693 Just as I am Without One Plea

Charlotte Elliott, the author of the text for this hymn, spent much of her life as an embittered woman.  Charlotte was born in Brighton England but ended up with in bad health was a disability the followed her.  She felt that if God really loved her, "He would not have treated me this way."  She often railed against God and her family in violent outbursts.

Finally in 1822 a minister, Dr. Cesar Malan visited her and after one of her outbursts, her embarrassed family left Charlotte alone with the visitor.  He observed that she became embittered and now had nothing else in the world to cling to.  He told her that faith in God would be a cure to her bitterness and all she had to do to embrace the faith that could relieve her of her disappointment was to, "give yourself to God just as you are now, with your fightings, fears, hates and love, pride and shame."

Charlotte did come just as she was and her heart was changed that day.  Years later when her brother was raising funds for a school for the children of poor clergymen, Charlotte wrote a poem.  The poem was printed and sold all across England.  The poem was the source for this hymn text and has become the most famous invitational hymn in history.  It has become synonymous with the Billy Graham crusades. 

Miss Elliott lived to be 82 (in 1871) and wrote about 149 additional hymns, despite the fact that her health never improved.  After her death, her family found over a thousand letters she had kept in which people expressed their gratitude for the way this hymn had touched their lives.

William Bradbury wrote the music used for this text. Other hymn  tunes by Bradbury include "Jesus Loves Me This I Know", "He Leadeth Me", "Sweet Hour of Prayer", "Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us."

The video this week is the great Mahalia Jackson singing this hymn.  Although the text is not there, there isn't any doubt what the words are about. A commentator once said about Mahalia, "she wasn't singing for a crowd or a congregation; she was singing for God. She just allowed us to listen while she did."

401 The God of Abraham Praise

The God of Abraham Praise is probably one of the most "Jewish" of Christian hymns. Its roots go back to medieval Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides (1135-1204),  Maimonides wrote a confession of faith containing 13 creeds. The completion of the hymn as we have it today took several centuries.
The tune we now use Yigdal was coposed in 1404 by Daniel ben Judah who was a liturgical poet in Rome.  He wrote a doxology of 13 stanzas sung in Jewish synagogues even in the present day.

In 1770 the tune was sung in London's Great Synagogue where it was heard by Thomas Olivers, an orphan who was born in Wales.  He was called, " the worst boy known for 30 years.  Oliver was thrown out of town at 18 when he wandered down to Bristol, England and heard an evangelist, George Whitefiled.  By the time Whitefiled's sermon ended that night, Olivers was converted and became, in his own words, "a new creature."  He became a traveling evangelist, acquired the music, and converted into a Christian hymn of 13 stanzas.

Thomas annotated each verse with scripture reference for almost every line.  It appeared in 1785.  The song that began in medieval times in the 12th and 13th century and came down to us in the final form appearing in a hymnal for the first time in 1785.

This week you have a choice of which version you prefer.  The first one is the more traditional hymn version--much like we actually sing it in church--except for the fact our organ is not as large. This version is with organ accompaniment from the First Presbyterian Church and was recorded in 2009.The traditional version is strong and in a minor key.

 The second version is much less traditional and is by an artist named Fernando Ortega and was recorded on September 7, 2012.  Both versions contain the hymn text, but his version, an instrumental one, is much more contemplative and meditative.  It's amazing how different the hymn sounds in the different versions. Enjoy!

488 Be Thou my Vision

To understand the story of the Irish song, "Be Thou My Vision" it is necessary to start with St. Patrick.  He was born around 373 A.D. along the banks of the River Clyde in what is now Scotland.  His father was a deacon and his grandfather was a priest.  In 389, after his village was torched by pirates, he was hauled aboard their ship and taken to Ireland as a slave.

Patrick eventually escaped and returned home but not before he himself became profoundly aware "of my unbelief."  One night while he was asleep he had a vision of an Irishman pleading with him to come evangelize Ireland.  He returned to his captors when he was about 30 and set about evangelizing him with only the Latin Bible in his hand. The country was largely populated by Druids who were superstitious of him and sought his death.  However, his preaching was powerful and Patrick became one of the most effective evangelists of all time planting about 200 churches and baptizing 100,000 converts.

His writing and his preaching endured long after his death and the Irish church was still producing his hymns, prayers, sermons and songs of worship centuries later.  In the 8th century, an unknown poet wrote a prayer asking God to be his vision, his wisdom, and his best thought.

In 1905,Mary Elizabeth Byrne,a scholar in Dublin translated the Irish poem into English; Eleanor Hull of Manchester England crafted it into verses with rhyme and meter.  A short time after that, the re-worked, translated poem was set to a traditional Irish folk song, entitle "Slane," named for an area where Patrick reportedly challenged local Druids with the gospel. This video contains an extra verse that is typically not included in most hymnals--no modern day hymnals contain all 8 verses.This arrangement has a nice Celtic feel to it. 

390 Praise to The Lord, the Almighty

People have been singing praises to God for as long as there have been people.  Music has a way of opening one's heart in ways that mere speaking does not.  Beginning with this entry, you will have an opportunity to learn about the "back story" to many of the great hymns of faith and inspiration.

This Sunday we will be singing one of the great songs of Christendom: "Praise to The Lord the Almighty."  The music for this hymn first appeared in a German hymnal or Gesangbuch dating from 1665. The tune is entitled Lobe Den Herren and is only used with this particular hymn text.

The text was written by Joachim Neander who was born in 1650.  Joachim came from a line of four previous Joachim Neanders, all of whom were preachers.  The youngest Joachim did not want to follow in his predecessors' footsteps.  As a matter of fact, when he was 20 years old, he joined a group of rowdy students who wanted to ridicule and scoff at worshipers at St. Martin's Church.  The preacher that night was so persuasive that young Neander was converted that same day.  Later he actually became an assistant preacher at that very same church.

Joachim loved taking nature/worship walks which often became times when he composed hymns which he sang during his walks. One of his favorite walking spots was a beautiful gorge near his home outside of Dusseldorf.  He so loved this valley that eventually it was named for him: the Neander Valley.  The Old German word for "valley" was "tal" or "thal" with a silent "h". When he was 30--the year he died, he wrote this text while battling the tuberculosis that was to kill him: "Praise ye The Lord the almighty the King of creation. O my soul praise Him for He is my strength and salvation."

Two hundred years later, the valley was used as a source for limestone to manufacture cement. In 1856, miners discovered a series of caves containing human bones.  When William King, an Irish professor of anatomy examined the bones, he declared that they were from a race of people who were the "missing link" in evolution.  They are now known as the Neanderthals, a fully human but extinct group of people of great strength. It is somewhat ironic that a man of great faith became linked with a theory that he probably would have rejected: evolution.  That's the back story or one of the favorite hymns and its author who died tragically young.