glory – The Raynville Rambler

Light of Gladness

Lights at the Candlemas service,
Drighlington St Paul, 2020

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is another evening hymn by Christopher Idle, ‘Light of gladness, Lord of glory’. It is set here to the tune ‘Quem pastores laudavere’. The tune, whose name refers to shepherds, is not surprisingly in the form of a berceuse (pastoral chant or lullaby), also appropriate for an evening hymn.

The words are a setting of the ancient evening hymn ‘Phos hilaron’ (light of joy) which is usually thought of as an evening hymn, though there is only a passing reference to evening. Maybe the intention is to contrast the fading of daylight with the eternal light of Christ.

The first and last verses praise Jesus specifically, addressed first as ‘light of gladness, Lord of glory’ and asking him to ‘shine on us in your mercy’, and later as Son of God, with no petition but praising him as the one whose light shall never grow dim. In between is a doxology (‘Father, Son and Spirit praising with the holy Seraphim’), which usually would come at the end of the hymn: is this the order of the Greek original, I wonder?

The rhyming scheme is unusual: the first three lines of each verse are mostly half-rhymes (glory/holy/mercy, descending/evening/praising, ages/praises/ceases) and the last lines of the three verses form a rhyming set (hymn/seraphim/dim).

O God of blessings

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “O God of blessings, all praise to you” by Marty Haugen. It could also be titled “Soli deo gloria” which is the brief refrain at the end of each of the six verses, as well as the name of the tune specially composed for it.

Marty Haugen is perhaps best known for hymns around the theme of social justice and inclusivity, but here we have one in which God is praised for all his gifts to us. It’s also perhaps unusual, though welcome, for a Catholic hymnwriter to use as a refrain a phrase more associated with the Protestant Reformation.

The first verse praises God for his love, shown in freeing the oppressed and comforting the distressed; the second, for wisdom shown in both ancient scriptures and contemporary “coaches, mentors and counsellors”; the third, for prophets and preachers to guide us; the fourth, for music; the fifth, for Jesus himself, “best gift divine”. The last verse takes a different tack as it imagines the whole worldwide Church, “A billion voices in one great song”, praising God through every culture and locality.

So this is indeed a very inclusive hymn in its own way, but reminding us also, through both verses and refrain, that the purpose of our life on earth is to glorify God in the way that we live.

O the mercy of God

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “O the mercy of God” by Geoff Bullock. Carrying on where I left off yesterday, in a way, with the uniqueness of Christ as the fulness of God appearing in humanity, especially in the last verse “O the glory of God expressed in his Son”. The other verses celebrate the mercy of God in calling us to forgives and restoration although we didn’t deserve it, and the depths of his love, making us righteous.

I’m not terribly impressed with this hymn, as it seems to be cobbling together plenty of standard phrases from Christian theology without really developing an overall theme, or If there is one I’ve missed it.

Shine, Jesus, shine

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise, continuing the theme of the Transfiguration, probably needs no introduction. Graham Kendrick’s “Shine, Jesus, Shine” may well be the best known hymn of the later 20^th century, sung in churches of all traditions. What’s the secret of its success?

A jolly tune, for a start. The chorus in particular is fun to sing, indeed the hymn is better known by the opening words of the chorus than by the first verse (Lord, the light of your love is shining). It is belted out, with clapping, even by those who bring their children for christening but are not regular churchgoers. The image of Jesus “filling this land with the Father’s glory” and “flooding the nations with grace and mercy” is an appealing one.

What that means in practice is expanded by the words of the verses. The light is “shining in the midst of the darkness” (verse 1), echoing the familiar words of the Christmas Eve gospel. But in this verse we also ask Jesus to “set us free by the truth you now bring us”, recognising that we are in fact prisoners of our own darkness. Verse 2 recognises that we have to come out of those shadows into the Lord’s radiance, and that only by his blood (shed on the cross for the forgiveness of sin) can we enter it. We therefore asked to be “searched and tried” and for our darkness to be consumed. Trial is the language of judgement, and that is the hard part about turning to Jesus: accepting that our dark actions and thoughts deserve God’s judgement. As St John puts it, “people loved the darkness because their deeds were evil”.

