Ah, the return of my favorite part of blogging, the Hymn of the Week. It's been a while, and it seems like I always promise this will happen more regularly, so this time I won't even promise that. Anyway, this week's hymn is a great one, a personal favorite of one of my readers (maybe more than one, actually). It's written by Robert Robinson, here are the lyrics.
Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Hither by Thy help I'm come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let that grace now like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here's my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
We sang this song in church this past Sunday, but there were some differences in lyrics. The version we sang had "Name" instead of "Mount" at the end of the first verse, it changed the first couple lines of the second verse and used a different word for "interposed." I presume these changes were intentional on the part of whoever rewrote it. The first change may have happened because of our poor understanding of metonymy, which is a figure of speech that takes a noun and uses it in place of a related noun (such as "The White House issued a statement", whereas "The White House" issued no statement, rather the President or his officials did). The second change was probably meant to avoid using the confusing (to us) "Ebenezer", but I think it's an opportunity to do some teaching on the meaning of the word (I'll let you look it up). I'm sure the third change was to avoid the word "interpose", which is hardly everyday language.
Anyway, this is a great song, I love some of the imagery: our hearts being tuned to sing of God's grace (you musicians should understand this even better than I), the pervasive theme of our wandering and God's rescue, and our hearts being fettered by God's grace. This is a song that deserves to be contemplated as much as sung, in my opinion. And I hope you do just that, I look forward to your thoughts.
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4 comments:
I'm happy to provide the first comment because, as you know, this is my favorite hymn. I get so excited to sing it that God not only needs to tune my heart but also my voice .
Although I can't remember why I was originally drawn to this song, I can definitely say that its words have kept it close to my heart. The language is so rich that I can continually contemplate the depth of emotion the author is communicating.
The words paint a picture of a man who realizes the error of his wanderlust while at the same time knowing the profound and ceaseless goodness of God's grace. What then is the author's cry to God? He calls on the Stone of Help to rescue him. He begs God to bind him to grace with shackles and to seal his heart.
It's that double life described with which I am guilty. It's the contradiction of human sin continuing despite our best attempts. I almost prefer to think about this song backwards starting with the third verse and ending with the first. The third verse is a confession of sin and expression of futility of relying on one's own strength. The second verse then is a description of how God redeemed the author's sin. The first verse is the triumph of grace and the overflow of joy.
How prone I am to wander, how longing I am to be sealed for heaven, how thankful I am that He sought me while a sinner, so teach me a song that can adequately praise You.
To me, the best hymns are like art. I love paintings that so skillfully, insightfully, and expressively describe a subject that I could not fathom any better presentation. This hymn speaks to me in that way.
I like the word interposed.
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