Praise the Savior, Ye Who Know Him

By H. E. Singley, organist

Praise The Savior, Ye Who Know Him

H.E. Singley III

All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.

(Ephesians 1:3, NLT)

Thomas Kelly was born in County Queens in Ireland and was preparing to be a lawyer when he recognized the call to become a pastor. He was ordained in the Church of Ireland (Anglican). However, his pastoral ministry in the Church of Ireland was rather short-lived because of his fervent preaching along the lines of the Reformation and, particularly, its emphasis on justification by faith. He established “dissenter” chapels which shared that concern in several locations around Ireland.

A graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, Thomas Kelly was respected as a scholar, particularly in Hebrew. He wrote at least 765 hymns, four of which are included in Hymns for the Living Church. Three of those hymns are Ascension hymns, represented by this brief excerpt from “Hark! Ten Thousand Harps and Voice”:

. . . . Jesus reigns and heaven rejoices,

Jesus reigns, the God of love.

See, He sits on yonder throne:

Jesus rules the world alone.

Probably the best-known of his hymns is “Praise the Savior, Ye Who Know Him,” a crisp, compact lyrical poem with five focused, four-line stanzas. The music is identified simply as a “Traditional German melody.” The hymn-tune name, Acclaim, comes from the hymn’s theme of praise and adoration to Christ.

Praise the Savior, ye who know Him!

Who can tell how much we owe Him?

Gladly let us render to Him

all we are and have.

Jesus is the name that charms us;

He for conflict fits and arms us;

nothing moves and nothing harms us

while we trust in Him.

Trust in Him, ye saints, forever;

He is faithful, changing never;

neither force nor guile can sever

those He loves from Him.

Keep us, Lord, O keep us cleaving

to Thyself, and still believing,

till the hour of our receiving

promised joys with Thee.

Then we shall be where we would be,

then we shall be what we should be;

things that are not now, nor could be,

soon shall be our own.

The hymn complements what we know of Thomas Kelly’s view of Scripture by poetry which mirrors the Bible. For example:
 

·       “. . . . Who can tell how much we owe Him? . . . .”

“But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much . . . . God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us . . . .”

(Ephesians 2:4, 7a)

·       “ . . . . let us render to Him all we are and have. . . .”

“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce.”

(Proverbs 3:9)

“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.”

(Romans 12:1)

·       “ . . . . He for conflict fits and arms us . . . .”

“Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armor so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.”

(Ephesians 6:10b, 11)

Another phrase fraught with theological implications is this one from the third stanza:

“ . . . . He is faithful, changing never . . . .”

These words point to one of God’s attributes, His immutability. In lieu of often disquieting, unnerving change, our God is changeless!

Finally, I cannot help but notice the tongue-twisting mix of verb tenses in the final stanza. The verbs are all the same, “to be.” The certitude of future indicative “shall be” is juxtaposed with the conditional mood—would, should, could (with “not now” mixed in). This stanza (which, sadly, is eliminated in some later hymnals) uniquely and gracefully articulates the “already, not yet” in which we live by causing us to think of the “where,” the “what” and all the “things” which God has promised to His children in eternity!

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

(Hebrews 13:8, NLT)

IDEAS FOR LISTENING

• Listen for the melody of the hymn-tune throughout.

• The music reflects four stanzas, all in a different key, all with a different stylistic approach.

• You might think of the first, second, third and fourth stanzas as you hear the music, then simply read that final stanza—out loud!

• Sing the hymn–words AND music–even if you’re by yourself!

Social Distancing from Death by Wil Triggs

Wil first gave this as a talk at last Wednesday's Men’s Bible Study, when the teaching topic was death and the intermediate state.
Lately when I wake up in the morning, I check my weather app to see if the weather is 50 with wind or 25 with snow. I want to know how to dress when I walk the dog and what I’m in for when I step outside.

The other day, I noticed that the Weather Channel added a feature to its app—the COVID-19 button down in the bottom right corner. I clicked on it and got a Coronavirus graph of how many people have been diagnosed and how many people have died in DuPage County every day for the last seven days. You can get it by county or by the whole state. You can choose infections, deaths or both.

To tell you the truth, it seems a little macabre.

