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My mother knew she was close to dying. Her body was ravaged by cancer, her eyes blind. She was confined to a wheel chair. Yet her mind was crystal clear. She asked me to find a particular file in her small filing box labeled “Funeral Plans”. “When the time comes, follow them,” she ordered. I looked at the paper in the file she had typed up years before. It listed numerous scripture passages. But it also listed about ten hymns. “Mom, there is no way the congregation is going to sing all these hymns at your funeral,” I blurted. “Yes they will,” she replied. “Tell them these hymns have sustained my soul and will sustain theirs as well.”
We sang the hymns. And doing so, I realized my mother had alerted me to an exquisite gift: singing the hymns of faith in the congregation of God’s people. I recalled my days as a seminary student gathering with fellow students and faculty in Union Presbyterian Seminary’s Watts Chapel and singing hymns. We sang with such gusto the rafters seemed to rattle. Shivers would go down my spine.
To this day the hymns of faith sung together in the congregation of God’s people ground me in the transcendent mystery and glory of God and of God’s boundless love, justice and grace we know in Jesus the Christ. I have favorites, as did my mom. My favorites change from time to time. Here are a few which sustain me in these days.
I Greet Thee Who My Sure Redeemer Art, attributed to John Calvin
“Thou hast the true and perfect gentleness,
no harshness hast thou and no bitterness.
O grant to us the grace we find in thee,
that we may dwell in perfect unity.”
Where Shepherds Lately Knelt, text by Jaroslav Vajda
“Can I, will I forget how Love was born
and burned its way into my heart:
unasked, unforced, unearned:
to die, to live,
and not alone for me;
to die, to live,
and not alone for me.”
Let Us Build a House, text and music by Marty Haugen
“Let us build a house where all are named,
their songs and visions heard
and loved and treasured, taught and claimed
as words within the Word.
Built of tears and cries and laughter,
prayers of faith and songs of grace;
let this house proclaim from floor to rafter:
all are welcome, all are welcome,
all are welcome in this place.”
My Shepherd Will Supply My Need, paraphrase of Psalm 23 by Isaac Watts
“The sure provisions of my God
attend me all my days;
O may your house be my abode,
and all my work be praise.
There would I find a settled rest,
while others go and come;
no more a stranger, or a guest,
but like a child at home.”
And finally, the one that will undergird me to my grave, —
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling, text by Charles Wesley
“Finish then thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see thy great salvation
perfectly restored in thee:
changed from glory into glory,
till in heaven were take our place,
till we cast our crowns before thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.”
That is a bit of my list. What hymns are on your list? Let us sing them together in the congregation of God’s people and taste a bit of what it is like to be “lost in wonder, love, and praise.”
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