Today’s hymn
from Sing Praise is ‘Eternal God, supreme in tenderness’ by Alan Gaunt. The words are said to be ‘after Julian of
Norwich’ and the last line of each verse repeats perhaps her most famous saying,
‘all things shall be well’ (or in the last verse, ‘all things made well’).
Otherwise,
the structure of the hymn is Trinitarian, with one verse each addressed to the
Creator, Son, Spirit and Trinity. The
mercy of the Father, the comfort of the Son, the joy of the Spirit and the
eternity of the Trinity, are what will make all things well. Interestingly, it
is the Son who is also addressed as ‘a mother comforting’. Jesus did use some mothering imagery such as
when he said he wanted to gather the people of Jerusalem ‘under his wing’ (as a
mother bird).
“The fourth day of creation” Icon by Betsy Porter (c)betsyporter.com
This coming
weekend sees the start of the Kingdom Season (from now until Advent) with
choices of hymn to match. So today’s is “The
Lord is King” by Brian Hoare.
The first half
of each of the first three verses list the ways in which the Lord is King: that
he set the stars in space (i.e. is the creator), sent his Son to earth, and sent
his Spirit; thus, a Trinitarian structure, although usually in Christian
parlance the terms Lord and King refer specifically to Jesus Christ rather than
to the Trinity as a whole.
The second
part of each verse is an appropriate response: “Creator God, your kingdom
stands”, “O Saviour Christ, your kingdom comes” and “Spirit of truth, whose
kingdom grows”. The final verse
proclaims praise to the Lord and King from all created things.
In all, the
hymn is nicely crafted as a statement of faith, and might well be used in place
of a spoken Creed in the Communion service, but didn’t strike me as conveying
any original thought.
Today’s hymn
from Sing Praise is “All-creating heavenly giver” by Michael Saward. It’s in
the section of the book headed ‘The Church’s mission and ministry” but in fact
it is a fairly standard hymn to the Trinity: one verse each addressed to the Creator/Father,
one to the Lord and Saviour, one to the Holy Spirit and one to the threefold God. The words ‘church’, ‘ministry’ and ‘mission’
don’t appear at all.
So what are
we singing about? The second half of each verse begins “We…”, so this is a
corporate hymn of the Church (even if not named as such). “We your children
lift our voices singing gladly of your love”; “We your servants … in your kingdom
are united by that mighty sacrifice”; “We whose talents widely differ now
restore to you your own”; and “We your people … now and ever, in thanksgiving
to your praise and glory live”.
Overall, I’m
not very inspired by this hymn. Saward has certainly written better: his “Christ
Triumphant, ever reigning” is one of my favourites, although we don’t come to
that one until Christ the King Sunday in November.
Today’s hymn
is the last in the series for Trinity week, and the third in a row for
hymnwriter Timothy Dudley-Smith. It’s a paraphrase
of the Apostle’s Creed (the shorter of the two forms of the creed usually used
in church). The suggested tune is Lux Eoi, by Arthur Sullivan, perhaps better
known for his light operas but who also composed some good church music.
The Creed
summarises the beliefs of the mainstream churches: those who agree on its
wording generally accept each other as fellow Christians, even if they don’t
always extend this acceptance to recognising each other’s ministerial orders
and sacraments, but that’s another matter.
Although the
words refer to all three persons of the Trinity, the bulk of them are about
Jesus the Son of God, which probably reflects the difficulty the early Church had
in understanding him. Where people agree
on something, often only a short form of words is needed, so “We believe in
God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth” is short enough to convey
what we understand by the Creator. The “how”
of creation didn’t really get debated until long after the Creeds were agreed.
When people disagree
on something, however, it usually leads to writing rules down in great detail, so
there is much here about exactly what the Church (i.e. the original Eastern
church) thought about Christ. We have his sonship of God, born of a virgin by
the Spirit, crucified, dead, buried, risen and ascended, and coming again in
future to judge us. The Nicene Creed goes into much more detail (God from God, light
from light, very God of very God). If
you disagree with this, you’re a heretic. Some churches still find any dissent
from this difficult to accept within their ranks; others are more open to
debate on those issues (perhaps especially on the virgin birth and the nature
of Christ’s future reign).
The Apostles’
Creed simply states in regard to the Holy Spirit that we believe in Him. This lack of further description of the
Spirit’s work compared with the obsession with the detail of the exact nature
of Christ’s relationship with the Father, does make me wonder whether the Church
Fathers actually experienced the Holy Spirit for themselves? We will probably never know.
A confirmation service in the Church of England. Image from the Diocese of Blackburn website.
Today’s Trinity
hymn from Sing Praise is by the same author as yesterday’s: Timothy
Dudley-Smith. This time, he turns on its head the usual pattern of such hymns (Father,
Son, Spirit and a final verse about the three-in-one) by starting with the
unity – “Affirm anew the three-fold name of Father, Spirit, Son” – and then
breaking down the Trinity, as it were, into his constituent parts in subsequent
verses: the all-embracing Lord, Christ the Life, Truth, Way and Rock, and the ancient
fire of the Spirit.
