oday marks our one-year anniversary. In honor of that wonderful day, and in honor of my wife, here is a hymn by Henry Baker especially appropriate for weddings.

How welcome was the call,
And sweet the festal lay,
When Jesus deigned in Cana’s hall
To bless the marriage day!

And happy was the bride,
And glad the bridegroom’s heart,
For He Who tarried at their side
Bade grief and ill depart.

His gracious power divine
The water vessels knew;
And plenteous was the mystic wine
The wondering servants drew.

O Lord of life and love,
Come Thou again today;
And bring a blessing from above
That ne’er shall pass away.

O bless, as erst of old,
The bridegroom and the bride;
Bless with the holier stream that flowed
Forth from Thy piercèd side.

Before Thine altar throne
This mercy we implore;
As Thou dost knit them, Lord, in one,
So bless them evermore.
-Henry Baker

would imagine that everyone who knows the biblical reference where “Psalms and Hymns” comes from asks the same question.

Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.
Colossians 3:16 (TNIV) 

“What about the third category? What about the spiritual songs?”

That’s a great question.

The short answer is that I think that there are enough spiritual songs out there and that the other two categories are neglected (especially the psalms). There are also side issues of simply wanting to write music and not spend hours fine-tuning lyrics when there are perfectly good lyrics out there.

The long answer is that I started writing when I was in college. Every week, I was learning new music. (Or, to put it more accurately, I was playing along with unknown music and figuring it out as I went along. That was a pretty harrowing experience! Thankfully, all of the music was fairly predictable.) There was such a drive for the latest expression of worship, the freshest tune, the newest lyric, that I got burnt out on it all. This isn’t to say that I wasn’t involved with some fine people who were doing a great job leading several hundred college students each week. It was just that the continual drive for what’s new forced me to stop and take a look at what’s old.

What I discovered was a treasury of incredible lyrics that my peers had all but forgotten. Here were words that were not captive to the latest pop metaphors for God but were rich and full of meaning. I found lyrics that had withstood the test of time and were rightfully called “the great hymns of the faith”. (Of course, there are some truly wretched old hymns, just like there are some fantastic spiritual songs being written today. One isn’t better than the other based upon its genre, necessarily. The content is the standard by which it should be judged.)

I found great hymns with some great tunes but also some great hymns with lesser tunes. Different musical settings of the same text can be wonderful counterparts to each other, as long as they both faithfully represent the content of the text. It’s like looking at a diamond from many different perspectives or like reading the bible in several different translations. They all add to each other. “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” is a fabulous hymn whether it’s sung to “Hamburg” or “Gift of Love” (but not when it’s sung to the tune of “Green Acres”). So I began trying to compose tunes that would accurately reflect the content of hymn texts with a musical vocabulary that was more common to my peers.

For centuries, Christians not only sang hymns, but they also had settings of the Psalms to sing (the Psalter). I can’t possibly write everything there is to write on the use of the Psalms right now, but I’ll leave with an observation that we have all but forgotten the Psalms in public worship and it’s to our detriment.

God has given us the gift of music and he has given us a song to sing. Psalms and hymns allow us to sing the same song as the saints of old - the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs and all who have gone before us. We sing along with the “living faith of the dead” (as Jaroslav Pelikan has written) and join in the thunderous chorus praising:

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
Luke 2:14 (TNIV)

Note: This was a post that I originally wrote on January 28, 2006 but haven’t posted until now. My thoughts on the subject have changed a little but I still agree with the main thrust of what I wrote. Today, I would only qualify that we be vigilant in rejecting any romanticization of the past, thinking that older lyrics (and older theology) must necessarily be better than more modern expressions. We must always be returning to the scriptures as our source for life and our vocabulary for worshiping the living God.

ere is the text of the newest song I’ve written, a setting of Isaac Watts’ hymn “Arise, my soul, my joyful powers.”

Arise, my soul, my joyful powers,
And triumph in my God;
Awake, my voice, and loud proclaim
His glorious grace abroad.

