1 God's presence was seen in the person of Jesus where people found healing and wholeness and grac miraculous wonders and love without measure, the touch of his hands and the look of his face. 2 So this was the answer when John asked the question, was Jesus Messiah, God's chosen, the one ordained to bring peace and God's reign to the people, embodying hope for the days yet to come. 3 The signs of God's being are seen in the present when people are living with Jesus in faith. The hope of God's kingdom is real when our actions embody Christ's loving with freedom through grace. Andrew Pratt Words © 2010 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: 12 11 12 11 Tune: STREETS OF LAREDO; ST CATHERINE’S COURT
Category: Hymns
Advent 2 – John the Baptist – a Hymn based on Matthew 3 vs 1-12
3:5 Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, 3:6 and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 1 Searching, seeking, people clamoured, heard the noise and saw the crowd. Saw the baptist by the river, calling clear and calling loud. First attracted, then confounded, John would challenge all they knew. Those who listened sensed a crisis, change would question what they do. 2 This would be a time of turning, spinning churning, whirling round. John would point to new beginnings, to the God that he had found. No deceit would go unchallenged, hypocrites were undermined, each foundation here was shaken, here the love of God defined. 3 Fruitful trees would flourish, nurtured, barren branches be cut down. Now our generation hears him, now this God has come to town. How will we respond through living, change our ways, transform our lives? One by one, as minds are turning, signs are here that love survives? Andrew Pratt Words © 2010 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: BETHANY (Smart)
Advent 1 – hymn – This is the time of waiting
Advent – a time of waiting – more than a calendar with sweets, more than an extra candle lit each Sunday, perhaps a time to move from darkness into light, from penitence to praise? A hymn inspired by Isaiah 2:2 2:2 In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 1 This is the time of waiting, the calm before the storm, the time of Advent judgement, the coming of the dawn; a time of recollection, of Christ's audacious hope, beyond imagination, outside our human scope. 2 The nations will be gathered, the age will be fulfilled, the judgement be enacted, as Christ had hoped and willed. But for this consummation such birth-pangs will be felt, like rupturing of wine-skins, the earth will heave and melt. 3 For love to be exalted, for hatred to be banned, our human goals must shatter, division must be spanned. A change of mind is needed as we are turned around, to move from desecration, to find love's solid ground. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2018 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: 7 6 7 6 D Tune: AURELIA
Christ the King? What sort of king? And a hymn…
The Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent is recognised in some churches as the Feast of Christ the King. We might sing ‘King of Kings, Majesty’. But what a strange King, his crown, a crown of thorns…Luke 23: 33-43. 1 A carpenter hung on a cross, a rough-hewn cross of wood, while people satisfied by rage had never understood. This man had met the arguments of those who sought to rule with kindness, gentleness and love: they marked him as a fool. 2 He challenged values, long held rites, that bound the world they knew, he sought to point them back to God. For this they'd curse and sue. The trumped up charges that they brought, designed to bring him down, resulted in this spectacle, this cross and thorny crown. 3 And through the centuries that passed the ones who called him 'good', have tried to make some sense of this, have rarely understood. And now we stand again to mark the passing of this day, to struggle still to understand, love's sacrificial way. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2016 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 CMD 8 6 8 6 D Tune: SOLLS SEIN As published in Seedresources http://www.theworshipcloud.com . Art: iPad Art © Andrew Pratt 2022
Remembrance – Once crimson poppies bloomed out in a foreign field
Once crimson poppies bloomed
out in a foreign field,
each memory reminds
where brutal death was sealed.
The crimson petals flutter down,
still hatred forms a thorny crown.
For in this present time
we wait in vain for peace;
each generation cries,
each longing for release,
while war still plagues the human race
and families seek a hiding place.
How long will human life
suffer for human greed?
How long must race or pride,
wealth, nationhood or creed
be reasons justifying death
to suffocate a nation’s breath?
For everyone who dies
we share a quiet grief;
the pain of loss remains,
time rarely brings relief:
and so we will remember them
and heaven sound a loud amen.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2012 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://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: 6 6 6 6 8 8 Tune: LITTLE CORNARD
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