A hymn for when our certainty is shaken: Sometimes our grasp of life is frail
Prior to one of the Gospel readings for this Sunday (Matthew 17:1-9) Jesus had spoken to his disciples:
24 Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life? (Matthew 16)
Every so often our faith can be shaken and we need something to reassure us…hence this hymn which also reflects on what life today is like when our certainties are challenge:
1 Sometimes our grasp of life is frail,
yet through it all love will prevail.
And when it seems things can't get worse,
we feel that every step is cursed.
2 In spite of all, we keep our faith,
held, more than holding onto grace,
we whisper prayer and hope for praise,
we live through grey exhausting days.
3 God's word reminds of how we're held,
when love is hidden, faith is felled;
retelling narratives of pain
from which God's people rose again.
4 This is the hope to which we cling,
when life is raw, we sense death's sting;
yet on beyond this time and place
may we be kept within your grace. Amen
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2011, 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
Tune: GONFALON ROYAL
Created by HymnQuest.com
Tag: Transfiguration
Reflecting on the Good Samaritan – hymn – ‘All the power that fuelled creation’
Reflecting on the Good Samaritan – ‘All the power that fuelled creation’
1 All the power that fuelled creation,
cosmic force that fired the stars,
still leaves people in the darkness
when we grasp for 'us' and 'ours'.
All the emptiness and sorrow
we dispel with just a glance,
eyes averted from our neighbours
giving them no second chance.
2 All we cling to, all we cherish,
stands as nothing in God’s light,
yet our attitudes deny it
holding all as if by right.
All the wealth at our disposal
could bring hope, transfigure care;
even candles lit in darkness
bring new hope when none is there.
3 All we need is love and kindness,
costly kindness to dispel
fear and poverty, while bringing
deepest love to counter hell.
All God’s love, when shared among us
shatters poverty with grace,
even now transfiguration
could be felt within this place.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
© 2016 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
Tunes: SCARLET RIBBONS; ABBOTS LEIGH
For another text relating to the Good Samaritan click here
A hymn for Transfiguration – ‘So tired with the heat and the height of their climbing’
So tired with the heat and the height of their climbing,
now resting where eagles might shelter their young,
disciples had followed, but Jesus now left them,
to wander yet higher, compelled he went on.
And now in a light that transfigured their vision,
the one they called Master was standing alone,
and yet it appeared that some others stood with him,
in whiteness, in brightness, the clouds like a throne.
The dazzle was blinding for those who were watching,
but then it seemed Jesus was heading back down,
the vision had faded, the moment was passing,
Messiah they’d called him who shunned any crown;
until on a hilltop, mid rubbish and slander,
this ‘king’ was hung out in the sun, set to dry;
crossed out between those others deemed rough and worthless,
the poor and discarded for whom he would die.
To those who had hung him, he offered forgiveness,
a crucified robber was paradise bound;
the poor he exalted, the widow, the stranger,
found love in this preacher who turns lives around.
Andrew E Pratt
Words © 2018 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: 12 11 12 11
Tune: STREETS OF LAREDO
Once transfiguration blinded – a hymn
Some of you will remember the hymn, ‘Stay, Master, stay upon this heavenly hill’.
As the disciples want to continue in the purer air of the mountaintop, to stay eternally, Jesus
rebukes them:
No, saith the Lord, the hour is past, we go;
Our home, our life, our duties lie below.
While here we kneel upon the mount of prayer,
The plough lies waiting in the furrow there.
And the disciples respond:
There we must do it, serve him, seek him still.
The following hymn continues this theme of being lost in such wonder that we forget the needs that
we are called to meet:
Once transfiguration blinded
1 Once transfiguration blinded
those who climbed to follow Christ,
seeing through a mist of glory,
just a glimpse at once sufficed;
just a glimpse of holy heaven,
earth and heaven neatly spliced.
2 Light can blind us to the sorrow,
to the pain of poverty,
light of holy exaltation,
or the light of being free:
free of fear of want or hunger
resting in complicity.
3 Lost in thunder, bathed in wonder,
hands uplifted should we praise,
while, in destitution, neighbours,
wait for weeks, not merely days,
for the crumbs dropped from a table
that austerity displays.
Andrew E Pratt (born 1948)
Words © 2018 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 8 7
Tune: WESTMINSTER ABBEY (Purcell)
Transfiguration – hymn – Three disciples saw God’s glory
TRANSFIGURATION Three disciples saw God's glory, sunlight pouring from Christ's face, shielding eyes are almost blinded, shaken by God's present grace. Was it just imagination, was that Moses there as well? Then Elijah stood before them; honoured men! Nowhere to dwell! Seize the moment! Peter babbled, 'should I build a place for you? Place of shelter, place of refuge? Moses and Elijah too?' All at once the vision vanished, left them all alone again. Stunned disciples cowered in horror, wondered were they mad or sane? Jesus came and gently touched them, 'never breathe a word,' he said; hinted at his human suff'ring hope, yet hell were both ahead. From the mountain's awesome grandeur they went stumbling to the town, with their friend, this God incarnate, set to wear a scornful crown. Andrew Pratt (born 1948) © 2011 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: AUSTRIA iPad art © Andrew Pratt
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