joy – hymnsandbooks

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

The Beatitudes – a hymn – A contradictory blessing

The Beatitudes - A contradictory blessing

The gospel reading appointed for this coming Sunday, Matthew 5:1-12, is known as the Beatitudes. The following hymn was inspired by this passage:

1	A contradictory blessing 
	of those who feel unblessed,
	when life is torn and twisted
	for this to be redressed; 
	a time of reparation 
	and yet a time for grace 
	when those who feel forsaken 
	will meet God face to face.
	
2	And in that time of meeting, 
	the hurt will find new joy, 
	the poor will welcome riches, 
	more than they could deploy; 
	the mourning will find comfort, 
	the lost will see God's light 
	to bring them to the dawning, 
	beyond their darkest night.
	
3	The ones who ache with hunger 
	will share a glorious feast,
	and those reviled and hated 
	will find they are released.
	The gentle will inherit 
	the greatest gift of all,
	while rafters ring with laughter
	where crying filled the hall.

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: 7 6 7 6 D
Tune: THORNBURY

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

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