Music for June 13, 2021 + The Third Sunday after Pentecost

Vocal Music

• Hymn of Promise – Natalie Sleeth (1930-1992)

Instrumental Music

• Symphonie Gothique: 2. Andante Sostenuto - Charles-Marie Widor (1844 –1937)
• Jerusalem My Happy Home – George Shearing (1919-2011)
• Praeludium from Suite in D Minor – Johann Krieger (1651–1735)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982.)

• Hymn 525 The Church’s one foundation (AURELIA) 
• Hymn 302 Father, we thank thee who hast planted (LYONS)
• Hymn 657 Love divine, all loves excelling (HYFRYDOL)
• Psalm 92 – Tone VIIIa

This Sunday the Good Shepherd SUMMER Choir will sing one of the simplest and loveliest anthems in our library, the beautiful Hymn of Promise by Natalie Sleeth. I have written about it before, so if you want to read the story of how it came to be, please go here.

Often we sing hymns which we have sung all our lives, and never think about what they mean. This Sunday, we are closing the 10:15 service with Charles Wesley's great hymn, Love divine, all loves excelling. It's one of the few hymns of that era that depicts God as a loving god, and not a judgmental deity. Every line in this hymn can be traced back to the Bible. Every thought is based on God's word. Here is an example of just the last stanza of the hymn:

Finish then thy new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)
Pure and spotless* let us be, (Cant. 4:7, Eph. 5:27
Let us see thy great salvation, (Heb 2:3, 2 Peter 3:14)
Perfectly restored in thee; (Psalm 51:12, Isaiah 49:6, 58:12)
Changed from glory into glory (2 Cor. 3:18)
Till in heaven we take our place (John 14:2-3)
Till we cast our crowns before thee (Rev 4:10)
Lost in wonder, love, and praise (Rev. 8:1)
* the original word was "sinless," influenced by John Wesley's belief that humans could strive toward perfection, thus being sinless.

But a couple of lines are a bit obscure. I want to lift those out and give an explanation of them.

Line five of the third stanza says we are "changed from glory into glory." This comes from 2nd Corinthians 3:18

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

You have to remember the story of Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. It's said that his face was shining so brightly from being around the glory of God that he had to veil his face to keep from blinding his people. This glory comes from knowing the Law of God. But with Christ, we are a new creation (see the first line) and, as William Barclay says in his Commentary,

...we see the glory of the Lord with no veil upon our faces, and because of that we, too, are changed from glory into glory. Just possibly what Paul means is that, if we gaze at Christ, we in the end reflect him. It is a law of life that we become like the people we gaze at. (William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, The Westminster Press, 1954)

And in the penultimate line, we sing about casting our crowns before him. In the book of Revelation, the Apostle John describes an event that will take place sometime after the Judgment Seat of Christ. The scene involves twenty-four elders, sitting upon twenty-four thrones, all of which encircle the throne of God.

Around the throne were twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads …. (Revelation 4:4)
The twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne. (Revelation 4:10)

For the saints to cast their crowns before the throne of God is to publicly acknowledge Christ’s right (and His alone) to wear those crowns. At this time they will “give credit where credit is due.” During their lives, these believers had faithfully represented Christ to the world in both character and service. But the ability to do so had not been generated by their own will and power but, instead, by the will and power of God.