Month: May 2021

Come, Holy Spirit of God

Today’s Pentecost season song from Sing Praise is “Come, Holy Spirit of God” by James Walsh. Like yesterday’s it consists of a chorus (or ‘ostinato’) to be sung repeatedly with a soloist chanting the three short invocations.  The ostinato is simply “Jesus is Lord, alleluia!” Why a statement about Jesus when the invocations are to the Spirit?  It’s because one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to Jesus. In this period between Ascension and Pentecost we are reminded both of Jesus taking his place in heaven as the victor over death, and his promise that his Father would send someone in his place. That someone turned out to be the invisible Spirit, or “holy ghost” as he used to be called in English.

The title of the song is in fact the start of the first of the incantations: “Come, Holy Spirit of God. Come, renew the face of the earth”.  This recalls the Spirit’s work in creation “sweeping over the face of the waters” when the universe was first formed. The saving acts of Jesus are often seen as a new creation, and the Spirit has the same role to play in bringing order to this new creation.  The second is “Send forth your light and your truth. Guide us with your powerful love”.  In many religions, light, truth and guidance are all descriptions of encountering the spiritual reality that lies behind the physical world.  

Finally, “Holy Spirit, make us one. Alleluia, alleluia!”.  Jesus must have known that his Church would be divided in itself, and at odds with the rest of the world, but in his final lesson to the disciples before his death he prayed that we would find unity. Again, the Spirit’s role is to unite us, not divide us. So whatever your own understanding of the Holy Spirit – he or she, disturber or comforter, essential presence or radical force, present at baptism or subsequent gift – remember that the Spirit binds the Church together in one despite our differences, and as the ostinato dies away, that our focus remains always on Jesus the Lord.

Come Holy Spirit, descend on us

Today’s Pentecost season song from Sing Praise is “Come Holy Spirit, descend on us” by John Bell.  It’s a song with few words, as it consists of a chorus (“Come Holy Spirit, descend on us, descend on us, we gather here in Jesus’ name”) and a series of very short invocations by a cantor. 

It is traditional in Christian spirituality to call on the Holy Spirit to come.  Not that he can be far from us, of course, but unlike God the Creator who we assume is always present, or Jesus who promised to be “with us always, to the end of the age”, the Spirit is seen as the person of God who is only felt to be present when the conditions are right.  That might be because there is a particular need to be met, but perhaps more often it’s because an individual or group has been waiting on God in prayer, as the first disciples did after Jesus’ ascension.  Waiting in prayer is something I’m not good at, which is probably why I have rarely experienced the presence of the Spirit.

The eight invocations by the cantor are five titles of the Holy Spirit and three of his functions. Come, Holy Spirit / Breath of Heaven / Word of Mercy / Fire of Judgement / Great Creator; Come to unite us / disturb us / inspire us. The apparent contrast there between mercy and judgement, unity and disturbance, reminds us that we can never pin the Spirit down.  When we call for mercy, maybe we first need to be judged – or vice-versa. When we pray for unity or inspiration, perhaps we first need to be disturbed from complacency before we can identify the nature of the unity that the Spirit seeks or be inspired to follow his leading.

Spirit of holiness

Today’s song from Sing Praise, as we are in the run-up to Pentecost, is “Spirit of holiness”.  I think I have sung the chorus before on its own, but the words and tune of the verses were unfamiliar. The author of the words is Christopher Idle and the tune is a traditional folk melody.

The chorus is worded very personally – “Spirit of God, bring your fulness to me!” that fulness is first explained as “holiness, wisdom and faithfulness”, each of them desirable attributes in the life of the Christian.

The words of the verses cover both theology and practical experience, starting with the first.  The Spirit “came to interpret and teach all that the Saviour has spoken and done; to glorify Jesus is all your activity, promise and gift of the Father and Son”. Jesus taught much about the need for him to die in order that we might fully live, like the grain of wheat that has to be planted so that the next year’s crop can grow, and so it is that without his death (and resurrection) the Spirit could not have come.

