On the three Sundays after Epiphany, Catholic tradition retells three stories from different times in the life of Jesus, which together are considered to reveal his identity. The three verses of this hymn pick up on those stories. The first is the nativity itself, the coming of light into the world. It’s often associated with the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem and the star (i.e. source of light) that they followed, although they are not referenced here. Rather the emphasis is on Christ’s light or ‘radiance’ which we ask to shine into our hearts and into our world – a world which at this present time needs God’s light more than ever.
The second is his baptism (as an adult), associated here with the love of God (who is recorded as speaking at the time, the heavenly voice declaring Jesus to be God’s son, in whom God was ‘well pleased’ even before his public ministry started). The reference in the words to God’s love ‘swooping low’ is to the form of a dove in which Saint John says the Holy Spirit appeared to accompany the voice of God.
The third story is that of Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding, which is seen as much more than a gift to those present at the feast, rather a sign of the transformation that Jesus can bring to the life of anyone who follows him – from the plain water of life without him, to the joyful wine of knowing his presence. It is that presence, that joy, that we constantly must seek, because once given, like wine, it doesn’t stay fresh for long.
Light, love and joy – the three aspects of the presence of Jesus Christ, revealed at his birth, his baptism, and in his presence among us. That is the Epiphany, the revelation of God in our lives.
As Stephen points out, this is a “liturgical hymn” – I think what I mean by that is that it is a hymn which is primarily motivated by the way that the Christian Church has put together a pattern of worship. The three verses are linked by the fact that the church has chosen to put them together.
What I liked about this hymn was the way that in each verse the affirmation that “Christ IS our ” was transformed into the petition “Christ BE our “. He is our light, but will we have him shine on into our hearts or will we draw the curtains and turn up the volume on the TV? The former, we pray.
And what I wasn’t quite so sure about – well, I’ve realized over the last few days just how pernickety I can get – maybe I’m suffering from chocolate withdrawal symptoms? I wasn’t really sure that the meter of the hymn really sprang out of the words – isn’t the “and” redundant in line 1?, what is the “from” doing in line 2?, why repeat the “shine on” in line 3? and so on (perhaps part of this feeling was that I also found Peter Moger’s tune “Godmanchester” rather unintuitive for the meter). On the theology, I was not very convinced (v2) that the purpose of Christ’s baptism is “that we may know / the love of God among us” – in fact, Jesus’ baptism was a bit of an embarrassment to three of the Gospel writers. I wasn’t convinced about the stresses at the start of this line either – if one wanted it to flow, shouldn’t one write “that we may know / God’s love come down upon us” so as to highlight the word “God” rather than the word “the”?
I think it is a bit strange that in this hymn book, of the five hymns in the “Epiphany” section, only one is about the Magi. And particularly as the book is mostly laid out in liturgical order, as it goes on to include two hymns for the baptism of Christ and two for the Presentation of Christ in the temple, it seemed to me that somehow the order of the hymns could have done with a bit of a rethink.