The third verse tells an important truth about the faith. “As we gaze on your kingly brightness, so our faces display your likeness, ever changing from glory to glory”. The more time we spend with Jesus, the more we become like him, and the more we are not only living in the light but enlightening those around us. As more individuals are changed in this way, the land can indeed be filled with the Father’s glory – a glory shining not from the sky but from the faces of those who make up Jesus’ body on earth, just as his body shone at the transfiguration on the mountain. The sermon I’m preaching today (which I will post separately) has a similar theme.

So although the hymn may be popular because it’s fun to sing, it has a deeper story behind it, that the way Jesus will shine in our land is by individuals coming to him in repentance, and accepting his light into our own lives so that we may give light to others.

Great and wonderful your deeds

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Great and Wonderful your deeds” by Christopher Idle, who also wrote yesterday’s hymn. Both are based on passages from the book of Revelation, and this is a setting of a passage used as a canticle (chanted scripture) in some churches. Now we are far from the problems of earth and focused only on God.

God is praised here as the all-powerful one, the one who is always true and right, the God of justice, the sacrificial Lamb as he was incarnate as Jesus, and as the Holy Spirit.

The refrain to each verse is a single line ending with the word ‘glory’ and that sets the tone for the hymn. These last lines – “To your name be glory”, “All have seen your glory”, and “Love and praise and glory” are the response of people who recognise God for whom he is.

Christ pours his grace upon his own

Today’s Trinity hymn from Sing Praise is “Christ pours his grace upon his own” by Timothy Dudley Smith to a bespoke tune by Anne Harrison. It differs from most such hymns in placing the Son/Christ first, before the Father/Creator, and is also much more original in its wording than yesterday’s, as befits TDS’s reputation as a leading hymnwriter.

One of the tensions I find in any discussion of the Trinity is between an insistence that they are equal in divine nature and all existing since before time (as an old hymn puts it, ‘consubstantial and co-eternal’), and a hierarchy in which the Father begets the Son and both together send forth the Spirit. If all of them have existed as persons in the same unity since before time, does it matter what order they go in, just because the son was incarnate at a particular time, and the Spirit appeared immediately after the Son’s departure? (immediately? well, what’s ten days in ten billion years?)

Anyway, if the link phrase on Monday was ‘the way’, today’s is the phrase ‘to him [or God) be glory’. In verse one, it is in response to the grace given by Christ thorough his death; in verse two, to the changeless love of the Creator; and in verse three to the work of the Spirit is making us one. The refrain of the last verse is repeated: “to God be glory from us his children, throughout all ages” which takes us back to the co-eternal. Glory is a quality of God and the basic meaning of the word may be something more like ‘honour’, see my previous post ) : we honour God in response to his grace, love and abiding presence with us.

The Bible in a Year – 24 December

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

24 December. John chapters 16-18

Chapters 17 and 18 are the conclusion of Jesus’ last speech to his disciples. They are immediately followed by the betrayal in Gethsemane and the trial by the two high priests and Pontius Pilate. These are the readings of Holy Week (the approach to Easter). So what can they say to us at Christmas?

One word you hear a lot in church at this time of year is “glory”. It occurs thirteen times in the Bible readings and liturgy for Christmas Eve. The angels at Bethlehem called out “Glory to God on high, and on earth peace to men of goodwill”. The opening of John’s gospel that will be read at midnight services around the world tells us that “The Word became flesh and lived among us; we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

It is easy to talk about glory when we celebrate a miraculous birth. But what did Jesus say about glory as he was about to die? “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” (17:1-5).

It may seem counter-intuitive, as does much of Christianity when you think about it carefully, that someone about to be crucified can talk about his death bringing glory. ‘Glory’ as a concept is closely related to ‘honour’, which itself is something less important in our society than it often was in the past or still is in other cultures. Someone may be honoured for having an important role in society, or for doing something brave or selfless, or for bringing about justice. No-one is honoured by receiving a death sentence, are they? But if you think about it, Jesus’ death was a brave and selfless one as he accepted an unjust death sentence in order to start bringing about God’s rule of justice over the whole earth; and far from being the unimportant radical preacher that the Romans imagined, he gained supreme importance when he was resurrected as the eternal Son of God.

