Easter – hymnsandbooks

Crafted from wood – a hymn on the cross – Luke 9:23

Crafted from wood - a hymn on the cross – Luke 9:23; 14:27

Crafted from wood, the grain of our decision,
where faith was hung, a challenge to God’s love,
the Christ had carried it to execution,
this then our choice – the wing of hawk or dove?

Some made the choice that led to their extinction,
their’s was a loss, but not of love or grace,
accepting in each place of human crisis,
this challenge that each Christian has to face.

Take up your cross each day was Christ’s suggestion,
if you would follow in the path he trod,
yet we would minimise the resurrection,
that love transcending death can lead to God.

Words 2025 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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: 11.10.11.10
Tune: O PERFECT LOVE (Barnby)

Some thoughts on this hymn to take us further.

I had in mind, as I wrote it:

Luke 9:23;14:27
23 Then he said to them all, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. (New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised)

14:27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Also:

Søren Kierkegaard

In Kierkegaard's view, the Church should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a leap of faith, the faith that God is love and has a task for that very same single individual. Kierkegaard identified the leap of faith as the good resolution. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard)

And

Dietrich Bonhoeffer ‘The Cost of Discipleship’ – Bonhoeffer stood against Fascism and was ultimately sent to a concentration camp and he was hanged on 9 April 1945 during the collapse of the Nazi regime.

All these point for me to Jesus’ words and how others have seen them and sought to live by them.

A challenge to the church to change – ‘When the church, afraid of changing’

Hymn writers sometimes ask questions of the church and then flesh out the consequences of the actions they have described. Fred Pratt Green’s - ‘When the Church of Jesus shuts its outer door’ is one such hymn (perhaps too challenging, or near to the bone, to be in Hymns & Psalms or Singing the Faith?) As we live out the time through lectionary readings from resurrection to Pentecost we have a chance to reflect on what the church is, and what it might be expected to be. Remember that Jesus death was partly a consequence of his challenging people to change their perspectives of faith.

When the church, afraid of changing,
clings to glories of the past,
holding fast to long lost memories,
sure that it will always last,
lost in time, devoid of spirit,
know this truth, its fate is cast.

When the church no longer welcomes
people other than it's own,
when it thinks its understanding
stands complete, is fully grown,
love is rarely seen in action,
grace is only, thinly, sown.

Jesus challenged expectation,
turning tables upside down,
those who once were thought as holy
he confronted with a frown.
When, then, will we learn the lesson,
own that cross, that thorny crown?

Andrew Pratt 3/5/2025
© Words Andrew Pratt © 2025 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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: 87 87 87
Tunes: PICARDY; RHUDDLAN

Persistent God, your gracious understanding – God’s grace at Easter

Persistent God, your gracious understanding  

1	Persistent God, your gracious understanding 
	returns the love that often we with-hold. 
	When met with our resistance and denial 
	you greet with peace and draw us from the cold. 
	
2	Three times you challenged Peter's frail commitment, 
	that stemmed from reasoned nervousness and fear. 
	Three times he answered that he really loved you, 
	you held him though he'd seemed so insincere.
	
3	You see beyond our actions and our motives, 
	you read the hope that's written in each heart, 
	and in this knowledge welcome home your children 
	by showing each and all a place and part.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)  
Words © 2013 © Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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: 11 10 11 10
Tunes: HIGHWOOD; INTERCESSOR

Easter now – hymn – We would be an Easter people

We would be an Easter people 

1	We would be an Easter people
	living resurrection now,
	making all those years of promise
	real, as Jesus shows us how.

2	Meeting Mary, Jesus loved her,
	calling to her by her name.
	Those who need the love of Jesus
	we will welcome just the same.

3	'Peace be with you' was Christ's greeting 
	to the ones who'd let him die.
	May our greeting be as gracious
	to the ones who'd spurn our cry..

4	Doubting Thomas was confounded;
	Jesus loved him in his doubt.
	Help us welcome saint and sceptic
	as we work your purpose out.

5	Let us live the resurrection
	in each time, in every place.
	Let us live as Easter people,
	true to Jesus' boundless grace.

Andrew E. Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2003, 2006 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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
Tune: CHARLESTON

Easter Hymn _ Doubt, composed in whispered voices

1	Doubt, composed in whispered voices, 
	nailed their thoughts through waiting days:
	days of shattered expectation, 
	days devoid of love or praise. 
	Boulders blocked imagination  
	like the stone that sealed the tomb, 
	startled, frightened, apprehensive,  
	shut inside an upper room. 
	
2	At the point of desolation, 
	when their conversation stilled, 
	in the midst Christ stood before them, 
	Christ abandoned, tortured, killed.
	'Peace be with you', words now spoken,
	words of grace to cut the air, 
	but those words would burn each conscience, 
	branding hurt already there.
	
3	Jesus eyes and body language, 
	spoke of boundless love and grace, 
	but disciples, eyes averted, 
	hardly looked into his face.
	Yet his voice still echoed softly
	till his friends began to see 
	love renewing, reconciling, 
	love rebuilding, setting free.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2012 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England copyright@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
8 7 8 7 D
Tune: DIM OND IESU