Easter 3 – hymnsandbooks

It seemed as if the Lord lived still

It seemed as if the Lord lived still,

expressed his will, the lame could walk,

and all assumed the blind would see,

the silent ones would start to talk!

Yet all they saw when looking round,

were Galilean fisher folk,

a zealot and some other men,

some hazarded it was a joke.

So Peter had to put them right,

the crucified, the buried dead,

the very Christ, their God was raised,

yet now they acted in God’s stead.

And everywhere the spirit blows

the living Christ and God’s own grace

is manifest by human means

in every later time and space.

Plain ignorance and human zeal,

had nailed their God, had knocked love down,

but that could never be the end,

and love still lived to wear the crown.

So everywhere God’s people meet

through prayer and action God is there,

and even in this time and place

our lives can tend and bring God’s care.

Andrew Pratt 17/3/2012

Words © 2012 © 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: BEFORE THE THRONE StF 717

Metre: DLM

Always missing, never grasping, hope amid this shifting sea, coast and haven seem remote now, too far off to harbour me. Yet those fishermen are telling news that I can't comprehend, news that Jesus is still living, hasn't met his final end. But I saw his body hanging silhouetted like a sail, blood was draining, rigor rising, movement quietened, life gone pale. Now they say that sail is filling, spirit billows drive him on, Christ is cresting all disaster, life returns and death is gone. Yet unless I see the bow wave, feel the tiller in my hand, sense the tautness of the lanyard, I can hardly understand. Source of wind and wave, my sailor, give me faith to grasp this news, you are living, death defying, heaven, earth and joy will fuse. 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: 8 7 8 7 D Tune: LEWIS FOLK MELODY

Tag: Easter 3

Hymn: It seemed as though the Lord lived still

Always missing, never grasping – hymn for the Third Sunday of Easter