Holy Week Hymns: Ah Holy Jesus

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.

Ah, Holy Jesus

Ah, Holy Jesus, how hast thou offended

That man to judge Thee hath in hate pretended?

By foes derided, by Thine own rejected O most afflicted!

Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon Thee,

Alas, my treason, Jesus hath undone Thee!

Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied Thee, I crucified Thee.

For me, kind Jesus, was Thine incarnation,

Thy mortal sorrow, and Thy life’s oblation;

Thy death of anguish and Thy bitter passion, for my salvation.

Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay Thee,

I do adore Thee and will ever pray Thee,

Think on Thy pity, and Thy love unswerving, not my deserving.

Every time I read these lyrics, I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut.  Unlike most of the previous hymns I’ve featured, this one focuses more on less on exactly what Christ did and more on its effect on us personally. 

It begins by painting a picture of Christ’s suffering not in terms of the physical aspects of it or even His relationship with God, but in terms of the contempt and rejection of people.  I think the author intended this as a way of setting up the later verses; ultimately, Christ’s death was caused by sin, which is contempt and rejection of God.  Focusing on the attitude of those who crucified Christ emphasizes the fact that humans are responsible for it.

But the hymn doesn’t end with blaming humans in general.  It moves to a more personal confession.  Since Jesus died for sin, any sin was sufficient to cause His death, including our own.  Another way of putting this is that the essence of sin is desiring to control our own lives rather than have God control them.  And, though we may not want to admit it, sinful people would choose to kill God rather than give up this control.  In the Crucifixion, that is exactly what we did.

The third verse moves to talk about Christ’s work as a response to our sinful desires and the love He showed, which contrasts sharply with our hatred of Him.  The final verse brings all of it together, leading us to the only appropriate response, worship and devotion to Christ.  It also points out that our only hope is to be judged on the basis of God’s love, not on what we deserve.

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.

 

Holy Week Hymns: Ride on Ride on in Majesty

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.
 

Ride on! Ride on in Majesty!

Ride on! Ride on in majesty! Hark! All the tribes hosanna cry;

O Savior meek, pursue thy road With palms and scattered garments strowed.

Ride on! Ride on in majesty!  In lowly pomp ride on to die;

O Christ, thy triumphs now begin O’er captive death and conquered sin.

Ride on! Ride on in majesty! The winged squadrons of the sky

Look down with sad and wondering eyes To see th’approaching sacrifice.

Ride on! Ride on in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die.

Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain, then take, O God, Thy power, and reign.

One of the challenges in looking for hymns that relate to Holy Week is the fact that the vast majority of them focus on the Crucifixion.  This is completely appropriate, but going immediately from Palm Sunday to Good Friday seemed a bit abrupt.  One of the things I love about “Ride on! Ride on in Majesty” is that although it focuses on the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, it also references the Crucifixion and even the Resurrection.

I think that one of the roles poetry should play in the Christian life is pointing out the paradoxes within God’s nature and the ways God works that we would never have imagined.  The more we learn about God, the more we should experience wonder at what He is like and what He does.  Given that, one aspect of this hymn that I love is the alternation between images of triumph and suffering, especially the phrase “lowly pomp.” 

The repeated line “Ride on! Ride on in majesty!” depicts Christ as a glorious king, which is certainly how the crowds saw Him on Palm Sunday.  It also alludes to Psalm 45:4 “In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; let your right hand teach you awesome deeds!”  If you read the whole psalm, you will find that it is a wedding song, and this line is addressed to the king.  By applying this verse to Jesus, the hymnist reminds us that the crowds were right in calling Him their king.  It also reminds us that Christ’s actions on that day and throughout Holy Week aimed at redeeming people to become the Church, His bride.

The line, “O Christ, thy triumphs now begin O’er captive death and conquered sin,” reflects an understanding of the Crucifixion that we seldom think of today.  The idea is that even in the midst of His suffering, Christ was defeating sin and was in the process of destroying it.  Amazingly, even when Christ appeared to be the one who was captive and defeated, He was already conquering evil.  The Crucifixion was the beginning of Christ’s exaltation.

Verse 3 reflects the opposite side of Holy Week; it points out that while the crowds cheered, angels wept because they knew what was coming.  He was indeed riding on to die.

The last line effectively sums up the essence of Holy Week: “Bow Thy meek head to mortal pain, then take, O God, thy power and reign.”  Christ submitted to suffering and death, but then He would take His life up again and be exalted to reign over all things.  Most of the hymns I will post this week focus on the Crucifixion and on suffering, but we must not forget that, even when Christ cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”, God knew what was happening and was planning the Resurrection.  Christ was never a passive victim.  He knew what He was getting into and suffered willingly for us, which in my mind makes His sacrifice even more incredible.

Holy Week Hymns: All Glory Laud and Honor

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.
 

