Hymns4Him

As we celebrate the royal majesty of the Son of God seated on His throne in heaven, how wonderful it is to celebrate at the same time the fact that this divine sovereign has also joyfully condescended to become the friend of sinners.  He said to His disciples (and to us today) in John 15:15, “I no longer call you servants ….  Instead I have called you friends.”  How amazing that the second person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus, the Son of God, identifies those of us who have been united to Him by faith as His friends!  Imagine that He were actually speaking about you by name in a public address, and said, “(insert your name here) is My friend.”

Think of how many times in His earthly ministry Jesus acted to demonstrate that He was the friend of sinners. There was the woman caught in adultery.  There was Zacchaeus the tax collector.  There was the woman at the well.  And let’s don’t forget Saul of Tarsus! The Scribes and Pharisees looked down on Jesus for this very reason.  They were disgusted that Jesus was the friend of sinners (Matthew 11:19).  But what great hope that gives us when we recognize ourselves as sinners (the first step in embracing the gospel), to realize that Jesus comes to us as a friend.  He is the one we should immediately think of when we read Proverbs 18:24 about a friend that sticks closer than a brother.  And of course, we should also recall John 15:13, where Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  And that’s exactly what He has done for us.

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While “The Star Spangled Banner” is not technically a hymn of praise to God, since it is found in many hymnals in America and sung or played on so many occasions (baseball games being among them!), it is being including here in this collection of studies.  It is the national anthem of the United States of America and will be heard across the nation on this July 4^th, 2026, as the country celebrates its 250^th anniversary, our semiquincentennial (try saying that quickly five times!).

The lyrics come from the “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” a poem written by American lawyer Francis Scott Key on September 14, 1814, after he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Royal Navy during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812.  Key was inspired by the large U. S. flag with its 15 stars and 15 stripes, that star-spangled banner, flying triumphantly above the fort after the battle.

His poem was set to the music of a popular British song written by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, a gentlemen’s club in London.  Smith’s song, “The Anacreontic Song,” with various lyrics, was already popular in the United States.  This setting, renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner,” soon became a popular patriotic song.  With a range of 19 semitones, it is known for being very difficult to sing, in part because the melody stretches so far into higher notes that other voices than a soprano find it challenging to reach.

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A hymnal without any hymns by Isaac Watts (1674-1748) would be a hymnal ….  Well, such a hymnal would not exist!  Known as “the father of English hymnody,” we are deeply indebted to him for the songs we bring to the Lord in worship. Look at the index of authors in any hymnal, and you will find Isaac Watts well-represented. Here are just a few: “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past,” “I Sing the Almighty Power of God,” “Joy to the World,” “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” “Join All the Glorious Names,” “Come We That Love the Lord,” and even a setting of “The Beatitudes!”

Beginning with Psalms that he “re-wrote” to make Jesus and New Testament content more explicit (like “Jesus Shall Reign” – Psalm 72) to original hymns of the Savior (like “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”), we can sing all the Scriptures with depth and joy. He is one of the finest hymn  writers in the history of Christian hymnody, combining rich doctrinal substance with splendid poetic excellence.  He is recognized as one of the primary agents in the move from exclusive psalmody to “hymns of human composure,” as English hymnody came to be known.

Watts carefully chose the texts for his hymns.  They were comprehensive in scope. For example, in “Joy to the World” we sing of events that affect all of creation: the world, earth, every heart, fields and floods, etc.  Watts was totally committed to the Reformed faith and his hymns reflect this doctrinal perspective.  He always directed attention to the person and work of Jesus Christ and was not content to speak in general terms about God and mercy.

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Graduates of our military academies carry along with their memories, a life-long pride in and high regard and deep love for that institution.  Such was true of a man who became a good friend of mine why I was serving as senior chaplain at Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community in SE Pennsylvania.  Sam Larsen was a proud graduate of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD.  He subsequently served in the Navy, including time on river boats in Vietnam, where he was among those exposed to Agent Orange, a highly toxic and carcinogenic chemical sprayed to defoliate areas that could have been concealing enemy positions.

After the war, Sam entered Covenant Theological Seminary and was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America.  He returned to active service as a Navy chaplain, achieving his doctorate from Covenant.  When his beloved wife began to show some signs of approaching dementia, he chose to retire early and move to a retirement community where he could find the assistance that she would need in coming years.  That was where I got to know him as a friend and appreciated his fine preaching as one of the regulars in our chapel services.