So it is that Jesus could speak of God the Father glorifying (honouring) him in his death, as he had glorified (honoured) the Father in his work on earth. Understanding that makes it easier to understand why the angels sang of glory at Jesus’ birth, for at that time only they knew what would come of it.

The Bible in a Year – 1 June

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

1 June. Ezekiel chapters 8-11

In chapters 8-11 Ezekiel has a vision in which he is transported from Babylonia where he has been living, back to Jerusalem whence he originated. Such physical transportation from one place to another as a part of extreme spiritual experience is not unique: Elijah experienced it, as did Philip (Acts chapter 8), and Mohammed in his “night journey” to Jerusalem. Whether such transportation took place literally (and hence miraculously) or was only a transcendental out-of-body type experience may be a matter for debate, but either way it is clearly something well beyond the experience of most people, believers or not.

The purpose of Ezekiel’s transportation was to show him that those left behind after the first deportation to Babylon – even the spiritual leaders of the community – were not only worshipping false gods, but even bowing down to the sun and allowing prostitution, and all this within the ruins of the temple itself! Therefore God would allow a second enemy invasion to destroy those people and what was left of the city, until a new and more faithful generation of Jews would be allowed to return and rebuild it.

Ezekiel’s vision of the glory of God departing from the temple is another example of a prophet seeing a spiritual reality beyond the physical evidence. A place is made holy by a continuous period of religious observance and prayer; that holiness can be cancelled very quickly by acts of desecration. Some people seem to be more open than others to a sense of either ‘holiness’ or the ‘numinous’, or conversely the presence of evil or foreboding spirits; I am not one of them.

Ezekiel is not a widely quoted Biblical book – the most well known passage is the valley of bones in chapter 37 – but verse 11:19 is an exception. “I will remove from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” is often used to describe the experience that Jesus called “being born again”, when someone realises that God is not remote but actually lives in them.

The Bible in a Year – 30/31 January

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

30/31 January. Exodus chapters 36-40

I’m combining two days readings into one here. These last five chapters of the book are mostly a record in great detail of the construction and furnishing of the tabernacle. It’s easy to get lost in the detail, and although there is no doubt a lot of symbolism in the way it was constructed, I am not going to try and understand it all. But taking the making of the tabernacle as a whole, three things occur to me.

Firstly, the image one might have, from the world today, of hundreds of thousands of refugees in a semi-arid country is that of hopeless people sitting in tents provided by aid agencies, with nothing to do. In fact, those who have had the privilege to work in such camps tell of the way in which the people work together to make the most of their situation. If you want inspiring refugee stories, try the UNHCR website. Under God’s leadership through Moses and Aaron, the Israelites managed to pull together to build a large place of worship at the heart of their ‘tent city’.

Secondly, the amount of wealth shown here is simply stunning. The outer shell of the tent is leather (for waterproofing) but inside all is gold and other metals, coloured textiles and acacia wood. Some of this they would have brought with them out of Egypt, some they may have gained by trading (for they seem to have brought large flocks of animals with them). But the main thing to note is that all the people gave sacrificially to the construction of the tabernacle – whatever precious objects they had, were offered to the community as a whole for its place of worship and meeting. Too often I come across church communities where members of the church expect all the money for their projects to come from outside, whereas in fact God expects his people, then as now, to show their love for him in generous giving – “all things come from you, O Lord, and of your own do we give you” is part of the liturgy, but also needs to be an attitude for life.

Thirdly, when all was finished there was a grand opening. The lamps were lit, incense burned, sacrifices made, no doubt there was much singing as well, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle (as it did the Temple in Isaiah’s day). You can feel the excitement of the people as they awaited this climax of their giving and hard work, and the reward for it is to experience the very presence of God, in a way that few people ever have. Thus ends the book of Exodus, which (if the timings are to be taken literally) covers just the first year of what was to be a generation-long trek in the wilderness. But throughout that time, we are told, the presence of God would be with them and lead them on from one stage to the next.