The second verse is about the gifts and fruits of the Spirit, offered in love.  There’s nothing automatic about these gifts, but like any other gift they are offered by the Spirit as a sign of God’s love. The fruits, though (love, joy, peace and the rest) are intended, so the hymn tells us, “for our growth to maturity”. There has to be a balance, with the fruits of mature faith allowing people to express the gifts responsibly.

The third verse looks beyond the Church to the “world” (presumably meaning humanity as a whole), where the Spirit’s role is said to be to warn a proud and futile world of dangers. At present the world seems to be more proud – in a dangerous sense- than it has been for a long time, with political empire-building and violence motivated by religious and racial hatred going on all around us. It is just at a time like this that we most need the Holy Spirit, whether as the dove of peace or the mighty wind that topples the proud.

Spirit of God, unseen as the wind

Today’s song is the first on the theme of Pentecost, leading up to that festival next Sunday.  It is “Spirit of God, unseen as the wind”. It’s not a new one by any means, as the words are by Margaret Old who died in 2001. No date is given in Sing Praise for its composition but I’ve known it for a long time.  The music is the Scottish folk tune known as the Skye Boat Song, and both words and music can be found here among other places.

The two short verses refer firstly to the Spirit’s role of inspiring the writers of the Bible “You spoke to us, long, long ago, gave us the written word”, and secondly to his role today in giving us power and strength to follow Christ each day.  The chorus refers to Biblical images of the Holy Spirit – Christ’s description of being like the wind whose power one can feel while it remains unseen; and the dove to which the appearance of the Spirit at Jesus’ baptism and on the day of Pentecost was likened.

There’s not a lot else to say about this short worship song, other than that it can be a useful congregational response to other elements of a Pentecost service.

Clap your hands all you nations

Trumpet stop, organ of St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
(one of the last organs built by the late Kenneth Tickell in 2014)

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise (the third in the Ascension Day series) is “Clap your hands all you nations” by John Bell.  The tune is brisk and slightly syncopated, which suits the style of an acclamation of praise.  The format is of three verses, each verse having four lines with a refrain of “Amen, Alleluia!” after each line. This could lend itself to a cantor-and-response setting, or the whole hymn can easily be picked up by the congregation.

The words are based on Psalm 47, and include in verse 3 of the hymn verse 5 of the psalm, “God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet” (NRSV translation). It is this phrase “God has gone up” that links this psalm with the Ascension. Gerald Finzi wrote an Ascensiontide anthem “Sing praises out”, which includes verses from this psalm and Ps.24 along with lines from Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poetry. I have two recordings of this, a grand one by the Halifax Choral Society and a more intimate one by the smaller choir of Lincoln College, Oxford.

The Biblical account of the Ascension in Luke/Acts (with a brief mention by Mark) does not mention trumpets, in fact the disciples are portrayed as confused rather than triumphant at the spectacle.  The trumpets, used in many human societies to herald the arrival of a ruler, are perhaps intended to represent rejoicing in heaven at the successful return of the Son of God from his mission to earth, hence Finzi’s wording that we sing praises to God “seraphicwise” (that is, like the angels).

Meditating on the words of the hymn and the psalm, I was struck by John Bell’s wording of Ps.47:9, “those on earth who are mighty still belong to our maker”.  I can see a double meaning here: that God abandons no-one, be they powerful or powerless in society; or that everyone, even if they see themselves as ‘above the law’ on earth, is still accountable to God for their actions.  The second perhaps fits the theme of the season better: Jesus may have gone out of sight, but he still knows what we are doing and will one day judge us for it.

We’re out of the Easter season now, so according to my plan no more Saturday hymns until Advent (just because there are fewer than 365 hymns in the book).  On Sunday we start looking forward to Pentecost.

