Introit: When We Are Living
Gertrude Suppe supplies the background of this hymn: “In
February 1980, after a church meeting in La Trinidad United Methodist Church in
Los Angeles, CA, I saw a woman standing off to one side by herself. I got
acquainted with her and found that she was visiting from Mexico. I asked if she
remembered any of the songs they used in her church in Mexico. She did, and her
sister, Ana Maria Domingues, sang a number of simple songs… “Pues si vivimos”
was one of them.” The first stanza is based on Romans 14:7-8: “We do not live
to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord,
and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die,
we are the Lord’s.”
Hymn: Rejoice, the Lord Is King!
Written by Charles Wesley, this hymn is based on Phil. 4:4:
“Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: rejoice!” As Paul Westermeyer
writes, this is a hymn that simply celebrates the Lordship of Christ and
rejoices in it. The tune name, DARWALL’s 148TH, comes from the
composer John Darwall’s musical setting of the 148th Psalm.
Hymn: How Firm a Foundation
MaryJo McKim writes, “The text first appears in John
Rippon’s A Selection of Hymns (1787).
Rippon, an English Baptist, became famous and wealthy by publishing a hymnbook
containing a collection of texts by [Isaac] Watts and ‘A Selection of the Best
Authors.’ The hymn is actually a poetic sermon. The first stanza speaks of the
foundation of Christian life as being rooted in God’s Word. The subsequent
stanzas are paraphrases from both the Old and New Testaments. FOUNDATION is an
American folk melody originally entitled PROTECTION. It is a pentatonic tune
[one that uses only five notes in the scale, like AMAZING GRACE] written for
this text.”
Hymn: For All the Saints
William Walsham How wrote this hymn for All Saints’ Day in
1864 as a commentary on the phrase “I believe in the communion of the saints”
in the Apostles’ Creed. It initially consisted of eleven stanzas, although most
hymnals have pared it down to six or less. The Psalter Hymnal Handbook notes: “It begins with a proclamation of
thanksgiving for the saints who confessed Christ and found in him protection
and inspiration (st. 1-2). That proclamation is followed by a prayer for Christ’s
soldiers on earth to be ‘faithful, true, and bold.’ At the crux of the text is
the confession of a ‘blest communion’ of saints in heaven and on earth (st. 4).
Though the holy warfare may be ‘fierce and long’ (st. 5), ‘all the saints’ may
take courage from the vision of a victorious church that worships the triune
God on that “more glorious day. (st. 6-7).’”
Anthem: Christ, the Way of Life Possess Me
American composer K. Lee Scott set British minister Timothy
Dudley-Smith’s text for the Chancel Choir of First Baptist Church, Monroe, NC
in 2002. Dudley-Smith penned the words based on four images from the Book of
Proverbs: the way of life, the well of life, the tree of life, and the path of
life.
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