Today’s song from Sing Praise is “Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us” which is a chant from the Taizé community. Like many of their chants it takes the form of a repeated refrain or ostinato to be sung by the congregation, and a series of verses to be sung over them by a soloist (cantor).
The verses in this instance are selected from Psalm 139, “Lord, you have searched me and known me”. The selected verses remind us that God is everywhere, and knows all that we do, however we might think we are beyond his reach: whether asleep or awake, at home or far away, by day or by night. This can of course be either a scary or a comforting thought, depending on whether we are secretly ashamed of our behaviour, or in difficulty and really needing his support.
The last verse is “Search me, God, and know my heart, and lead me in the everlasting way”. The purpose of God’s all-knowing perception is not to punish us for the things of which we are ashamed, but gently to correct, or to direct us when we are uncertain which way to take in life.
The ostinato or refrain is not taken from the psalm, but is perhaps a Christian response to the third of the verses (Ps. 139:11) about the darkness being as light to God: “Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us. Let not my darkness speak to me. Lord Jesus Christ, your light shines within us. Let my heart always welcome your love”. The darkness, here, may (depending on our circumstances) represent depression, doubt or uncertainty, rather than a conviction of sin. Whatever its nature, Jesus can bring light to the situation.
I think I might have entitled this post “Lord Jesus Christ” – but I guess WordPress wouldn’t have allowed Stephen to do that, as every thread has to have a different title!
As Stephen says, this is a “typical” Taizé chant; and, as for many others of them, I feel the ostinato part (the “chorus”) is fine: easy to get into one’s head, interesting enough to be able to improvise on the harmonies, and repetitive enough to function as a background for one’s inner meditations on some subject. I’ve never been to Taizé itself – only to so-called “Taizé Services” in church buildings in England – but I think the chorus-like nature of the singing works well.
I think the cantor parts are, on the whole, much less successful, particularly in the irregular way that the “verses” fit into the overall scheme: they are manageable and they make for interest in a choir which gets bored with hymns, but I don’t really feel they add much value to the whole. In this one it is hard to see why the particular verses of the Psalm have been chosen for inclusion, as opposed to a different selection of verses, or perhaps simply using the whole psalm and asking the cantor to improvise over the chorus. And, as Stephen points out, the words of the chorus are not part of the Psalm – he may be right that they respond to Ps 139:11, but the connection isn’t very obvious.
Of course there’s no obligation to actually use the cantor part at all in a church service in which one is using the chorus.