Ascended Christ


The Ascension painting, St James Bermondsey (John Wood, 1844)

Today is Ascension Day, and the selected hymn from Sing Praise is ‘Ascended Christ, who gained the glory that we sing’ by Christopher Idle.  The tune set with it is ‘Christchurch’ although I found the alternative suggestion of ‘Darwall’s 148th’ (‘Ye holy angels bright’) more appropriate. John took the trouble to compose one specially for the occasion.

Unlike yesterday’s ascension hymn, which I pointed out consisted of statements about Christ, this one is unashamedly a song of praise addressed to him. The first verse uses the same trio of titles as yesterday – Prophet, Priest and King – and I like the last line ‘by many tongues the Church displays your power and praise in all her songs’.

The second verse describes Christ as reigning ‘above each other name’ and verse three looks, as it were, in the other direction, with Christ ‘from your father’s side’ making us new and setting us free. There is a theological question here, whether after the Ascension it is Christ who acts on earth, or the Holy Spirit whom he sent. But that’s getting into discussion of the relationships within the Trinity, always a tricky area. 

In the fourth verse Christ is the one who ‘calls us to belong within one body here’ and notes that ‘in you are alone we are complete’.  It’s always good to be reminded, in this individualistic age, that the Church is ideally regarded as a unity, a single body, not just a group of people sharing mostly the same opinions.

The last line of the last verse is (as printed) ‘beyond all words creation sings the King of kings and Lord of lords’.  I think John sang ‘beyond all worlds’ but that makes equal sense: the true praise of God is more than mere words can express (an idea which leads us towards Pentecost) while the one whom we worship has indeed ascended ‘beyond all worlds’, present in time and space while also being beyond the dimensions we can perceive.

Come see the Lord in his breathtaking splendour

Ascension window, Easby St Agatha, Richmond (N.Yorks)
image (c) Tiger licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is ‘Come, see the Lord in his breathtaking splendour’ by Martin Leckebusch, several of whose hymns we have sung this year.  This one is the first of just two hymns set in the book for Ascension Day (tomorrow, 13 May), but as only one verse of it is specifically about the Ascension it could be sung at any time of year as a statement of faith in Jesus. 

It comes with its own tune ‘Barnard Gate’ but John picked the tune Epiphany usually associated with the words ‘Brightest and best of the sons of the morning’.  As both hymns are worship songs about Jesus, that seems a good choice.  But whereas ‘Brightest and best’ is in the second person, addressed to Jesus, these words are in the slightly more distant third person form, making it a hymn about Jesus.

The first and last verses have the same two opening lines: “come, see the Lord in his breathtaking splendour: gaze at his majesty, bow and adore!” which point us metaphorically upwards to the heaven to which he ascended.  In between are three contrasting verses about his birth and earthly ministry, death on the cross (from which he “emerged as victor, [but] still from the nails and the spear he is scarred”), and the ascension that we will be celebrating tomorrow.  This fourth verse ends with a series of honorific titles: “Hail him the First and the Last, the Almighty, Jesus our Prophet, our Priest and our King”.

That last phrase takes us back to Epiphany, when the magi (in legend, the ‘Three Kings’) gave gifts that foretold this threefold calling of Jesus as religious teacher, representative of humanity before God (which is what ‘priest’ means in this context) and rightful ruler of the earth. The ‘good teacher’, the miracle worker who was crucified, and the reigning Christ are one and the same, a truth at the heart of our faith but one about which we keep needing to remind ourselves.

Sing the gospel of salvation

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Sing the Gospel of salvation” by Michael Forster.  The theme is evangelism, but he recognises that what was once seen as a tension between evangelism and tackling injustice is now more widely regarded as two complimentary ways of participating in God’s mission.  The ‘gospel of salvation’ is the explanation of how Jesus came to reconcile the world to God, with an invitation to individuals to align their lives with him. ‘Social action’ by the Church (the phrase is not used here but that is what it is about) is the practical ways in which that reconciliation is worked out in individual lives – mostly outside the church building.

