Isaiah 40:3 A voice cries out: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”.
1 Where the jackals scratch a living,
in this wild, deserted place,
springs will bring refreshing water,
grass and reeds will sign God's grace.
2 Here our God will build a highway
striding out across the land,
bringing hope to what was barren,
once again the people stand.
3 Once again a smile is dawning
on the face of every man,
all the children play together,
women talk, it's time to plan.
4 As we tell, recount the story,
in this present time and place,
may we build in recollection,
room for hope and gracious space;
5 Space where God can offer comfort
through our human words and lives,
love that shows in every instance
faith can live and hope 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: ALL FOR JESUS
Category: Song
New Advent hymn – A quiet chill that freezes expectation
A quiet chill that freezes expectation, the hope of love seems distant and remote as war and hate are whirling all around us, we wait for light of which the prophets wrote. There is no peace, no reconciliation as factions fired by hatred seethe and kill, when will it end, this constant devastation, when will we learn to listen, to be still? [When will we listen to each other, share one will?] This advent season, dawn of love’s foundation is born in darkness of eternal night, and yet a flicker bids us hasten onward, as purple shadows hint at morning light. And in this moment in our preparation let’s put aside our fripperies and fear, to make new space for gracious re-creation. Come God, in love at last, come now, draw near. [Come God infuse your love in us, O come, draw near.] Words Andrew Pratt © 2023 © 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: INTERCESSOR, [LONDONDERRY AIR] Note: Using the tune: INTERCESSOR sing as a four verse hymn. Ignore words in [square] brackets. Using LONDONDERRY AIR combine verses 1 & 2 and 3 & 4 to make a two verse hymn using the use the words in [square] brackets for the last line of each verse.
Lament for Palestine and Israel – unknowing babies sleep now
A Lament for Palestine and Israel
Unknowing babies sleep now,
exhausted without food,
while mothers cry in anguish –
this lottery is crude:
when missiles, ‘with precision’,
seek targets, hid, unseen,
as leaders point the finger
so consciences are clean.
Amid this dust and carnage
where human life is cheap,
where body parts are scattered
we turn our heads and weep,
yet this is soon forgotten,
the image fades, has gone,
another channel chosen
we sing a soothing song.
In this we are immersed now,
our pain will soon be lost,
the anguished cries diminished,
we need not bear the cost.
A distant drum is beating,
we’re deaf to hear its sound
a tiny body buried ,
in seared, unhallowed ground.
And mothers still are sobbing
while fathers shed salt tears,
and lives are marked by hours now,
yet mem’ries seethe for years.
How long, O God, can terror
be harboured in a mind?
How long before Your children
are nurtured to be kind?
© Andrew Pratt 14/11/2023
Words © 2023 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.
Tune: NYLAND H&P 478II, REJOICE AND SING 529
Great God, your love has held our lives – Remembrance Hymn
1 Great God, your love has held our lives through all the years down to this day. Your constant presence held us fast: remain with us we plead and pray. We've seen the ruins left by war, the tumbled buildings, street by street; some heard the voices that they loved and cried for those they'd no more meet. 2 As time moves on some memories fade, some griefs we shared lie in the past; for others pain is just as sharp, we know their hurt will always last. Some human acts have swept away our partners, parents, children, friends, some people we had never known; the memory lives and never ends. 3 Beyond this day we try to live: a sinew of each life survives, but where is God in hurt and hate? The questions stay to haunt our lives. Help us to build a better world not fuelled by vengeance, fed by greed; a world in which we all can live, what ever colour, race or creed. Andrew E Pratt (born 1948) Words © 2015 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: LMD Tune: JERUSALEM Other resources: Worshipcloud
God and Money – Matthew 22:15-22
Challenged about the rightness of paying taxes, Jesus showed the Pharisees a coin and then
said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” When they replied correctly he
responded, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God
the things that are God’s.”
So what do we owe to the State? And what to God?
1 What is our ultimate concern?
Where is the centre of each soul?
What are the things that matter most?
What single sense will make us whole?
2 We recognize the depth of love,
the grace that held us from our birth,
but all too soon we lose our grasp
and other things have greater worth.
3 The things we own, the clothes we wear,
usurp the place that God should hold,
become our idols, cloak our minds
as if our faith was lost or sold.
4 The God that we purport to serve,
to love with heart and soul and mind,
is lost within our self concern
yet still is there to seek and find.
5 So God, we come to start again;
to clear the clutter from our lives,
to see you in each neighbour’s face,
to find the faith that holds and strives.
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: 8 8 8 8
Tune: MELCOMBE
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