Love is his word

The Last Supper, by Ugolino de Nerio (C14)

This weekend’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Love is his word” by Luke Connaughton. The theme is the love of Jesus Christ, as celebrated in the refrain: “Richer than gold is the love of my Lord, better than splendour and wealth”. This idea that God’s love is the true wealth, not a human invention such as ‘money’, is a common one in religious teachings generally, not least in Christianity.  Paul’s words to Timothy come to mind: “In godliness with contentment there is great gain” (1 Timothy 6:6).

Its verses list the ways that Jesus Christ showed (and shows) his love for people. The words are cleverly structured: there are seven verses, a ‘Biblical’ number like the seven signs in John’s gospel or the seven seals of Revelation.  Each starts with a line in the form Love is his X, Love is his Y”, with a last line “Love, only love, is his Y”, and the Y of one verse becomes the X of the next (so, verse 1 ends “Love, only love, is his way” and verse 2 begins “Love is his way, love is his mark”. The two middle lines of each verse elaborate on the ‘Y’. The hymn ends with a verse on Jesus the Word (taking us back to the opening line).

The seven ways that Jesus shows his love then, are: way, mark, sign, news, name, law and word.  His way of love is “feasting with all, fasting alone”; his mark is “sharing his last Passover feast” (the Last Supper before his crucifixion); his sign, as he commanded us to remember him, is “bread for our strength, wine for our joy”. His news, still on the communion feast, is “Do this, lest you forget all my deep sorrow, all my dear blood”. His name is explained as that “we are his own, chosen and called”. His law is “Love one another [as] I have loved you”. And back to the Word, we are reminded that Jesus’ love is also that of the Father and Spirit.

The metre (8.8.9.7 & refrain 10.7) is highly unusual and so I presume the tune (‘Cresswell’ by Anthony Milner) was written for it. It’s an easy one to sing, with a memorable refrain in particular, finishing on a high with “better than splendour and wealth”.

3 thoughts on “Love is his word”

  1. Although in one way I like the clear shape of this hymn (the way that the first line moves on from one “way” of Christ showing his love to the next) (using Stephen’s phraseology), I found the whole rather unsatisfactory. The hymn is far too long, and singing it at a brisk pace didn’t obviate this comment. I thought the list of “ways” was arbitrary. The middle lines of the verses go through things in Jesus’ life and our response, but I didn’t really feel a clear shape to these things, nor much tie-up between the “way” being discussed and the incident / response cited. The verses don’t rhyme. Particularly poor is the last verse with its repetition of the word “word” at the end of two adjacent lines.

    And, especially significant for me, I couldn’t work out why the refrain’s words were what they were – in what way is “wealth” (or, for that matter, “splendour”, or “gold”) related to anything mentioned in the verses? Surely the chorus is meant to summarise and draw themes together, rather than to launch off in a new direction?

    The asterisk before the author’s words indicate that the compilers of the hymn book altered the words. I wonder what from?

    And Anthony Miller’s melody in fine, but the way it is harmonised isn’t. I wish some of these people who write hymn tunes would do a course in classical musical composition theory – what used to be covered in a “Music O-level GCE”, or in a “Teach yourself to compose music” book. So I had to rewrite the music before singing it! What a state!

    1. Re. alteration of the words. I compared the Sing Praise version with that in Hymns Old and New. The only difference is the third line of verse five, which in HON is “family, brethren, cousins and kin” rather than “sisters and brothers, parents and kin”. So an inclusive rewriting of one line, but ‘kin’ is as archaic as ‘brethren’ so could that not have been altered too? How about “sisters and brothers, relatives all”?

  2. Thanks for that research. I had wondered if v5 was taken from Mark 3:31-35 where Jesus says “whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother”, but in view of your saying that the phrase “sisters and brothers” is not in the original, that can’t be right. There is mention of the names Jesus’ brothers in the Gospels (but not his sisters), and I guess the reference to his “cousin” might come from Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History where he says that after James’ death the leadership of the church in Jerusalem passed to Symeon, Jesus’ cousin. Or perhaps it relates to the prayer at the bottom of the page:

    https://catholicexchange.com/st-simon-or-simeon

    (as Luke Connaughton, according to the on-line Dictionary of Hymnody at:

    https://hymnology.hymnsam.co.uk/l/luke-connaughton

    was a Roman Catholic)?

    I think if I were trying to rewrite the hymn I’d be concerned to try to rhyme the ends of lines 2 and 3 in each verse. I’d try to use “friends” as the last word of that line, so I guess I might try:

    We are his own, called for his ends:
    sisters and brothers, parents and friends.
    Love, only love …

    But, as famously said to the traveller who asked the way to London: “Well, if I wanted to go to London, I wouldn’t start from here!”

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