Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Holy Week Hymns: My Glorious King in Heaven Crowned

This year, each day of Holy Week, I will post one hymn, with a meditation or explanation afterward.  Some will be hymns I have written; others will be ones I just find meaningful.  I hope you will join me each day, at least to read the hymn if you don't want to take the time for the prose that follows it.

Today, I am sharing the first hymn I wrote about the Crucifixion.

My Glorious King in Heaven Crowned

My glorious king in heaven crowned
Your blood like rubies on the ground
Beneath the bitter cross I kneel
And let your pain my suffering heal

The cock called forth a joyless dawn
The light of lights would soon be gone
Yet from Your dying flame a spark
Would save those crying in the dark

For cleansing waters from Your side
Flowed thick and freely as You died
The separating curtain tore
That we could live with God once more

So as my Savior’s darkest day
My spirit’s shadow purged away
Through all my days on You I’ll call
And at Your nail-scarred feet I’ll fall

I wrote this hymn after my church’s Maundy Thursday service during my first year of hymn writing.  Normally, I have to work on the hymns to get them to sound right, but this one came as soon as I began writing it.  I think it actually began in December of that year, when I was listening to “Oh Holy Night.”  When the choir sang the line “Behold your King,” the image of the cross stood out in my mind.  The baffling idea of a king willingly enduring the crucifixion was so moving that it stuck into my mind until Holy Week, when it inspired the first line of this hymn.
 

1 comment:

  1. My glorious king in heaven crowned
    Your blood like rubies on the ground

    Wow. What a whip-saw of ideas. Yet, that is the reality: Our king bled for us. You've also used one of my favorite Good Friday images, and one that's rarely referenced in hymns: the torn curtain. If I could be a time-traveling spectator for Holy Week, I think I'm too much of a wimp to actually be at the foot of the cross. I think I'd rather be in the temple to see that curtain tear from top down.

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