The thing is, COVID-19 is not the only thing that’s killing people. All the other ways people die are continuing unabated—flu, cancer, heart disease, stroke. Wouldn’t it be nice if all the other things killing people just stopped? Is it supposed to make me feel better when I see social media posts that say more people die of the flu than COVID-19? That really is not a comfort. 

When it comes to death, each of us is going to be part of a statistic like that someday. Every single one of us. It strikes me in the midst of this pandemic, that in normal life, death is something most of the modern world would choose to forget. Maybe this is not a modern phenomenon—perhaps it has always been that way. As humans, we do our best to social distance from death. 

But not now. Now, as I check my app every morning, I can’t help it. I look to see how many people died of COVID-19 yesterday in DuPage County. I’m kind of fixated on it. And I don’t think I’m the only one. I mean, they’re talking about mass graves in New York. So 125 deaths as of this morning in DuPage County isn’t so bad. But death is death. 

And since death is on my mind more than usual, I end up thinking about some of my best friends in life who have died.

I think of Jim. The best man in my wedding—and I was the best man in his—he was a youth pastor, magician, puppeteer, trombonist, master of the pun and corny jokes, Christian formation professor at Trinity and Biola Universities. Jim just sort of got me in a way that is hard to describe. People appreciate me. They like me, but with Jim, it clicked. He just got me.

One day he was walking with his wife, and his leg went numb. He thought he was having a stroke. But it turned out to be inoperable brain cancer.

I did my best to walk with him through that, even though I was here in Illinois and he was out in California. I called him most nights, and we checked with each other on how things were. Then, when he couldn’t talk anymore, his wife would tell me what was going on. Toward the end, he said he saw Jesus in the room with him, praying. And then he went to heaven. For me, there’s no replacing Jim.

And there’s Peter. He was the missionary force that God used to put my heart in Russia and Ukraine, to serve the church there. Mostly, though, Peter was a man who wanted to do everything he could to help other people know and follow Jesus. I was part of a handful of people who worked here in Wheaton while he lived in Moscow. Every morning there would be 20-30 sheets of handwritten fax pages telling us the latest news of what was happening and what we needed to do that day on top of our regular work. Then email replaced fax, and 20-30 fax pages became 20-30 emails. We worked to impact legislation on religious freedom, connected church leaders with key partners or directed them away from cult leaders who looked like any other Christian from the West.

Then, out of nowhere, he and his wife were coming home early and heading to Mayo Clinic. His lymphoma was aggressive and fast. He fought hard. and we prayed hard. One of the last things he told me was about our plans to do summer camp ministry with kids in Russia. Go, he said, you need to go. And we did. Peter’s energy, humility and ministry partnership with his wife have shaped me and Lorraine in ways that I can’t even begin to express. For me, there’s no replacing Peter.

Death is the enemy. Even Jesus prayed for the cup to pass if there was any other way. Of course, when we die, we won’t be taking the sins of the world on ourselves as he did, so his cup is a lot different than the ones we will all drink.

Death is with us because of sin. We aren’t supposed to embrace it.

I miss these people more than I can say. My life felt better with them physically here. The grief of losing them doesn’t end. But Jesus called them home. I trust him. Our days are in his loving, nail-scarred hands.

I don’t want to think so much of those dear friends that l lose out on the amazing wonder of the people right in front of me. I mean, every person is a universe of creative wonder, a unique expression from the hand of God.

God’s stamp is on each of us, and it’s not some kind of die-cut cookie cutter stamp. Everyone is different. My table guys at Bible study—Mike and Michael and Val and Rick and Jeff and John—what a gift to walk with them and pray together and look together at the wonder of God’s Word. Seeing their faces in little boxes on my laptop, that’s better than nothing. It’s good. But walking together through life with them—that’s so great. For me, there’s no replacing those guys either.

We aren’t people of death. We Christians are all about life. The hymn isn’t "Jesus Died and So Shall I." It’s "Jesus Lives and So Shall I"—and that means that I will see Jim and Peter again. That means that someday all of us connecting on Zoom won’t have to use the internet and our devices to connect. We won’t have to drive to church and find places to park. That day is going to be richer and fuller and better than we can even imagine, and we’re going to get to see Jesus and one another and Jim and Peter all at the same time and cry out together,

Worthy are you, our Lord and God, 
    to receive glory and honor and power, 
for you created all things, 
    and  by your will they existed and were created.
(Revelation 4:11) 

There’s one more thing. Not everyone’s going to see Jesus and have all this. People we know, people we love, some will go to a different place. Let’s not forget that and do all we can to show them the fountain of God’s love that none of us deserve but we all get to drink from because of the wondrous flow from the Lamb of God.  

