Sing we of the Kingdom

Powerstock St Mary (Dorset)
© Derek Voller and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Licence

Today’s song from Sing Praise is ‘Sing we of the Kingdom’ by Peter Nardone.  It’s similar to ‘Advent candles tell their story’ that we had on 5 December, in that there is one verse for each week of Advent. The themes are to an alternative sequence: instead of five themes of Kingdom-Prophets-John-Mary-Jesus, we have Kingdom-John-Mary-Jesus, with nothing specific to the Prophets and no fifth verse for Christmas Day.  So all the New Testament characters are brought forward a week, as it were.  Again, you could sing verse 1 each week with the appropriate specific verse added for each week.

After saying something about the specific characters (the Baptist’s mission, Mary’s lowliness and Jesus’ life and love), the last lines of each verse are the same: ‘Enable me truly to live my life for God’.  I suppose this reminds us that Advent is a period of the year, like Lent, when reflection on the great themes of faith should leave us changed people, or at least with a renewed zeal as we celebrate the birth (or at Easter, Resurrection) of Jesus.

The tune, Powerstock, is by the same composer as the words and named after a village in Dorset (hence the title photo).  I found it difficult to sing, with four sharps and some odd intervals.  But the metre is unusual too, 11.11.6.6, and I couldn’t find another tune to match it in any of the hymn books on my shelf.  Given the choice between these two hymns, I would use ‘Advent candles’.

One thought on “Sing we of the Kingdom”

  1. I too wondered whether this was supposed to be a kind of “Advent candles song”, but as Stephen points out, verses 2 and 3 match with candles 3 and 4, so I decided it probably wasn’t. A strongly-made feature of the hymn is that every line ends with the word “God” … until we get to verse 4 when the word “bestowed” gets slipped in. Why? Again, every verse is of a person (John the Baptist, Mary and Jesus) … except verse 1 which is of a concept (the Kingdom). Why? I suppose I had most sympathy with a third irregularity, which is that every verse is a petition (“Enable me …”) except the last (“enabling me …”) – which I suppose I do get, as Jesus is the channel through whom the Holy Spirit enables believers to live the new life.

    But now I had a new problem, which is that this contrast prohibits me from simply singing of Jesus in the same manner as I had been singing of the Kingdom, the Baptist, and Mary. I needed to change the last verse so that instead of merely “giving thanks to God” it acknowledged Jesus’ unique relationship with God. Why didn’t Peter write “Sing we now of Jesus Christ the Son of God”?

    In short, I didn’t really find this a very convincing set of words.

    But I didn’t find the tune particularly difficult, and actually I quite liked the modulation into F# minor in its second line. But I do see Stephen’s point.

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