All Glory, Laud, and Honor

Refrain:

All glory, laud, and honor, to thee, Redeemer, King, 

to whom the lips of children made sweet hosannas ring. 

1. Thou art the King of Israel, thou David's royal Son, 

who in the Lord's name cometh, the King and Blessed One. 

(Refrain) 

2. The company of angels are praising thee on high, 

 and we with all creation in chorus make reply. 

 (Refrain) 

3. The people of the Hebrews with psalms before thee went; 

our prayer and praise and anthems before thee we present. 

(Refrain) 

4.To thee, before thy passion, they sang their hymns of praise; 

to thee, now high exalted, our melody we raise. 

(Refrain) 

5. Thou didst accept their praises; accept the prayers we bring, 

 who in all good delightest, thou good and gracious King. 

(Refrain) 

If you’re not familiar with the tune, you can listen to the hymn here.

I chose this hymn to kick of my series on hymns for Holy Week because it is the hymn that I associate with Palm Sunday more than any other.  I have many memories of singing this hymn while processing into church with the children’s choir, holding the palms that the boys had only just stopped using as swords.  This year

The words are fairly self-explanatory, as long as you know that the word “laud” means “praise.”  The hymn invites the congregation to join the crowds at Jerusalem, who joyfully welcomed Jesus as their rightful king, the son of David who comes in the name of the Lord.

My favorite verse is the last one, which points out that Christ accepted these people’s praises.  When I was younger, I was confused by this.  Praise is good, so why wouldn’t God accept it?  Yet Jesus knew that the crowd’s cheering was motivated by a profound misunderstanding of his mission.  The people wanted Jesus to save them from the Roman Empire by conquering it, but Jesus planned to save them from sin by allowing sinners to kill Him.  He also knew that when He didn’t follow their expectations, the people would turn on him with the intense fury that comes from disappointment.  The same voices that were proclaiming Him to be their king would soon be shouting for his death and mocking Him on the cross.  And yet, despite all that, Jesus accepted their praises.

As much as I hate to admit it, too often, I am just like the crowd.  The praise I offer God is based on misunderstandings of His character and His promises.  My praise is often painfully short-lived; I can pledge allegiance to Christ as my king and a few minutes later blatantly violate His rules, indicating that I, too, wish Him dead.  And I am sure that I have this inconsistency in common with all the other sinful human beings that make up the Church.  It is a tremendous act of love and grace that God would even be patient enough to listen to our pathetic attempts at worship.  This grace should compel us to continue trying to worship Him as He deserves, to love Him as well as we can until He gives us new hearts that can worship Him fully.

The Good, The Bad, and the Artistic

When I was in high school, an English teacher told me that poetry required emotional tension, and that if the only response a poem produced was happiness, it was not a real poem but a Hallmark card.  Since I was writing what I thought was poetry at the time, and since most of it was optimistic in tone, this naturally disturbed me.

The type of attitude that praises dark art and denigrates cheerful themes has become prevalent in art today.  We see it in museums, where artists strive to be controversial, through work that is either outright grotesque or simply so abstract and confusing that it disturbs the viewer.  We see it in film festivals, where the films that are seen as the most insightful and sophisticated films address dark or taboo themes.  People may not flock to see these works, but most would admit, with varying degrees of embarrassment, that these choices are not “high art.”

The artists that produce all of this “highbrow” artwork see themselves as philosophers, who are using their work to proclaim a message about life.  Sometimes, the message is political and aims at correcting a particular real or perceived injustice.  Other times, it is more theoretical, expressing the sense that life has no meaning or purpose other than what we impose on it.

Ultimately, though, the belief that true art must be negative reflects a worldview without hope.  The various worldviews of most intellectuals are outgrowths of various types of naturalism.  The common assumption is that there is no God or supernatural entity, so all that we are is matter and energy interacting.

The worldviews diverge when they get to the question of purpose, or of how we ought to live.  Some naturalists devote their lives to political or social causes based on ethical principles that they feel intuitively, even though their worldview has no transcendent base to ground them.  Others recognize the meaninglessness of life in a purely natural world and become nihilists.  Others try to create their own meaning, either by sheer willpower or through cultural assumptions shared by their communities.

What all of these have in common is that there is no ultimate hope.  Indeed, if there is no objective meaning, we do not even have a way to define what is good, much less a reason to believe that good will triumph.  If we try to create purpose for ourselves, how can we know that our purpose will be realized, instead of a vision that contradicts ours, such as radical Islam?  And naturalistic crusaders for various causes see their goals as the meaning of life, which means that if it does not come about, life is utterly pointless.