We enjoyed special times together there in ministry partnership.  As I got to know him better, I learned how that Naval Academy ring on his finger meant so much to him.  He didn’t just wear it with pride, he was also deeply moved by pictures of the Academy and especially of the magnificent chapel there where he had attended worship on so many occasions.  Hearing “The Navy Hymn,” “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” always touched his heart very deeply.

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My wife and I have enjoyed a very special friendship here in our Christian Retirement Community with a lady who served for many years in East Africa as a nurse/midwife missionary with the PCA’s Mission to the World committee.  She grew up as a “cradle catholic” (from childhood) and attended college and vocational post-graduate training in Roman Catholic institutions.  She came to saving faith in Jesus (and left her Roman Catholic connections initially over the doctrine of transubstantiation) shortly before heading to the mission field, so did not have an opportunity to become well-grounded in evangelical Protestantism, let alone the Reformed faith.  The daily demands of medical duties left very little time for in-depth Bible study.

Now in retirement, she has been experiencing the excitement of discovering biblical truths that had for some many decades elided her.  In her Catholic university education, she had many courses in theology, but it had all been in classic Catholic doctrine, without a single course in Bibe content.  In fact, none of her courses even used a Bible as a text, and she did not even own a Bible.  Even after many years as a Protestant, one Catholic doctrine that had remained unexamined was that of purgatory.  As so, years after leaving the Roman Catholic Church, she still had the idea of purgatory in her mind, even thinking that it made sense to her that before people could go to heaven, they ought to spend some time in purgatory “to get cleaned up!”

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There are many images in Scripture to communicate concepts about the Lord’s goodness to us.  The Psalms are filled with references to the Lord as shepherd, refuge, fortress, lamp to our feet, the shade at our right hand, a mother hen, judge, and king. And in addition to those, in the New Testament, with the “I ams” in the Gospel of John, we read that Jesus described Himself as being like a vine, a door, the light of the world, the bread of life, as well as the Good Shepherd.

And so, it’s neither surprising nor without biblical warrant that we find hymn writers over the centuries who have provided poetic images of the Lord that enable us to have heightened appreciation of His goodness to us.  One of those is found in the hymn “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me,” written in 1870 by Presbyterian minister Edward Hopper (1818-1888), using vivid maritime imagery to portray Jesus as the guide who leads believers through life’s storms. We know of the pilot who helps steer a ship into port in the harbor, but this is the pilot who takes control of the ship still at sea as the winds and waves threaten her and her crew. This hymn was written especially for sailors in language they knew well: charts, compasses, and the absolute need for a competent pilot to guide their crafts over the tempestuous seas.

While few who sing this hymn today are literally on board ships at sea, every person, including Christians, live in a world filled with storms of many kinds, not to mention the tempests that arise in individual lives.  Those storms that threaten all of us include wars on the international stage, persecution of Christians in regions hostile to the faith, and the uncertainties of economic upheavals. On an individual level, diseases, broken relationships, the challenges that come from the aging process, and financial shrinkage are all very real.   How are we to navigate those dangers?  We need a pilot to take the helm of our lives to not only settle our anxious hearts, but also to chart a course to lead us through them to safety and calm seas.

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Our culture today is very concerned about drawing attention to women’s prominence in many arenas, from sports to business to politics.  That includes the church, where, unfortunately, the culture has too often been allowed to shape our biblical understanding.  There are many legitimate and honored places for women within church ministry.  Generally, evangelical and reformed denominations have maintained the historic complementarian position when it comes to ordained leadership in worship, believing that the office of pastor is limited to mature male believers.

But within complementarian groups, women are honored by many and vital and much-appreciated ministry roles.  In addition to those positions as teachers and mercy ministry, many well-informed and skilled women writers continue to produce printed literature, from Sunday School material to significant theological works.  And we must not forget nor fail to recognize and appreciate women who have written some of our best known and widely sung hymns.  These include such familiar names as Fanny Crosby (“Blessed Assurance”), Charlotte Elliott (“Just As I Am”), Cecil Frances Alexander (“Once in Royal David’s City”), and translator Catherine Winkworth (“Now Thank We All Our God”).

