Here we're watching from the side-lines – a hymn for Palm Sunday
1 Here we're watching from the sidelines,
yet we bring ourselves to bear
on the picture, on the action:
now it feels as though we're there.
Deep within the crowd we're cheering,
yet our doubt is all too near.
Is it safe to follow Jesus?
Then this doubt is fuel to fear.
2 Now the crowds shout out hosanna!
Feeling one, we join their call.
Carried by the celebration,
know that we could give our all.
Doubt has been repressed, and hidden,
for a time our fear is small.
Yet, if we could only know it,
Christ is heading for a fall.
3 On beyond this acclamation,
crowds would find a reason why
they could change these glad hosannas
to a raucous, angry cry.
And are we as faulted, fickle,
just as likely to deny
all the things we once held firmly,
call for God to hang and die?
4 We are human, if we're honest
we will own that we can fail,
change and spin our understanding,
recognise that we are frail.
God we need your gracious loving,
deep forgiveness to assail
things that hurt and leave us broken.
God enable and prevail.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
© 2011 Stainer and Bell Ltd., London, England, www.stainer.co.uk. Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd
Metre: 8 7 8 7 D
Tune: CONVERSE
Created by HymnQuest.com
Here terror stripped our Lord of hope – a hymn of the Passion
1 Here terror stripped our Lord of hope,
the sweat of blood, the fear of death,
the shadow of that fearful cross,
that dries the throat, that quickens breath.
2 Alone and desolate he waits
and prays that God might take away
the cup that signals human dread,
while friends have slept, or left the fray.
3 And, strange enigma, this is God
and here God shares mortality,
within the garden, on the cross,
at one with our humanity.
4 And now our deepest fear and loss,
condensed to pain of mind and heart,
are met within God's human frame,
within God's science and God's art.
5 And in our lost humanity
when hope is drained and faith has gone,
when desolation dwells within,
God holds our hurt and love goes on.
Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
© 2015 Stainer and Bell Ltd., London, England, www.stainer.co.uk. Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
Metre: 8 8 8 8
Tune: FULDA
Created by HymnQuest.com
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