He raised me from the deeps of sin,
The gates of gaping hell,
And fixed my standing more secure
Than it was before I fell.

      Arise, my soul; awake, my voice,
      And songs of triumph sing;
      Loud hallelujahs shall address
      My Savior and My King.

The arms of everlasting love
Beneath my soul he placed;
And on the Rock of ages set
My slippery footsteps fast.

I’ve edited one line. In the verse that I’ve used as a chorus, the original second line read “And tunes of pleasure sing”. I thought that “songs of triumph” was both more appropriate and was less liable to be misunderstood in our context today.

Hopefully, I will be able to post a lead sheet soon.

ast Friday night, I graduated from Seminary. Our ceremony was held at the First Presbyterian Church in Downtown Orlando. It was a wonderful evening with an inspiring message from Sandy Wilson from Second Presbyterian Church, Memphis, on the biblical imperative to love the poor. We also heard from the Rt. Rev. Jackson Matovu, the Bishop of Central Buganda in the Anglican Church. Central Buganda is located in Uganda along the shores of Lake Victoria. One of the Bishop’s priests has been a classmate of mine while I’ve been in seminary and he came in, along with his family, to celebrate with us.

Like I said, the ceremony was wonderful - except the music. And the music was good - except for one hymn.

Blow ye the trumpet, blow!
The gladly solemn sound
let all the nations know,
to earth’s remotest bound:
Refrain:
The year of jubilee is come!
The year of jubilee is come!
Return, ye ransomed sinners, home.

It wasn’t that the hymn was bad. The organ was in tune, the trumpets played their parts correctly, the singer sang the right notes. Well, scratch that. I think the singer sang the right notes. The problem was, nobody knew what the right notes were because no one had heard the hymn before. It wasn’t that the crowd didn’t sing, they sang with gusto on “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”, it was that they didn’t know what to sing. I am not exaggerating when I guess that less than 15 people in the entire building had heard the song before it was played at graduation.

This is not a diatribe against new music, a manifesto that we stick to what is familiar. It is, however, a comment on how we use new music. A seminary graduation is not the place for an unfamiliar hymn. At the very least, the music should have been printed in the program or a hymn from the hymnal should have been chosen. There are certain occasions when it’s best to stick with what people know. Weddings, funerals, graduations, etc., these are events where teaching new songs might not be the best course of action.

I am all for new music; I write new music. However, I am concerned with how we teach new music. This isn’t a complaint post about my seminary graduation. Rather, it was an event that got me thinking about how we use new music in the church and how we teach new music in the church. Look for more developed thoughts to come.

Sing to the Lord a new song! (Only, do it at the right time.)

piphany is like that lost holiday that no one really knows what to do with. We’re so ready to get back to work or get back to school after the “holidays” are over that we seem to forget that Christmas isn’t the end of things. Traditionally, Christmas has been a season, not an event, and that season leads up to Epiphany on January 6.

Why does this even matter? Epiphany isn’t that attractive as a holiday in our culture. There are no gifts to be bought, no new clothes to wear to church, no long trips to see family members, no marketing campaigns from Hallmark to make us feel guilty about not purchasing a card or trinket, no jewelry stores accusing every man within 60 miles of not caring about his wife, there’s none of that. That’s probably not a bad thing. Strip all of the excess away and epiphany is really about the same thing Christmas is about: joy and gratitude.

Epiphany celebrates several things, all wrapped around one theme. First, the visitation of the wise men from the east to see Jesus. Second, the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan. Third, Jesus beginning his public ministry by miraculously turning water into wine at Cana. The theme: Christ is revealed to all people. Jesus is not confined as simply the Jewish Messiah - though he was nothing less - he is the only Savior for the world. Epiphany completes Advent and Christmas. In Advent, Christ is promised. In Christmas, he comes. In Epiphany, he is revealed to the world. As Simeon sings when Jesus is presented at the temple, Jesus is “a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2.32)

Presbyterians, like me, have not been good at all at giving Epiphany its proper due and celebration. There are two hymns in the Trinity Hymnal section labeled Epiphany. (And that doesn’t even include “From the Eastern Mountains”, a terrible omission.) Thankfully, God has not left us alone. The Lutheran and Anglican churches have rich hymnody concerning this celebration.

