because it was the moment God fulfilled His word to so many generations who cried out for deliverance.

If we live Lent for death, then it is our own doing. Ultimately, humanity is responsible for bringing death into the picture. One could even say that we dishonor the God of life, of hope, of love, by ignoring the fact that preparing for death is preparing for a battle Christ has already won.

Someday, maybe I’ll see a church sing O Come, Emanuel for Lent, because in this season as much as any it is good to remember that the Son of God not only appeared, but fully and irrevocably ransomed the captive.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

*Some church calendars end Lent on Maundy Thursday, but given the continuation of events from that Thursday to Easter, I feel comfortable asserting Easter is the true end.

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Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us

Savior, like a shepherd lead us,
Much we need Thy tender care;
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us,
For our use Thy folds prepare:
Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus,
Thou hast bought us, Thine we are;
Blessèd Jesus, blessèd Jesus,
Thou hast bought us, Thine we are.

Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us is one of those old classics with a catchy tune which gets stuck in my head every time I think of it. It is a soft, lilting melody that raises one’s spirit. Until recently, however, it didn’t occur to me the discrepancy between the gentle song and the potent lyrics.

All four versus of this song are infused with powerful lyrics about grace, mercy, and love. Not only that, it is a song of petitions to God: Hear us! Seek us! Love us! These requests are the pinnacle of pleas sent up to heaven. What more could be asked of God than wanting Him to be near us and pour His grace upon our broken lives? Are these requests the stuff of the hymn equivalent of an earworm? Perhaps more than I initially thought.

You see, the salvation God offers is important, and in may ways evangelical preparations for Christ’s second coming should always be of utmost importance. But that does not mean that the topic of salvation must always be handled as an overbearing weight. It is meant to be freeing, something which lifts the weight of sin off our backs to that, with new-found lightness, we can soar.

This hymn may not be able to portray all of that, but it present us with an unforgettable peace which ought to accompany the salvific work of Christ. We belong to blessed Jesus. He hears us, He welcomes us to Him, and His love is eternal. What greater reason for joy could there be?

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

 

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Blest Be the Tie That Binds

Verse 1:
Blest be the tie that binds
our hearts in Christian love;
the fellowship of kindred minds
is like to that above.
Verse 3:
We share our mutual woes,
our mutual burdens bear,
and often for each other flows
the sympathizing tear.

If you pay attention to the categories I’m using for these posts, you’ll notice this is the first in a category entitled, “You’re Singing It Wrong.” Apart from the strong implication of humor, I hope to address in these types of posts how incorrect performance of a particular hymn can actually effect our understanding of the meaning. Need to use that B.A. in Music for something, right?

Blest Be the Tie That Binds is a favorite of many, but most people do not have a lot of formal vocal training. So what is the issue? Breathing. And honestly, most music leaders don’t help, either adding extra beats or moving things too slow. What happens is a break in the first line of text which most people don’t consciously realize, but which diminishes the song’s meaning for many of us.

If you are like me, you tend to just think of the blest tie, unrelated to the later mentioned christian love. However, without the poetic breaks, the first verse reads:

Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love; the fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.

The theme of this song, supported by the remaining verses, is the unity of the Church. Verse 3 emphasizes this as is discusses the shared nature of our burdens, even our tears. This is all well and good within our own congregation or small group. However, what about other Christians in the church down the road? What if they are not your same denomination? What if they have opposing political views? We might be more likely to slander than to share burdens.

Christians will never agree on everything in this fallen world. Paul had disagreements with Peter and Barnabus. But that diversity can be incredibly beneficial as long as we strive to always treat one another with Christian love.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

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How Firm A Foundation

Verse 1:
How firm a foundation you saints of the Lord,
is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!
What more can he say than to you he has said,
to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
Verse 2:
“Fear not, I am with you, O be not dismayed,
for I am your God, and will still give you aid;
I’ll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,
upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
Verse 5:
The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no never forsake!”

In looking for favorite, classic hymns I tend to struggle more with the vast array of choices in front of me. Not a bad problem to have, mind you. How Firm a Foundation is a particularly special hymn to me as we sang it at our wedding, but I also feel it is one of those which, if we truly grasped the meaning behind the simple lyrics, could change our lives in some pretty amazing ways.

First, it is important to understand the structure of this hymn. The first verse is an introduction of sorts which lays out the idea that the foundation for our faith in Christ is through scripture itself. The outcome of this is incredible promises God has given us to allow help us stay steadfast. Verses 2-5, then, are quotes of what God is saying. They deal with fear surrounding tough times, situations, and even people which crop up in our lives. The promise is always the same: “I am with you.”