The three verses therefore explore different ways in which people are excluded from their full potential as human beings, and the ways in which by the proclamation of the Gospel and their turning to Christ those exclusions can be addressed.  As the first verse puts it “all the darkness of injustice cannot dim salvation’s light, for the outcast and exploited count as worthy in God’s sight”.

The second and third verses both refer to Jesus as the Shepherd, a name he used for himself as the one who leads people back to God as well as protecting us from danger – “Those who recognize the saviour take their place within the fold”.  The last verse celebrates the new creation, begun on earth but to be fulfilled in heaven, as “the victims of injustice [are] now redeemed and glorified”, and as “fear and weeping are ended, hunger and oppression cease”. We know that in practice the injustices of human society will never be completely done away with until Christ’s reign is fully established, but it is the Church’s call to share that hope and faith for the future, while doing what we can to alleviate suffering here and now in the name of the one whose gospel we proclaim.

Put peace into each other’s hands

sharing the peace, King of Peace church, Kingsland, Georgia, USA

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Put peace into each other’s hands” by Fred Kaan. Although found in the “God and the world” section rather than the “Holy Communion” section, it is presumably inspired by the practice of sharing the peace before the breaking of bread at the Communion / Mass.  

The words of the hymn offer several approaches to the Peace. “Protect it like a candle-flame, with tenderness enfold it” reminds us that there are those in the congregation who are hurting physically or emotionally and need to be treated with tenderness. Likewise, “Give thanks for strong, yet tender, hands, held out in trust and blessing” is a signal that those hands held out to meet ours may look strong, yet may actually be a sign of needing affirmation from us.

“Be gentle in your words and ways, in touch with God’s creation” might be understood as seeing God in the other person: that hand you are touching, as Teresa of Avila reminds us, is Christ’s hand on earth.

“Look people warmly in the eye, our life is meant for caring” calls us to more than merely shake hands and mumble “peace be with you”. It has been said that this has become a mere ritual of shaking hands with as many people as possible, ‘quantity not quality’ and that the time would be better spent with just one person, getting to know someone a bit better or talking to someone you have been avoiding because of some disagreement. That takes more effort but it’s worth it, as you can then approach the actual communion feeling that the words “we being many are one body” have a real resonance in what you have just done.

The last verse begins “reach out in friendship, stay with faith in touch with those around you” and reminds us that the peace and fellowship we share should extend beyond Sunday worship and our lives should be shared throughout the week whether in group meetings or individual friendship. It ends by saying that the peace we offer each other is nothing less than “the Peace that sought and found you”. It is not merely contentment that we offer, but the Peace of the Lord, the ‘shalom’ or wholeness and integrity of life in God.

Oh the life of the world

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Oh the life of the world is a joy and a treasure” by Kathryn and Ian Galloway. The theme of the words is, as John has pointed out, one that can be interpreted in different ways. The “life of the world” can be the whole created order, as I have discussed in the last several posts on the general theme of “God and the World”, or God’s life breathed into humanity according to the Genesis story.   But although there is only a brief reference in the last verse to the Son (i.e. Jesus the Son of God), it also calls to mind his own description of himself as “the way, the truth and the life” and St John’s statement that “whoever has the Son has life”.

With that in mind, each of the first three verses starts with “Oh the life of the world”, which in turn is equated to “a joy and a treasure” followed by a list of some of the beauties of the natural world; “a fountain of goodness” in our common life both in the “sound of the city and the silence of wisdom”, and “the source of our healing” where there is “care for the poor and the broken and where justice is strong”.  The last verse gives thanks for this life in God as Maker, Son and Spirit.

The tune was presumably written for this hymn, and has been arranged by fellow Scot, John Bell, but is in the tradition of Scottish folk melodies. Not surprisingly it is easy to pick up and one that stays in one’s head long after singing.