Category: Easter

Maundy Thursday Hymn: His hands were remembered in breaking of bread

Maundy Thursday Hymn: His hands were remembered in breaking of bread

His hands were remembered in breaking of bread, 
in wine that they drank and in words that he said; 
their eyes were now opened, for this was their friend, 
the true resurrection of love without end.
	
Till now they were blind in their grief and their loss, 
their lives overshadowed by torture and cross; 
but now in the evening as night shadows fell, 
they knew that all manner of things could be well.
	
And here we remember in this time and place, 
that moment of wonder, incredible grace,
our eyes are now opened, for this is our friend, 
we celebrate life and God's love without end.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011 © 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 11 11 11
Tune: ST DEINIO
Created by HymnQuest.com

FOR PALM SUNDAY – A HYMN

1	No royal robes, but donkey riding,
	the Christ, our King, had come to town,
	Jerusalem came out to meet him.
	Would gold or thorns compose a crown?

2	The people spread their palms before him, 
	they wondered what this day would bring:
	as Jesus, humble, riding quietly
	brought contrast to the praise they'd sing.

3	The ones who'd shared these years had answers, 
	but even they could get it wrong. 
	So many tensions, tangled, threaded 
	brought notes of discord to their song.

4	But soon the world would be confounded, 
	the tables turned, the structures torn,
	till only those fired by God's spirit 
	could meet this crisis, be reborn.

5	And if within imagination 
	we walked within that crowd today, 
	would we withstand the world's derision, 
	to stay with Christ, or turn away? 

Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 18 August 2012 Stainer & 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: 9 8 9 8
Tune: ST CLEMENT

Hymns for Palm and Passion

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



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’

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