passion – hymnsandbooks

When song gives way to solitude – hymn inspired by Psalm 130

This coming Sunday is Passion Sunday. The following words were inspired by one of the Psalms, 130, appointed for this Sunday.

1	When song gives way to solitude,
	and loneliness conspires with fear;
	when walls of anguish tower around,
	and agony is sharp and shear;
	deep in the midst of our concern
	love can, love must, love will draw near.

2	When all is dark and comfortless
	and no one near can hear our sighs,
	when tears are salt with bitterness
	and all we know are jeers and lies;
	here in the midst of our despair
	love shares our pain and with us cries.

3	When all is seared with grief and loss
	and faith seems empty, or absurd,
	when life lacks purpose, shape or form,
	we find no sense, we frame no word;
	here in the furnace of our fear
	love whispers peace and will be heard.

Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2002 © 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 8 8 8 8 8
Tune: ABINGDON

God is crying mid the carnage – a hymn at the time of Ukrainian Christmas

God is crying mid the carnage 
of a thousand broken bones; 
in the dust and fallen rubble 
of our long discarded homes.
 
Where our children play out stories 
of the visions they have seen, 
God is weeping over losses, 
knowing just what might have been.
 
What if love instead of horror 
filled the passion of our lives, 
could these stories be re-written 
where humanity survives?
 
God still with us, God among us, 
sow new seeds of love through grace; 
help us look at one another 
building hope in every place.
Andrew Pratt (8/1/2023)

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: 8.7.8.7
Tunes: CROSS OF JESUS (Stainer); LAUS DEO (Redhead)

Written after listening to the BBC Radio 4 Sunday Service on 8/1/2023 ‘The message that Ukraine is trying to convey to the world as it celebrates its own Christmas Day’.

The programme posed the question, 'Where is God' in this war?

See also We hear the news in anguish
- Thoughts on pacifism
- God's on our side

Passion Sunday – Two hymns and a Monologue May also be used on Good Friday

PASSION SUNDAY (May also be used on GOOD FRIDAY)

Anointed, yet bartered, then beaten and hung

Anointed, yet bartered, then beaten and hung,
time tumbling on forward, Christ’s moment had come;
the judgement was passing, hands washed of the crime
the snare had been set, sure as rhythm and rhyme.

We watch from the sidelines, we’re distanced by time,
our culture is different, our actions a mime;
yet, if we are open, we feel in each heart
the stress of each moment, was God’s from the start.

And as we rehearse all that we’ve heard before,
we thank God for grace, yet anticipate more.
God’s love undiluted, sustained will remain,
refreshed, resurrected, again and again.

Andrew Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2021 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:11.11.11.11
Tune NORMANDY; MY JESUS I LOVE THEE (note repeats on the last line of each verse); DATCHET

The King’s cross

‘The King of the Jews’,
Pilate called him.

But his crown
was of thorns
that pierced to his skull
and his cloak
was the blood
from his head
and his flesh-torn back
and his robe
was a loin cloth,
sweaty and stained
and his gloves
and shoes
were hammered nails,
holding him fast
to his throne
of a cross.

A bloodied wreck
of a king
was Jesus.

Yet in dying he became,
not the King of the Jews,
but the King of the Kingdom
that God opens to all
who follow the path
of the cross.

Marjorie Dobson © Stainer & Bell Ltd 2019, 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.
From Unravelling the Mysteries, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2019.

Jesus the Carpenter

Jesus the carpenter, hanging on Calvary,
nails through your feet and your work-hardened hands –
wood you have worked with and wood is your destiny -
paying the price of our sinful demands.

You came to our world as a part of a family,
living and learning the carpenter’s trade.
You followed your father’s instructions so faithfully,
shaping and crafting the yokes that you made:
Jesus the carpenter…

You called other workmen to join in your ministry,
laying rough hands on the sick and the lame.
You taught of God’s love with such power and authority,
people who knew you believed you insane:
Jesus the carpenter…

You faced with great courage the open hostility
coming from those who believed they were right.
They stripped you and beat you and laughed at you finally,
thinking your death was the end of the fight:
Jesus the carpenter…

But we, who now know that you ended triumphantly
working with wood till your task was complete,
can come to your cross with our hope and humility,
laying our pride at the Carpenter’s feet:

Jesus the carpenter, hanging on Calvary,
nails through your feet and your work-hardened hands –
wood you have worked with and wood is your destiny -
paying the price of our sinful demands.

Marjorie Dobson © 2004, 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.
From Multicoloured Maze, Stainer & Bell Ltd., 2004
(Tune: – Mission Praise 611 - Blow the wind southerly)

An extraordinary new hymn for the Passion/Easter season by Graham Adams – The people wanted soldiers

This hymn, by Graham Adams, arose from an ‘Empire’ module at Luther King House in Manchester last week. Graham says, “feel free to use as you wish!’ It connects with the Passion/Easter season. It was particularly stimulated by a discussion around whether ‘the alternative realm’ (God’s basileia/kingdom/empire) is ‘a quaint dream’ or something more ‘threatening’ – and the destabilising language of poetry spoke to this”.

The people wanted soldiers
so hope might come as curse,
to smash the occupation – 
but change turned up as Verse:
the poetry of yeasting,
the parabolic sword,
no match for Pax Romana* 
and yet this Lamb still roared.
 
Although it claims possession
of mind and heart and soul,
the Empire’s grip has limits – 
it can’t control the whole:
the surplus lives as Poem
for those with ears to hear,
resisting final closure,
declaring what is near:
 
This dream of re-creation,
this threat of life set free,
disturbing tame religion,
confounding how we see:
it won’t succumb to cliché
where purities abound,
but glimpsed in seeds’ potential,
it ruptures solid ground.
 
Where empires grow by violence,
where systems blame the last
and close down other futures
by editing the past,
the Poem can’t be silenced,
though quietly it dies,
and dances through the fissures
to teach us how to rise!
 
Graham Adams (2021) … prompted by the conversations during the Empire module   
Potential tunes: THORNBURY, CRUGER…
*Pax Romana is ‘the peace of Rome’ secured through military violence; if it’s easier to replace this with ‘crucifixion’, the meaning still works.

Pentecost hymn – Come glimpsing, glancing lover

Come glimpsing, glancing Lover,*
ignite your spirit’s fire,
then fan the conflagration
and let the flame rise higher.
Inspire a dancing rhythm
till deep within each heart,
a spark will more than flicker,
a brighter light will start.

Fill every throat with music
to sing the spirit’s song,
till others come to join us,
to join this singing throng.
Dynamic dancing spirit,
give purpose to our flight
We leap into the future,
we break into the light.

Let love be born among us
and passion fired by grace,
until all those around us
will share a smiling face.
Till all the world is laughing
and laughter fills the earth,
to know that love is living,
new love has come to birth.

*Alternative first verse:

Come glimpsing, glancing Spirit
ignite your loving fire,
then fan the conflagration
and let the flame rise higher.
Inspire a dancing rhythm
till deep within each heart,
a spark will more than flicker,
a brighter light will start.

Andrew Pratt 15/4/2014
Words © 2020 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://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: 7.6.7.6 D
Tune: TYROLESE (Junior Praise, Book 1/Combined, 207/253; Carol Praise)