From the Eastern Mountains
Godfrey Thring, 1873

From the eastern mountains, pressing on, they come,
wise men in their wisdom, to his humble home;
stirred by deep devotion, hasting from afar,
ever journeying onward, guided by a star.

There their Lord and Savior meek and lowly lay,
wondrous Light that led them onward on their way,
ever now to lighten nations from afar,
as they journey homeward by that guiding star.

Thou who in a manger once hast lowly lain,
who dost now in glory o’er all kingdoms reign,
gather in the heathen who in lands afar
ne’er have seen the brightness of thy guiding star.

Gather in the outcasts, all who’ve gone astray,
Throw Thy radiance o’er them, guide them on their way.
Those who never knew Thee, those who’ve wandered far,
Guide them by the brightness of Thy guiding star.

Onward through the darkness of the lonely night,
shining still before them with thy kindly light.
Guide them, Jew and Gentile, homeward from afar,
young and old together, by thy guiding Star.

his Little Babe, a victorious poem for Christmas morning, by Robert Southwell.

This little Babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows made of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus as sure his foe to wound,
The Angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul with Christ join thou in fight,
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little Babe will be thy guard;
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from the heavenly boy.

Here is a recording of a setting of the poem by Benjamin Britten.

hree weeks ago two of my roommates and I attended a choral service for the first week in Advent at the Anglican Cathedral in downtown Orlando. I will confess up front my love for Anglican church music and for good choral music in general. Following the service one roommate and I discussed how many people dismiss traditional choral and organ music as old and irrelevant when, in fact, they are reacting more against the quality of the music than the content of it. (The same could be said for those who dismiss praise bands and pop-style vocal ensembles. I’ll grant that it is often frustrating to try to find high quality congregational music of any genre in many churches today.)

The service was sung extremely well by a well-prepared choir and the Advent readings were spoken with reverence and awe (to steal a phrase from our RTS librarian). A majority of the singing was done by the choir from the choir loft in the rear of the nave. While I have some pretty well-developed views on the role of the choir and the role of the congregation in corporate worship (which I will write on in the future), the use of the choir was not a distraction. It truly felt that we in the congregation were participating in their song as we prayerfully read the words (and translations) provided in the Order of Worship.

Despite all of this wonderful music and ceremony, the most moving portions of the service for me were when the congregation rose and added our voices to the choir in several hymns. I will probably remember for years the feeling of the final verses of “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending”. The organ played with full ranks, the room being thick with incense (in fact, there was more smoke in that cathedral than in a circa-1970s biker bar with Waylon Jennings playing on the jukebox!), the congregation sang the melody and the choir added the harmony as we sang and prayed for the return of the Lord. It was a powerful, powerful moment for me as I was in the thick of studying and writing on Revelation and considering this year’s Advent in light of the future return of Christ.

Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.

John Cennick and Charles Wesley’s hymn instantly became one of my favorites. It captures the glory and the majesty of the return of Christ in a way that I haven’t often seen. It reminds us that in the midst of our Christmas celebrations and songs of Mary and her baby, shepherds and angels, kings and stars, we still await the final consummation of all things. Christmas approaches but so does the return of Christ. As we celebrate his first coming, let us also look for his second coming in glory; we are another Advent season closer.

“Yea, Amen! let all adore Thee,
High on Thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory,
Claim the kingdom for Thine own;
O come quickly! O come quickly! O come quickly!
Alleluia! Come, Lord, come!”

If you don’t have a recording of “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” (to the tune Helmsley), consider shelling out the 99¢ (for American readers) that it would cost to purchase the hymn on iTunes.

saiah 11:1-9

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung,
of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a flow’ret bright, amid the cold of winter,
when half-spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Savior,
when half-spent was the night.

from Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming