Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is, as will be the pattern for the next few months, a communion hymn. “Body broken for our good” by Alan Gaunt is a traditional four-verse hymn that takes as its theme way in which Jesus’ death reconciles us to God. The text is available online here https://hymnary.org/text/body_broken_for_our_good
This is not a celebration of victory on the cross (though there is a place for that), rather the mood is penitential, as it is only because of our sinfulness that the cross had to happen. So it is that we ‘receive the body and blood to our shame’. The author didn’t shy away from telling the uncomfortable truth of human life: “Where earth’s children bleed and die, it is Christ we crucify”. So it’s not surprising that the suggested tune is in a minor key – the well-known Welsh tune Aberystwyth.
The failings of humanity are not just general – “every day more blood is shed” – but personal. The second verse acknowledges the singer’s own unworthiness. For that reason there is a long-standing tradition in many churches of receiving communion in a kneeling posture, unless infirmity prevents that. But the later verses offer hope – “in communion with this Lord, faith, hope, love are all restored”. The Christian hope is that however had we are as individuals or as a society, there is both forgiveness and restoration – at a price.
I suppose one of the main things I have appreciated about “Lockdown” is the way it has delivered us (in the Church of England) from having Holy Communion as the main church service every week, and has restored the ministry of the word to being the main thing which we gather for on Sundays. And Alan is a (retired) Congregational Church (and later United Reformed Church) minister, so it puzzles me that devotional hymns about the bread and wine should flow from his pen.
I think Alan is right to express that when we claim to belong to Christ we should feel some shame for the way that our lives (both ours personally and the lives of our forebears whose effects we inherit) have negatively affected others – although I don’t find his characterisation of the ills (verse 1, last 4 lines) very persuasive. And I think he is also right that the church service itself (verses 2 and 3) should lead to a response of self-dedication (verse 4). But I think those things are true whether one is celebrating the Holy Communion or holding a “Service of the Word”, and I regret that Alan doesn’t seem to see this. Overall I am not very comfortable with the focus on the bread and wine, which limits the hymn’s sphere to that one particular rite.