Come. Drink. Live. 

Deus in Adjutorium

By College Church Brass Ensemble

Deus in Adjutorium

College Church Brass Ensemble

Deus in Adjutorium - Monteverdi, arr. J Jordan Claudio Monteverdi, an important figure bridging the Renaissance and Baroque periods, was director of music at St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice at a time when Italy was the center of European musical life. This setting, from a 1610 collection of vespers (used for evening prayers), uses text from Psalms 69 and 70: Make haste, O God, to deliver me; Make haste, O Lord, to help me. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, without end. Amen. Hallelujah!

Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal

By College Church Brass Ensemble

Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal

College Church Brass Ensemble

Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal - early American hymn tune (INVITATION), arr. Parker, trans. J Jordan Hark, I hear the harps eternal ringing on the farther shore, As I near those swollen waters with their deep and solemn roar. Refrain: Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, praise the Lamb! Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory to the great I AM! And my soul, tho’ stain’d with sorrow, fading as the light of day, Passes swiftly o’er those waters, to the city far away. Souls have cross’d before me, saintly, to that land of perfect rest; And I hear them singing faintly in the mansions of the blest. (Refrain)

The Church's One Foundation

By H. E. Singley, organist

The Church's One Foundation

H. E. Singley III

History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new.

Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new.

We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations,

no one will remember what we are doing now.

(Ecclesiastes 1:9-11, NLT)

With that encouraging (?) pronouncement, wise King Solomon reminds us of the ineluctable reality that history repeats itself. Maybe even more sobering are the words of Spanish philosopher and writer George Santayana who wrote in the early twentieth century, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

As daunting, varied and vast as modern-age threats may be, they are part of the human condition in a fallen creation. Think, for instance, of the Thirty Years’ War in seventeenth-century central Europe. As many as eight million people died from the war and its heinous accomplices, protracted epidemics of disease such as bubonic plague and pervasive famine.

Yet, no one should minimize today’s afflictions. In many instances, we would do so to our own peril. Keeping the bigger picture, much as we are able, is imperative, nonetheless. One of my best friends from growing up years in Texas has had a lengthy pastorate in southern Wisconsin. In the face of adversity, he says, “We don’t need to think that God is sitting up in heaven wringing His hands.”

The foundations of law and order have collapsed. What can the righteous do?

But the Lord is in his holy Temple; the Lord still rules from heaven.

He watches everyone closely, examining every person on earth.

(Psalm 11:3-4, NLT)

In the face of shaking foundations, we profit from deliberating about that which is our only secure security. As portentous theological currents swirled around the world of his day, Anglican pastor Samuel Stone wrote a hymn of confidence and hope, one that Christians sing around the world. The hymn-tune most associated with these words, Aurelia, was composed by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, a grandson of Charles Wesley. In its simplicity and singability, the music appropriately supports the textual cadence. Take a moment to read and contemplate this elegant, well-proportioned and substantive poetry.

The church's one Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord;

She is His new creation,by water and the Word;

From heav'n He came and sought her to be His holy bride;

With His own blood He bought her, and for her life He died.

Elect from ev'ry nation, yet one o'er all the earth,

Her charter of salvation, one Lord, one faith, one birth;

One holy Name she blesses, partakes one holy food,

And to one hope she presses, with ev'ry grace endued.

Tho' with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed,

By schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed,

Yet saints their watch are keeping, their cry goes up, "How long?"

And soon the night of weeping shall be the morn of song.

'Mid toil and tribulation, and tumult of her war,

She waits the consummation of peace for evermore;

Till with the vision glorious her longing eyes are blest,

And the great church victorious shall be the church at rest.

Yet she on earth hath union with God the Three in One,

And mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.

O happy ones and holy! Lord, give us grace that we,

Like them, the meek and lowly, on high may dwell with Thee.