Notably,
each verse starts with an imperative verb: Affirm, Declare, Confirm, Renew. The
first two verses are addressed to each other (if sung as a congregational hymn)
as we urge each other to affirm and declare our faith. The latter two would seem to be addressed to
God himself, asking him to confirm our faith, and renew us by his Spirit. In
fact I wonder whether the hymn was written with a confirmation service in mind,
rather than Trinity Sunday?
Coincidentally,
and as writing the previous sentence reminded me, it was forty years last
Sunday that I myself was confirmed by the late Bishop Stephen Neill. Perhaps it
is time, forty years on, for me to affirm, declare and ask God to renew my own
faith.
The suggested
tune, which John used, is an old 18th century one, but there is a
suggestion that Kingsfold (I heard the voice of Jesus say) could be used
instead. If anything I might prefer to sing this to something more rousing,
especially as the last verse asks the Spirit to inflame our hearts, renew,
restore, unite and inspire us.
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.
Today’s hymn
from Sing Praise, like yesterday’s is a Trinitarian one beginning “Father, Lord”. In this instance it’s “Father, Lord of earth
and heaven” by James Quinn. The
structure of the words seems to be based on the phrase from the Nicene creed
that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son” (which allegedly was the
reason for the Roman Catholic church splitting from Orthodoxy a thousand years
ago, though I’m sure it was more complex than that). Otherwise, the words, to me, were rather
predictable as it regurgitates familiar ideas rather than coming up with any
new insight.
It also
doesn’t come with its own tune, and although the 87.87 metre would fit any of
numerous tunes in a standard hymnal, the suggested tune (Stuttgart) is not very
exciting either. So I didn’t get much from this hymn to share with you, other
than that having asked the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to come to us, in the
last verse we ask them/him to “stay among us and dwell within us”. Knowing God
and receiving the Spirit should be a state of being rather than an occasional
encounter, although few people could claim that is their everyday experience.
Today’s hymn
from Sing Praise, in this Trinity week, is “Father, Lord, we give you adoration”
by Peter Nardone. The four verses
address in turn the persons of the Trinity in their conventional order (Father,
Son and Spirit) and the Holy Three.
God is asked
in various ways to help us: the giver of life to “hold us in light, keep clear
our sight, give us the vision of your glorious way”; the son by his example to “teach
us to pray, help us to stay close to the way”; and the Spirit to “keep us
aware, through love and care, [that] you are the way by which we live our lives”.
The common thread
here appears to be the reference to “the way”, and indeed the last line of the
hymn is “your way will prove to us the life of love”. It was Jesus in fact who
called himself “the Way”, but as we believe he is one with the Father and the
Spirit, the Way (also an ancient name for the Christian faith) is that of all
three, the one God. The use of the term reminds us that the Christian life is
supposed to be a journey of exploration and not merely a statement of facts or
beliefs.
The tune,
composed by the same author as the words, is called “Hurst Green”. A bit of a
diversion, but there are two Hurst Greens that I know, one of them in
Lancashire and one in Surrey. By
coincidence (probably) each of them has a church of St John the
Evangelist. A gazetteer lists villages of the same name in
four other English counties as well. As it happens I was within ten miles of the
Lancashire one today. I wonder if it was that, or one of the others, that lent
its name to this melody?
One of many attempts to explain the Trinity. Image from stainedglass.com
The hymn
from Sing Praise for Trinity Sunday is “Holy, holy, holy one, Love’s eternal
Trinity”. There are of course many hymns that begin “Holy, holy, holy” as this threefold
acknowledgement of God’s holiness is an ancient form of address to God found in
the Jewish scriptures, three being seen as a symbol of perfection. In the Christian church it gets an extra
layer of meaning, as we understand God to have three ‘persons’ or ‘manifestations’
as Father/creator, Son/Word/redeemer, and Holy Spirit/advocate/comforter.
This particular
hymn is by Alan Gaunt. It has five verses and follows a pattern common in other
such hymns of having the first and last verses addressed to the Trinity, and
each of the others focussing on one of the persons. So God is described
variously as “Holy source of all that lives” (creator), “Holy Lamb, love’s
sacrifice” (redeemer) and “Holy Spirit, deathless joy”.
What binds
the verses together, apart from the “Holy” titles is the last line of each
verse: “here I am, my God, send me”.
Encountering the holiness of God should result in a response of wanting
to serve him. The different verses suggest differing responses as we encounter
the persons of the Trinity. With the Creator, “through creation’s mystery your
love speaks and we reply…”. With the Redeemer who gave his life for us, “mighty
in humility, overawed we humbly say…”. With the Spirit, the one who inspires
witness, “though we face Love’s agony, touch our lips and we will cry…”. And in
the last verse, to the three-in-one we say “call our name and we will be each
Love’s living sacrifice: here I am, my God, send me”.
The Trinity
cannot be explained, and indeed some churches don’t attempt to, preferring a
Unitarian position. But for most of us, it’s worth trying to understand that
the unseeable force behind creation, the man Jesus who was raised from the dead
and taken into heaven, and the unseen but often experienced spiritual power,
are one and the same God who wants to send us to call others into his presence.
Through the
first half of the Church’s year from Advent to Trinity we have studied the promises
of God from ancient times, the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension
of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit. Now as we put all that together we have
the second half of the year, from now until the end of November, to put it into
practice. “Ordinary time” it may be
called in the calendar, but if we have encountered God, it should be far from
ordinary.
