I was trying to find a treatment of Psalm 116 for morning worship, and came across this hymn from Isaac Watts...
It's only connection to the psalm is v.12, What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? This hymn hardly counts as a psalm setting -- but it's so appropriate to our theme, I brought it in anyway. N.B., it's been updated from Watts' original. We sang it to St. Thomas.
What offering shall we give
or what atonement bring
to God by whom alone we live
High Heaven's eternal king
For all the blood of beasts
on ancient altars slain
could never give the conscience peace
or wash away its stain
But Christ the heavenly Lamb
takes all our sins away—
a sacrifice of nobler name
and richer blood than they
In faith I lay my hand
upon his head divine
while as a penitent I stand
and there confess my sin
So I look back to see
the weight he chose to bear
when hanging on the cross for me
because my guilt was there
Believing we rejoice
to see sin's curse removed
We bless the Lamb with cheerful voice
and sing his bleeding love
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
A serendipitous moment
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Are we still growing as a church in our musical expression? Or are we going to cap our expressions of joy to the Lord? Are we to limit hand-raising and where has hand-clapping gone? Are we going to cut back on the more contemporary songs that seem to perhaps more thatn others--elicit those emotions of joy I thought we were trying to stir up? And what about today's generation which we are trying to reach? A lot of people we would like to invite or have invited to HBC don't really feel at ease with our "tradition" and wonder why we haven't progessed more. I thought we were going for a "celebration" experience on the Lord's Day? So why not more "new" songs, more "new" instruments, more "new" emotions? Why can't just erupt in our worship? Why do we continue to shackle ourselves being constrained by our "traditions?" Let's be more joyful in worship!
ReplyDeleteNice hymn! What would you think of singing it to the tune Leominster S.M.D.? It's used for Bonar's "Not What My Hands Have Done"
ReplyDeleteMike C.
I like Leominster. Funny story -- we used it quite often at our other church -- a 'good horse' for so many selections from our psalter. Kind of got tired of it, I guess. Doesn't mean it won't work here -- and prob'ly a better choice than St. Thomas. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteDavid
BTW, do you all sing, "Not What My Hands Have Done"? Thinking about introducing it at Cornerstone soon if some of the folk are familiar with it.
ReplyDeleteMike C
I think we have (to leominster). But Cheryl Marshall (wife of Phillip, former prof here at MCTS) wrote a new tune to it within the last year or so -- and it seemed to work well. Let me see if I can get a paper copy to Eddie for you.
ReplyDeleteDavid