Tag: heaven

O Adonai: How shall I sing that majesty?

Nativity window, Whalley St Mary & All Saints (detail)
Artist Christopher Whall, photo (c) Stephen Craven

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is ‘How shall I sing that majesty?’ by John Mason. I have heard or sung this often, and assumed it was modern (probably because the usual tune, as printed in the book, is). But in fact it seems the words date from the 17th century, though surprisingly they are nearly all words and phrases still in use today.  The exceptions are the archaic pronoun ‘thy’ and the reference to sounding depths with a [plumb] line. John used a different tune in his video, but personally I prefer ‘Coe Fen’ as provided.

This is the day of the second ‘O antiphon’, this time ‘O Adonai’, that being one of the Jewish names for God, the one usually rendered as ‘Lord’ in English Bibles  (or sometimes by the letters YHYW – see an explanation here) and referring to the one beyond our sight and knowing.   So I picked this hymn which addresses God in his majesty in heaven.

The hymn picks up imagery from the book of Revelation, as well as other parts of the BIble, to imagine God’s angels constantly singing his praises around his throne, as they see his face, behold his brightness and understand his whole being.  We on earth, by contrast, for all our natural and artificial light cannot see the light of God and are spiritually cold and dark, unable to praise God properly.  We ask him to enlighten us with faith and love, the only things that can stir us up into praise. 

These same ideas lie behind the Christmas story with the angels dazzling the shepherds and the heavenly light guiding the magi. Illustrations of the manger in Bethlehem often portray a warm glowing light around the child, or around the whole stable, while it is night outside.  Our God comes to us in ways that show us the right way and warm our hearts to respond to him in song like the angels.

The illustration is a detail of a stained glass window in the south aisle of Whalley parish church, Lancashire, by the arts-and-crafts designer Christopher Whall. It depicts Mary with the infant Jesus and two angels.

When human voices cannot sing

Today is All Souls’ day, the remembrance of the dead, and so I have picked a funeral song from the hymn book. ‘When human voices cannot sing’ by Shirley Murray.   

Verse 1 acknowledges that hearts do break in bereavement, and that singing praise must necessarily cease during that first period of intense grief. God knows that, and we can bring our grief to him, aloud or silently.  The second verse admits there is also often fear: the fear of not knowing what happens in death, or of dying in the same, perhaps unpleasant way. We ask to be set free from that fear of the unknown, and have our path lit by Christ.  The third verse asks for God’s love to be as real as it was at Easter. The fourth releases the beloved to go ahead of us on this unknown journey in peace and that our sorrow may come to an end.

The Church has to tread a wary path between the general assumption among most people in contemporary society that there is an afterlife or paradise to which all souls go without exception, and the apparent teaching of the bible that ‘not everyone will be saved’ (go to heaven, spend eternity with God, however you choose to express it).  Even Jesus who welcomed everyone in life and extended God’s covenant with Israel to the whole world, still taught of the narrow way that not all will find, of those who call him Lord but who will find themselves rejected, and of Gehenna, the unpleasant fate that awaits even those who call someone else a fool, from which the popular idea of hell may derive.  The Church’s teaching has generally been around the idea that entry into heaven is for all who believe in Jesus and repent of their sins, rather than for everyone or for the non-existent person who never sins.  Yet dare to challenge, however gently, someone who is convinced that their deceased relative is now an angel in paradise and we will be charged with insensitivity or prejudice.

What the lyrics of the hymn remind us is that the future is truly unknown. The Bible offers many images: of a stairway to heaven, souls given new bodies, people in white robes worshiping around a throne, a new Jerusalem.  In our own day people make comparisons with a caterpillar that cannot imagine the butterfly it will become.  All these can only be poor metaphors for what eternal life really is.  All we can do with certainty is put our trust in Christ who said he would go ahead of us to prepare a place. ‘Justorum animae in manu dei sunt’ – ‘the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God’.

Glory, honour, endless praises

Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is in a different mood from the last three: Glory, honour, endless praises’ by Edwin le Grice. Leaving behind the troubles of this world, we move (as John noted in his video) to the worship of Heaven as described in the book of Revelation. This was also mentioned in the radio ‘thought for the day’ today with a reminder that the alternative term Apocalypse really just means an uncovering, a revelation of a reality that is normally hidden.

In this existence we are told there will be ‘no more crying or pain’, and God can be praised by those whose sins have been redeemed.  Jesus Christ is acclaimed in the verses of this hymn as the Lord and King of Kings, the Lamb who has been slain, by those who have been ‘called to serve from every nation’.  It’s a necessary reminder that for all our struggles here, there is another, unseen but eternal existence where all that will have been laid aside. 

At the start of the book of Revelation we also read of Jesus revealing himself to St John with messages for several specific Christian congregations undergoing persecution, urging them to remain faithful, to endure, to overcome evil and hardship, so as to reach the everlasting life of Heaven. One way of achieving that is to praise God as often as we can, even when times are hard.  It’s just a practice for the real thing.