Tag: Easter

Peace – a hymn reflecting on Jesus’ words to his disciples

Peace…

Easter seems long past, but at a time when our minds are still being drawn to Ukraine, and politics at home feel uncertain, my thoughts have drifted back. When Jesus come to his disciples after his crucifixion he came, not with condemnation, but with peace. Perhaps we still need that assurance of peace in our own, our present time. But  step back for a moment to that upper room…

He speaks of peace while all inside 
disciples' minds are churned about; 
their memories haunt their waking time, 
while day and night are fused by doubt.
He speaks of peace while all the world 
will clamour at our open door, 
while shards of music sing and break 
with light in discord on the floor.
	
Into this chaos spirit spills,
a calming notion, 'God is good', 
and real as life, the Christ was there,
the Christ they'd hammered to the wood.
This God it is who offers peace 
to bound disciples held by fear, 
who breaks impossibilities, 
who makes the clouded way seem clear.

Into this calm we'll step and stay, 
in love's assurance find God's peace 
with those whose feet had turned to clay, 
we'll find that fear will stop, will cease.
And in this moment, in this time 
within a world so torn by death, 
again we'll try to live out peace, 
with every lasting, living breath.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
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
8 8 8 8 D
Tune: YE BANKS AND BRAES

One week on from Easter Sunday, a hymn with echoes of the story: ‘Such enchantment, sudden strangeness’

One week on from Easter Sunday, a hymn with echoes of the story: Such enchantment, sudden strangeness...

1	Such enchantment, sudden strangeness,
	Power and love, by God, distilled;
	Then they recognise his presence,
	By his words their fears are stilled.
	'Peace be with you', Simon Peter,
	John, you need not be afraid;
	'Peace be with you', doubting Thomas,
	Don't be anxious or dismayed.

2	In the garden he saw Mary,
	Talked with her, unrecognised;
	Naming her drew back the curtain,
	Opened tear-stained, blinded eyes.
	Others walking to Emmaus
	Talked, depressed, their sadness showed,
	Till at last, their journey ended,
	Broken bread their Lord disclosed.

3	Fishing, from a boat, some saw him,
	They had trawled, had felt forlorn;
	Recognition added savour
	To their breakfast at the dawn.
	As we go about our business
	Bring enchantment to our lives;
	Open eyes that we might know the
	Love from which our peace derives.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)	
Words © 2000 © 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.
8.7.8.7.D
Tune: HYFRYDOL

Easter hymn – We cannot speculate, or glance

An empty tomb is just empty. It took a meeting with Jesus to convince a woman, then a group of men that Jesus, who had died on a cross, was alive. It is still difficult to believe. Yet after two thousand years, whatever we believe, as Geoffrey Best has written on Facebook, ‘…in this (hi)story is the revelation of the very nature of God, a God who takes all that we throw and absorbs and transforms the dead and deadly into life abundant .... if we let it!’ Amen!

1	We cannot speculate, or glance 
	into the well of history. 
	Nor can we look beyond this time 
	with any sense of certainty. 
	We only have our faith and hope, 
	to make us stand, to help us cope.
	
2	Great God we grasp at straws of faith,
	of things we hope will point to you. 
	We read the ancient texts and scan 
	those distant myths to make them new. 
	And all the time we live between 
	these metaphors and what is seen.
	
3	The past is gone, we cannot hear 
	more than an echo down the age. 
	And what is still to come we fear; 
	we see each other's pent up rage.
	Yet what we need is close at hand, 
	your present love in every land.
	
4	True resurrection brings to bear 
	the things that heal, create, unite. 
	Love launches its triumphant praise 
	and builds on joy and will delight.
	The former things are passed away, 
	dead night transformed to brightest day.

Metre: 8 8 8 8 8 8 Tune: ABINGDON
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.

Art © Andrew Pratt 2022