Like so many hymns which have been filtered by the sieve of time and which valiantly serve our own context, these words are laced with Scripture. Look for Scriptural allusions–some obvious, others not so obvious. For example:

·       “His holy bride,” Ephesians 4:29-32, Revelation 21:9

·       “Elect from every nation, yet one over all the earth,” John 17:21; Revelation 5:9

·       “One Lord, one faith, one birth,” Ephesians 4:5

As Stone paints his portrait of the seemingly tottering reality through words, he writes of sore oppression, of distressing schisms, the cry of “How long?,” the toil, the tribulation, the war, the wait for consummation of it all in everlasting peace.

 By reason of the immutable foundation of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and His atoning work, we anticipate a morning of song! In the interim, in this “not yet,” we have union with the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent Triune God, the hope of the resurrection and being part–each of us–of the Church victorious and, ultimately, the Church at rest.

May that secure security sustain our courage, our fortitude, our perseverance in times of uncertainty.

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds

a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and

the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house,

it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.”

(Matthew 7:24-25, NLT)

For no one can lay any foundation other than

the one we already have—Jesus Christ.

(I Corinthians 3:11, NLT)

IDEAS FOR LISTENING

• Listen for the melody of the hymn-tune throughout.

• The music reflects three stanzas, all in a different key, all with a different stylistic approach.

• You might think of the first, fourth and fifth stanzas as you hear the music.

• Sing the hymn–words AND music–even if you’re by yourself!

Steadfast Love (Psalm 86)

By Erik Dewar, pastor of worship and music

Though so much around us is changing, the covenant love of our Lord is steadfast. May our hearts rejoice in the God who hears us, forgives us, and lavishes his grace upon us!

From Psalm 86

“Gladden the soul of your servant,

for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,

abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,

and I will glorify your name forever.

For great is your steadfast love toward me;

…You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

Back to the Basics by Heather Owens

Heather and her husband, Daniel, and their two sons are College Church missionaries, serving the Lord in Vietnam.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

We are embarking upon week ten of closures and social distancing here in Hanoi. In the past two weeks, I haven’t left the house at all except to walk a few hundred yards to the corner grocery to buy vegetables and eggs. We live in an up-and-down house in a row of up-and-down houses facing an apartment block, so we don’t have a yard or a place to be outdoors. We also don’t have a car, and now that public transportation is shut down, we couldn’t go out even if we wanted to risk being fined. My teenager told me he wishes he could just hibernate.

Our family is used to spending a lot of time together. We homeschool even when we don’t have to, and Daniel works part-time from our house even when the college is open. We always eat dinner as a family and often lunch as well. We like each other. We like spending time together. However, we are not immune to the irritation generated by these long days in each other’s company. Did I mention this is week ten? Our fuses are all a bit short and my threshold for annoyance is suddenly very slim. I’m wondering if I need a room to call my “growlery” like Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House.

Somehow I never seem to graduate from Kindergarten when it comes to living and loving well. I keep having to go back to the basics. Be nice. Don’t be mean. Treat others the way you want to be treated. First Corinthians 13 is famously read at weddings, but its instructions certainly don’t end at the altar. These basic reminders spoke to my conscience this week.

“Love is patient and kind” even when towels are left crumpled on the floor or there is a sticky mess around the trash can. Love is not “arrogant or rude” forgetting that I too have grating habits and personality quirks. Love “does not insist on its own way” or declare the rest of the afternoon “me time.” It is not “irritable or resentful” when expected to provide the third meal of the day for the umpteenth day in a row. Love does not “rejoice at wrongdoing” or self-justify or make excuses. It speaks hard truth to my rotten attitudes. Love bears quarantine, believes God is in control, hopes for the good that will come, and endures quietly while we wait. 

Heather first posted this on her blog, In This Meantime.

Doxology

By College Church Brass Ensemble

Doxology

College Church Brass Ensemble

Doxology - Bourgeois, arr. de Filippi French composer Loys Bourgeois wrote this melody, first printed in the Genevan Psalter of 1551 (the name OLD HUNDREDTH appeared about 100 years later). Englishman Thomas Ken added the familiar text in the early 1700s:

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow,

Praise Him, all creatures here below,

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host,

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.