When we have struggles, we tend to pray for help, guidance, or other words to keep us going. What this song is saying is that we already have such words. We neglect the amazing promises of scripture, either because we don’t know them well enough or because we don’t understand how they apply. “God must speak a word directly to me,” we think, “or else He doesn’t care/I’m not important enough/He has forgotten about me.”

“What more can He say than to you He has said?! He will uphold you with an omnipotent hand. He will never leave you. Even all of Hell attacking you is not enough for Him to back off!” The song lays out incredible promises which, especially in light of the scriptures they derive from, ought to be enough to make the weakest continue on. When we sing this old hymns, they should give us great hope, cause us to stand tall, and make us want to rely on Christ all the more. These aren’t empty words from an old book; they are promises to each and every person who has fled to Jesus.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

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Make Us Instruments of Your Peace

Chorus:
Lord, Make us instruments of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let your love increase
Lord, make us instruments of your peace,
Walls of pride and prejudice shall cease
When we are your instruments of peace.

Recently, we sang this simple chorus as a response to communion. Even though we didn’t sing any of the verses, the words of the chorus were enough to make me think, and unfortunately laugh out of irony.

You see, the American church is not often good as the instrument of peace. We tend to have two extremes: Accommodating or Contemptuous. The accommodating churches give up what they believe so that everyone will like them and feel comfortable. The contemptuous use what they believe to make others feel inferior because of what they do, believe, or who they are.

The problem with either point of view is that neither promotes peace. Contemptuousness is aggressive and tends to breed big controversies, and ultimately produces bigoted congregations unwilling to be the humble servants that Christ had modeled for them. Accommodation, on the other hand, is passive but just as severe, but instead of being outwardly explosive, it is a gradual poison which eats away at a church making them a community which lacks any recognizable faith.

In this song we see first a call to be made instruments of God’s peace. Instruments are not passive, but active tools used for a purpose. The other lines of the song ask for love in place of hatred, and pride ad prejudice to be gone. These things cannot be done if we are against the people we are trying to help, or even if we are against one another.

God wants us to balance these two aspects of being servants. We must be opening and welcoming to everyone. Period. Christ’s model is that of love toward even the most despised outcast. At the same time, God has given us standards and guides on how to live as one of His children. We cannot give up on these to make life easier or to avoid conflict.

Many people won’t like the cost of taking up our cross, but our job is not to force it on their backs. We are only instruments of God’s peace, spreading His love to all those who will accept it.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran

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Brighten the Corner Where You Are

Verse 1:
Do not wait until some deed of greatness you may do,
Do not wait to shed your light afar;
To the many duties ever near you now be true,
Brighten the corner where you are.
Refrain:
Brighten the corner where you are!
Brighten the corner where you are!
Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;
Brighten the corner where you are!

I love getting my hands on a new hymnal, or at least new to me, and peruse the pages for a hidden gem I’ve never before heard. Recently, all of the books in my library, including my hymnal collection, ended up in a Christmas Tree made of books. At the same time, my wife wanted to start singing hymns to our five-month-old daughter, so I found an electronic hymnal to use until my others are freed. Among the classics I’ve heard a thousand times before and some strange new faces lay this brand new classic, Brighten the Corner Where You Are.

The words are simple, no ebeneezer or bulwarks here. The melody is bright, quick, and what some might even call chipper. In fact, there is nothing overtly Christian until the third verse, which might be a big reason why it is no longer a popular song in the churches I have frequented. But these are all the reasons this song captured my attention so strongly.

What is so striking about this song is that it does what few other praise and worship songs do: give us something to do other than sing! Not that there isn’t a time and place for taking us out of the picture to worship God, that is incredibly important and probably should be the bulk of how we worship. However, in our 1+ hour services, how much is actually devoted to practically and straightforwardly telling people how to respond to their faith? Maybe an application in a sermon, and rarely the benediction.

Brighten the Corner Where You Are is a call to act on your faith now and every opportunity you have. God offers us opportunities to act in all kinds of ways for all types of people, even though we may not know who might receive the message. The refrain says “Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar” (bar being like a sand bar or some sort of obstruction), meaning that the people we might touch could be far out of our understanding. God is in control, though, and our response to faith will be used in ways we cannot possibly imagine.

SDG,

-Paul Hart Cochran