September 16, 2012: The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Sep 16 2012

Hymn: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee

Henry van Dyke wrote this hymn in 1907, and from the outset intended that it be sung to the famous tune from the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Dr. van Dyke said of his hymn writing, “These verses are simple expressions of common Christian feelings and desires in this present time, hymns of today that may be sung together by people who know the thought of the age, and are not afraid that any truth of science will destroy religion, or any revolution on earth overthrow the kingdom of heaven. Therefore these are hymns of trust and joy and hope.”

Hymn: O Word of God Incarnate

This hymn first appeared under Psalm 119:105, “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is a light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life,” in William Walsham How and T.B. Morrell’s 1867 Supplement to Psalms and Hymns (1854). Sam Young writes, “The poet extends the psalm’s light motif in a contrived inventory of the Bible’s attributes: ‘Word of God incarnate,’ ‘Wisdom from on high,’ ‘Truth unchaning,’ a divine gift, a vessel [originally ‘casket’] where truth is stored, the picture of Christ, a banner before God’s advancing host, and ‘chart and compass.’ The final stanza is a petition to Christ to purify and restore the church to its former stature as the light to the nations.”

Hymn: Now Praise the Lord

Presbyterian minister Fred Anderson wrote this paraphrase of Psalm 147 in 1986. When it was first published, it included a seventh stanza that focused on the Trinity:

Sing Praise to God, the source of life,

Sing praise to God the Son.

Sing praise to God’s life-giving power,

Forever three in one.

Solo: Give Me Jesus

Paul Westermeyer: “This is an African American spiritual that in some versions begins ‘I heard my mother say.’ It was part of the repertoire of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, the group that formed at Fisk University in the 1870s and moved African American spirituals to a public and world-wide stage. Their story is told in the book that joins the phrase ‘Dark midnight’ to ‘when I rise.’ The narrative moves from morning to midnight to the break of day to death—that is, back and forth across all of life as it rises, wails, and dies. And then to encompass everything, it wants to sing. The song it sings is ‘Give me Jesus.’”