Tag: Andrew Pratt

Hymn for Epiphany – Like butterflies emerging in the cold

Around Christmas, in 2010, I was leading worship when a butterfly fluttered down and landed on the pulpit. It was brightly coloured and, in the cold of winter, utterly out of place…and so a hymn fitting for the 6th January, Epiphany…

1	Like butterflies emerging in the cold, 
	incongruous strangers punctuate this birth; 
	while snow and frosted windows paint the scene
	and God in human flesh has come to earth.
	
2	Exotic strangers, carried on the wind, 
	the wind of wisdom, fathomed by their thought. 
	Obscure and out of place, these coloured robes, 
	as out of place as all the gifts they brought.
	
3	And yet they have a place in every play, 
	in signalling God's universal grace, 
	that those who fit and others who are strange,
	are held by God in every time and place.

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: 10 10 10 10
Tune ELLERS; HIGHLAND CATHEDRAL

Advent 4 – A hymn – ‘Like many children’

Advent 4 A hymn - Like many children - God with no throne 
(inspired by Matthew 1: 18-25)...away in a manger?

Like many children, 
mother unmarried, 
born into hardship, 
yet not alone
Jesus, was valued, 
Mary and Joseph, 
nursing the Godhead, 
God with no throne.

Others would name him 
king of a kingdom, 
yet God incarnate 
lay in the straw, 
God in a manger? 
Fodder for cattle?
Parents uncertain, 
no sign of awe?

Soon they would struggle, 
hounded to exile, 
night brought no comfort, 
only one star; 
moment of wonder, 
quietly, no thunder, 
angels would whisper, 
heard from afar.

Andrew Pratt 11/12/2022
Words © 2022 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: 5.5.5.4D
Tune: BUNESSAN (Morning has broken)