Speaking of hymns...

Since I'm already writing about hymns, I thought I'd post a couple of other hymn-related items.

First, check out this hymn :

Hast Thou Heard Him, Seen Him?
anonymous early 20th century hymn (alt. Kevin Twit)

1. Hast thou heard Him, seen Him, known Him?
Is not thine a captured heart?
Chief among ten thousand own Him;
Joyful choose the better part

Chorus: Captivated by His beauty
Worthy tribute haste to bring;
Let His peerless worth constrain thee
Crown Him now unrivaled King.

2. What can strip the seeming beauty
From the idols of the earth?
Not a sense of right or duty
But the sight of peerless worth

3. ‘Tis the look that melted Peter
‘Tis the face that Stephen saw
‘Tis the heart that wept with Mary
Can alone from idols draw

That's pretty much the biznomb. It's a great example of how sometimes a few lines of poetry can say what it would take several paragraphs of prose to communicate. Kevin Twit (the Indelible Grace mastermind) posted it on his blog (and the full original text is included in the post as well).

Second, Brian Moss posted his version of "In the Cross of Christ I Glory" on his blog for downloading. The CD it was on is now out of print, so he decided to give it away. The lyrics are a bit cryptic, but I like the idea of the hymn--namely, that the cross is neither made void by bad times nor made unnecessary by good times. It's similar to the idea communicated by that Matt Redman song, "Blessed Be Your Name," only it centers around the cross instead of my resolve. With some explanation (always a good thing), this could be a useful, meaningful congregational song.

Come, ye sinners

I lead worship at our Sunday church services. Other people participate with me, and my goal is to work toward pushing others toward that leadership role, but for now I lead each week. When I say that I lead worship, I mean that in the service I take a leadership role and try to direct the congregation's thoughts and affections Godward, setting the truth before them, with the goal that we would treasure him more than anything else, and that that treasuring would be manifested in our lives as faithful obedience, sacrificial love, and the forsaking of sin in our lives (among other things).

If you think about it, this is a hopelessly impossible task. We're talking about humans here. Each one of us is a sinner, and we're all, as Bill Hybels says, on the downward escalator. During the week we have been bombarded on all sides with the lies of the world--in advertisements, in our entertainment, and in our culture's values in general--preaching to us that we don't need God, that other things will satisfy us more than him, that he doesn't know what's best for us, or what have you. And the thing is, more often than not we believe this message. We buy it, hook, line, and sinker, and we go back to it over and over again, even though God continually proves it wrong. To put it in the prophet Jeremiah's words, "Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:12-13) To put it like Paul does in Romans 1, we "exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator."

So even though there is nothing in the universe more satisfying than walking with God, not one of us naturally seeks him. I could teach this from a theological standpoint, but for now I'll just say that in my own experience, both from knowing my own heart and from pastoral ministry, this has been evident. And it makes the idea of trying to confront this head-on seem, as I said before, crushingly hopeless. Of course, the Holy Spirit can open hearts and change lives, reveal truth to our minds and put affections in order. But without him we really are hopeless.

Each Sunday morning for the past several months, I have tried to listen to the hymn "Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Wretched" both to remind myself of this hopelessness apart from God (lest I fail to hope only in him to actually accomplish something in a worship service) and to remind myself of his promised grace and mercy. Here are the lyrics:

Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched,
Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus, ready, stands to save you,
Full of pity, joined with power.
He is able, He is able;
He is willing; doubt no more.

Come ye needy, come, and welcome,
God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance,
Every grace that brings you nigh.
Without money, without money
Come to Jesus Christ and buy.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden,
Bruised and broken by the fall;
If you tarry 'til you're better,
You will never come at all.
Not the righteous, not the righteous;
Sinners Jesus came to call.

Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream;
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.
This He gives you, this He gives you,
'Tis the Spirit's rising beam.

Lo! The Incarnate God, ascended;
Pleads the merit of His blood.
Venture on Him; venture wholly,
Let no other trust intrude.
None but Jesus, none but Jesus
Can do helpless sinners good.

There was a time when I used to think this sort of lyric would be applicable only to the unconverted, and that believers didn't need to hear this; but now I know I need, as all believers do, to be confronted with these truths constantly. I have never found a Spanish version of this hymn, so if anyone knows of one, let me know. If I was leading worship somewhere regularly in English, I might very well start off every service with this song (at least until everyone got hacked off about it and I got in trouble).

By the way, there is a tampered-with version of this hymn that became popular during the Second Great Awakening that cuts off the last two lines of each verse (some of the most pointed lines) and adds a sappy chorus. This was obviously done to make it more friendly to the revivalist theology of the day, but it changes the meaning of the song completely. You can buy the good version on iTunes from Matthew Smith's album, Even When My Heart Is Breaking.

Gear in Mexico

Something I don't think I have shared about yet is the interesting experiences I have had playing music in Mexico. The ability to play guitar and sing has often saved me from those inevitable situations in which you visit a church somewhere and they ask you 30 minutes before the service to preach--a lot of times they ask me to sing a song instead, which is obviously much easier.

The fun thing about borrowing instruments, however, is that you never know what you're going to get. I have been handed guitars, for example, with both a nut and a zero fret! Last time I was in Xalapa they asked me to sit in with the worship band, but I hadn't brought my guitar. They had an old Yamaha electric sitting around, along with a tiny Crate amp. I had until then never played electric guitar in public, but I thought that day was as good as any for a debut. Luckily we had arrived early, so I had a few minutes to try to get the thing in tune. Tuning is always an adventure when the strings are old and rusty, but I was able to make it happen, and we had a chance to run through the tunes. The crazy thing was that the lower frets had grooves worn into them so deep that the strings were buzzing on all my open chords, but the tuning got worse the higher up the neck I went. So I was trying to concentrate on avoiding certain notes while also trying to make up harmony vocal parts on the fly. Nothing in the UNT College of Music could have prepared me for stuff like this.

It sort of reminds me of an interview I read one time of Bill Frisell answering the question of how he learned to play the guitar so innovatively and expressively. He said that when he lived in Belgium for a few years in the late 70s he had a hard time finding guitars that played in tune, so he was having to literally bend the neck of the guitar to try to compensate, and that over time taught him to manipulate a new sound out of the instrument. Maybe I'll come back from Mexico someday and play like Bill Frisell. Probably not.

Another fond memory involves me leading worship with a bad roof leak about ten inches from my right arm and having to concentrate on not kicking over the bowl of water it was dripping into. Fun stuff.