January 8, 2012

Jan 8 2012


Hymn: Baptized in Water
Each stanza of this hymn begins with allusions to John 3:5 (Jesus’ baptism) and Ephesians 1:13 (marked with the seal of the Spirit), then unpacks what God does in baptism—cleanses, makes us heir sof salvation, promises, frees, forgives, etc. and leads us to give our thankful praise to God. In The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), an alteration was made to the third stanza, where “born of one Father” became “born of the Spirit.” Other hymnals have accepted this change since its publication, although the author does not agree with the change: “By removing father, (a) the Trinitarian significance is omitted and (b) ‘Spirit’ is repeated unnecessarily.”

Hymn: We Know that Christ Is Raised
The author writes of this hymn, written in 1967 when he was a tutor at Cheshunt College, Cambridge: “A good deal of work was going on round the corner producing living cells. This hymn attempted to illustrate the Christian doctrine of baptism in relation to those experiments.” The hymn is, as Paul Westermeyer puts it, a statement of the explosive nature of baptism in all contexts. The text was specifically written for the tune ENGELBERG. Westermeyer writes, “The pulse of this one is so strong that the long notes at phrase ends never sit down but are always propelled onward with enough space for breath.” Sing it heartily and with conviction!

Hymn: Shall We Gather at the River
Robert Lowry wrote this hymn during a period of exhaustion, during which his imagination took wing, and he asked why “hymn writers had said so much about the ‘river of death’ and so little about the ‘pure water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.’”

8:30 Offertory: Wash, O God, Our Sons and Daughters
Paul Westermeyer comments on this hymn: “‘New life’ and ‘Living waters’ imply many facets of baptism. Some of them are made explicit in this hymn by Ruth Duck: God’s washing, cleansing, numbering, blessing, compassing with love and light, anointing, renewing, guiding, freeing from sin, and made one with Christ in his death and new life—so that we are reborn, recreated, and transformed.”

10:55 Anthem: I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry
In 1985, John Ylvisaker was working for the Media Services Center of the American Lutheran Church. While working on a baptism series called “Reflections,” he began to write a song with a “dance-like beat and fast rhythm” before he saw the video to which the music would be set. Once he saw the film, he realized that “the lyrics were on target, but not the music. Thus began the most arduous task any composer can face—changing a completed work into something else. However, the original ‘false labor’ later gave way to the ‘birth’ of ‘Borning Cry’ which is now included in songbooks and hymnals around the world.”