Notes on the Notes – June 28, 2015
This week’s theme: Straight talk when you’re backed into a corner
This week’s Scripture readings:
Psalm 130
Mark 5:21-34
This week’s music:
“Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour” (VU #665)
“Pass me not, O gentle Saviour, hear my humble cry,
While on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.
Let me at thy throne of mercy find a sweet relief,
Kneeling there in deep contrition; help my unbelief.
Trusting only in thy merit, would I seek thy face,
Heal my wounded, broken spirit, save me by thy grace.
Thou the spring of all my comfort, more than life to me,
Whom have I on earth beside thee? Whom in heaven but thee?
Saviour, Saviour, hear my humble cry, while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.”
Fanny Jane Crosby was known by her married name as well as numerous pseudonyms associated with her prolific production of over 8,500 gospel hymns. Hers was an age of evangelistic singing missions, and Fanny Crosby’s hymns were always in request. So popular was the little poetess that she was invited to speak at many places where these missions were held. On one occasion, it was at a state prison. Much was hoped for from this particular meeting. As Fanny was speaking—and her very blindness gave her power—first one prisoner and then another would interrupt by calling on the good Lord not to pass me by.
Fanny told that she was so touched by the pleas of these men that she could not get the thought of them out of her mind; indeed she said, I wrote the lines with the men’s pleading wail still in my ears.” (Source: Blanchard, Kathleen. Stories of Wonderful Hymns. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House)
Hear the London Philharmonic Choir at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFkgAj2hEEc
“Up From the Depths I Cry to God” (VU 852)
“Up from the depths I cry to God; O listen, Lord, to me;
O hear my voice in this distress, this mire of misery.
I wait for God with all my heart, my hope is in his word,
And more than watchmen for the dawn I’m longing for you, God.
If you, my God, should measure guilt who then could ever stand?
But those who fear your name will find forgiveness from your hand.
I wait for God with all my heart, my hope is in his word,
And more than watchmen for the dawn I’m longing for you, God.
O Israel, set your hope on God whose mercy is supreme;
The nation mourning for its sin he surely will redeem.
I wait for God with all my heart, my hope is in his word,
And more than watchmen for the dawn I’m longing for you, God.”
This paraphrase of Psalm 130 is by Christopher Idle, hymn writer and member of the Jubilate Hymns group which prepared the publication Hymns for Today’s Church in 1982. This Psalm is from Psalms for Today (1990). The tune, MACPHERSON’S FAREWELL is an arrangement of a traditional Scottish folk melody.
“He Leadeth Me” (VU #657)
“He leadeth me; O blessed thought!
O words with heavenly comfort fraught!
Whate’er I do, where’er I be, still ’tis God’s hand that leadeth me.
He leadeth me! He leadeth me!
By his own hand he leadeth me!
His faithful follower I would be,
For by his hand he leadeth me!
Sometimes ‘mid scenes of deepest gloom,
Sometimes where Eden’s bowers bloom,
By waters calm, o’er troubled sea,
Still ’tis his hand that leadeth me.
He leadeth me!…
Lord, I would clasp thy hand in mine,
Nor ever murmur nor repine,
Content, whatever lot I see,
Since ’tis my God that leadeth me.
He leadeth me!…
And when my task on earth is done,
When by thy grace the victory’s won,
Even death’s cold wave I will not flee,
Since God through Jordan leadeth me.
He leadeth me!…
Words by Joseph Henry Gilmore (1862) and music by William Batchelder Bradbury (1864). Joseph Gilmore, the son of a governor of New Hampshire, became both a professor of logic and a minister. He wrote this text, based on Psalm 23, in Philadelphia in March, 1862, during the American Civil War. His wife submitted the poem to the Boston journal, Watchman and Reflector, where William B. Bradbury saw it. Bradbury adapted the hymn text to a verse and refrain structure and published his setting in Golden Censer (1864). Gilmore found his hymn in a new gospel songbook while visiting another city, and was quite amazed at its growing popularity.