To that special “Women’s Honor Roll” we must add the name of Frances Ridley Havergal (1836-1879). The daughter of the Rev. W. H. Havergal, she was born at Astley, Worcestershire. Five years later her father moved to the Rectory of St. Nicholas, Worcester. Her mother died when she was only eleven, after a lengthy period of suffering. After a carriage accident, her father devoted himself to the improvement of church music in England, and according to hymnologist Albert Bailey, “revived the use of the solid tunes of early English composers and so did much to improve the quality of congregational singing.” He wrote about 100 hymns, himself. Havergal was obviously inspired by her father’s efforts. She possessed a natural musicianship, as well as a love for walking, swimming and mountain climbing. By the age of 7, she displayed a talent for writing verse. She was converted at the age of 14.

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Easter Sunrise services are probably found in every community in America, perhaps in multiple churches as well as in joint community gatherings.  What a wonderful way to make an emotional as well as a devotional connection to that first Easter morning.  Many of us have happy memories of such services from our childhood, especially if we lived far enough south so that Easter morning would not be a final day of winter’s snow, or if the weather was conducive and we didn’t have to come with umbrellas to avoid being drenched in spring rains. 

On Florida’s east coast, it’s quite common to find such services being conducted on the beach so that there can be an unobstructed view of the sun rising above the horizon, glistening on the waters like sparkling diamonds blinking on the waves.  One of those kinds of memories for this writer is the Miami area Easter Sunrise Service conducted on the floating stage of the Miami Marine Stadium, which could seat several thousand, with an area on the water between the stands and the stage for people to engage in the service from their boats. Sponsored by Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church, local pastors and musicians were part of the service, which usually included a special guest.  One year that was Joni Eareckson Tada. But the great reality should not be memories of our sunrise services, but of that first “Son-Rise” when the Son of God rose from the dead, as He had promised to do.  That monumental event marked the death of death (as John Own famously described it) and the ratification of the Father’s acceptance of Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on our behalf (as Paul described int in Romans 1).  Paul also rightly describes the resurrection as one of those things of first importance in 1 Corinthians 15, the passage from which countless Easter sermons are preached each year. 

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Sometimes we might get a little too sophisticated for our own good.  Yes, there are great hymns with glorious melodies and harmonies and with rich and profound lyrics.  But there are also wonderful hymns – “classic” hymns – with simple but beautiful music and with uncomplicated but immediately understandable lyrics.  We need to maintain, and perhaps renew, our appreciation  of the gospel songs we learned as children in Sunday School.  We might be tempted to think these songs to simplistic and sentimental, characteristics of much of the hymn writing of the Victorian era.  But isn’t the gospel simple enough for a child to understand, and a truth that has not touched us unless it has also touched out emotions?

Such are the hymns (more than ten thousand of them!) from the heart and pen of Francis Jane Van Alstyne, whom we know as Fanny Crosby (1820-1915).The daughter of John and Mercy Crosby, was born in Southeast, Putnam County, New York, March 24, 1820. She became blind at the age of six weeks from maltreatment of her eyes during a spell of sickness. A traveling “medicine man” (!) offered to help with an eye infection when she was just an infant.  The poultice he prepared and applied to her eyes permanently burned them, preventing her from ever gaining sight.  Her family sought professional medical care later, but to no avail.  She remained blind for her entire 95 years.

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Palm Sunday in 2026 included a somewhat ironic, if not humorous, contrast.  On the day before this celebration in the Christian church calendar year, Americans across the nation gathered in silly frog costumes and childish masks holding signs to celebrate “No Kings Day,” chanting angry slogans about their hatred for President Donald Trump.  And the next day, Palm Sunday, Christians around the world gathered in their Sunday best holding Bibles and hymnals to celebrate “King Jesus’ Day!” singing joyful songs of His triumphal entry, and in passionate longing for His return.  What a difference!

The world doesn’t want a king, at least not the kind of divine king Jesus claimed to be and continues to prove Himself to be.  His entrance into Jerusalem was an unmistakable statement that He came as the promised Messianic King.  The Old Testament prophecy in Zechariah 9:9 was explicit and precisely fulfilled in Jesus’ arrival. 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
    righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Psalm 24 is regularly a part of Palm Sunday services.  We celebrate the coming of the King of Glory, entering the gates of the city of Jerusalem. 

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