Obviously, if we wish to change the evil in the world, we must face it, no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel.  However, evil is not the whole of reality, nor is it the most lasting part of the world.  One of the reasons I love Christianity is that it explains both the bad and the good in our experience.  The evil comes from the human choice to sin, which explains both the awful things people do to each other and the horrors of natural disasters that result from the curse our sin attracted.  However, there is an incredible amount of beauty and goodness in the world.  The naturalist must see this as a cosmic accident, or a trick our genes play on us to get us to act in ways that will help us survive.  The Christian can realize that the goodness in the world is objective and real.  In fact, it is older and more fundamental to the universe than evil is, because it was part of the original creation.  Moreover, God has a plan to redeem the world and to eliminate evil and restore the good to what it was meant to be.  This means that ultimately, evil is not the essence of reality; good is.

My teacher was right to urge us to face the dark realities of a fallen world, but her worldview blinded her to the good that is also real and worthy of our attention.  True art needs to honestly portray both the good and the bad to give a coherent account of reality.

From Sapphire Throne to Manger-Crib

Although I haven’t blogged much recently, I have been writing.  Much of this was assignments for school that no one except my teachers  would be interested.  However, I’ve also written a few hymns, including this one.  A while back, someone asked me to comment on where my inspiration for the images I use comes from.  I’ve added some commentary about writing it after the hymn.  If you’re interested, read the commentary.  If not, at least read the poem.  It’s short and (I hope) captures the important concepts.

From Sapphire Throne to Manger-Crib

From sapphire throne to manger-crib, You come.

Eternity steps into time’s embrace

To dwell beneath the shadow of the cross

To trade Earth’s misery for Heaven’s grace.

You walk the winding roads of Galilee,

Their mundane dust beneath Your holy feet.

When sacred hands caress our dying flesh,

All sin and sickness make their swift retreat.

You laugh with joy, partaking of our feasts.

You weep and feel the sting of human pain.

Each perfect step brings near Your destiny –

To give Your perfect life, our lives to gain.

The Lord of Life submits to bitter death!

The God of Glory laid within a grave!

What love, to suffer so that we can thrive,

To rise, released from death, our lives to save.

The angels sing with joy to greet their king,

And I as well delight in You alone.

From dark, cross-shadowed manger You have come,

Returning to Your rightful sapphire throne.

This newest hymn began around Christmas time, as the first stanza may indicate.  It was inspired by a podcast from Stand to Reason, in which Greg Koukl was discussing Christmas and the Incarnation.  He commented that even at Christmas, the baby in the manger was overshadowed by the cross, since that was the real reason why He was born.  The image of a cross-shadowed manger stuck in my head and, a few weeks later, was expressed in the first verse.

The second stanza aims at pointing out the difference between Christ and the world he came in.  Jesus was God and thus utterly different from everything around Him, especially the sinful aspects of it and the brokenness that resulted from sin (which includes sickness).  However, He was still willing to engage with this broken, messed-up world and experience all of our lives.  Verse three focuses specifically on Jesus’s willingness to experience the turbulent emotions that define our lives, another manifestation of His participation in the world.  It then returns to the idea that all of Jesus’ life anticipated the cross.

I have written multiple hymns about the crucifixion, and I cannot write enough.  Poetry thrives on paradox, and there is no paradox more astounding than the crucifixion.  The cross brings together immortality and death, love and hatred, death and life, joy and agony.  It is literally the crux of all of history.  (Note: my one linguistic pet peeve is misuse of the word “literal.”  I only use it when it actually applies.  In this case, the word “crux” is literal because it comes from the Latin word for “cross.”)  However, this tremendous sacrifice is inseparably connected to the Resurrection, which affirmed that God found Christ’s sacrifice acceptable and forgave sins because of it.

I try not to make my hymns too long, but there was not space in four stanzas to say everything I wanted to say.  I ended with a vision of Heaven in which angels rejoice in all that God has done.  I included the reference to my own delight in Christ alone because this is meant as a hymn, and use in worship demands a personal response.  This is also why I used the present tense throughout – I want the readers/singers to imagine themselves as present during the events described.  Although our hearts are not now fully committed to Christ, they someday will be, so the personal response is actually an anticipation of Heaven.  The last couplet recalls the beginning of the hymn, only reversing it.  The hymn began with Christ coming from glory into the world; now He returns to glory, as symbolized by the sapphire throne.

Life has Happened

For all of my eager determination and commitment to working on this blog, I seem to have epic failed.  Part of me wants to make all sorts of excuses and complain about how busy I've been, but that is not going to change the fact that I haven't posted for two and a half months.  So, it's time to just move on.

I'm working on a post  which I hope to have up either later tonight or (more likely) tomorrow.  I'm also starting a collaborative blog with my brother.  I may also start using a tumblr account for my posts instead of this one, but if I do I will announce it.

Lots of exciting things have been happening in my life lately.  I've been looking for jobs and now have two options, of which I am fairly likely to be accepted to one.  I've started doing freelance writing for Breakpoint, and this Sunday I have a book signing for Transforming Light at First Church of Christ in Wethersfield.  At the same time, I've had a difficult few months because of the stress of my job search and some emotional struggles.  Still, things are going well overall, and right now I am feeling optimistic and excited about what God has in store for me.