Category: Theology

In the beginning was the Word – a Hymn

The Gospel according to John says nothing about Jesus’ birth. It talks of ‘The Word’ becoming flesh. We can translate that today as ‘the energy, the source of all creation becoming human’. In shorthand God becoming human. This hymn echoes John Chapter 1.

1	The logic, the life-blood, the source of creation, 
	the word that had spoken when all came to be;
	the ground of existence, of love and emotion, 
	this God is incarnate, the light is set free.
	
2	This light in the darkness could not be extinguished, 
	it shone through the cosmos, was coming to birth;
	the great conflagration of stars in their forming 
	condensed to humanity, born on the earth.
	
3	The person of Jesus who walked in the desert, 
	who argued and struggled, who hungered and wept, 
	was one with that God-head, yet totally human, 
	was growing and learning, could know or forget.
	
4	So here in this person our God is illumined, 
	the word that is spoken, the love that is lived, 
	are clues to the nature, a window beyond us 
	to things we have doubted, to One we believed. 

Andrew Pratt (born 1948) based on John 1 
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
Tunes: ST CATHERINES COURT; STREETS OF LAREDO

Poets struggle, sculptors risk…

One gospel (Mark) doesn’t mention the birth of Jesus. The other three relate it in different ways. This has led me to reflect on the way in which different arts attempt to give expression to the nature of God. 

Poets struggle with the language, 
words both mystic and absurd 
fail to frame the incarnation, 
giving flesh to living Word.

Art constrained by expectation 
will not let the colours go, 
only spreading, mixing media 
emulate the Spirit’s flow.

Sculptors sometimes risk the fracture, 
letting stone dictate the form, 
giving rise to new creation 
chance God shattering our norm.

Even music caged in bar lines 
lacks the freedom to expand,
till in jazz, through improvising, 
rhythms stretch to new demands.

Nothing ever fixed or final, 
way beyond the human mind:
mystery and imagination…
all that we will ever find…
© Andrew Pratt Written 17/12/2022

             Incarnation – Watercolour © Andrew E. Pratt

Doubt

To me doubt is the term often used to marginalise people who have the integrity to admit that it is impossible to know evrything about anything let alone ‘the other’ that some call God. Some such folk self-identify as agnostic, which does not mean atheist but perhaps the opposite.

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