A hymn inspired by Matthew 16: 21 perhaps, also useful in difficult times and when faith is tested.
‘From that time on, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and
undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed,
and on the third day be raised.’
Shaken confidence dismembers
faith that once had seemed secure,
things that frighten in this moment,
at one time had seemed demure.
Love is fractured, hope is fettered,
grace obscured from sight or sound,
while we cry in desperation,
'where is safe and solid ground'.
Through the mist a form is shaping,
living sign of love and grace,
God embodied, present, human,
seen in every neighbour's face.
Hold the truth when doubt is raging,
when our lives are insecure,
fold in love each friend and neighbour,
till that love feels safe and sure.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2015 Stainer and Bell Ltd.
Words: Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 2015 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England,
www.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: STUTTGART
Tag: hope
Can perfect love cast out the fear and hate – a hymn inspired by a text suggested by Gordon Taylor
Can perfect love cast out the fear and hate Words inspired by a text suggested by Gordon Taylor at a hymn workshop of the Hymn Society of Great Britain and Ireland in Lincoln July 2023. The theme is a response to the Government’s Illegal Immigration Bill. Can perfect love cast out the fear and hate that festers in a hardened, ravaged heart, when lives abandoned to a savage sea, have hope denied, grace drowned out from the start. As cold officials act with callous power we sing the words that plead and pray for care, to see humanity in each new face to wipe away the tears of rank despair. How long, O God, will we discard the lives, that you have birthed that we should seek to save, who caught by circumstance, or course of life, we destine to a swirling, watery grave. Yes perfect love can cast out fear and hate that festers in each hardened, ravaged heart, when we reach out to others in their need. Through gracious words, new hope has power to start. © Andrew Pratt 19/7/2023 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 Metre: 10.10.10.10 Tune: YANWORTH
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
Vision – based on Ezekiel 37: 1-14
Vision – based on Ezekiel 37: 1-14 And I looked as I led worship and saw the dried and brittle bones of the scattered few before me and there was no life. Too old, too desiccated, too worn out, or lived out ever to be able to stir again. And I wept as I looked and prayed for answers, but my heart told me it was too late; the life had gone. There was acceptance of an unchanging future; the stillness of lethargy and emptiness of spirit. And I looked again and saw my prayers were not to empty air for a breath of God moved among the weary; new energy began to stir; movement was discernible and purpose was born again. And God had shown me, in spite of all my doubts, that hope is never completely dead and there can be new life, even in old bones. © Marjorie Dobson published on Worship Cloud Used with permission.
Holocaust Memorial Day – When words are spent – a new hymn
When words are spent and grief destroys compassion,
or fear of war throws shadows like a cross,
God melt our hearts and fire imagination,
that we might sense the pain within each loss.
This loss can blind our eyes and freeze our feeling,
can numb for us the pain of holocaust,
for memory fades, to leave just words revealing
a horror far beyond all human cost.
God open in our present generation,
a depth of human empathy to feel
humanity that bridges every nation,
that only love and hope and grace can seal.
Andrew Pratt 10/1/2023
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.
Metre: 11.10.11.10
Tune: INTERCESSOR
https://www.methodist.org.uk/our-faith/worship/singing-the-faith-plus/posts/holocaust-memorial-day-2023/
Auschwitz – Birkenau – the end of the line
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