Hymns4Him

One of the major holidays for the Christian Year is Pentecost Sunday, marking the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostolic church.  Luke’s record of that event in Acts 2 describes what happened that day as people had gathered from many nations for the Jewish Pentecost festival in Jerusalem.  Jesus’ followers were meeting together in an upper room, waiting for the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise.  With the sound like a rushing wind and the appearance of what looked like tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit was poured out on those disciples.  The commotion attracted a crowd who then heard the gospel being preaching in their own language, occurring as a supernatural gift from the Holy Spirit. 

In all of those events, the common theme was power, the power in the wind, the flames, and the tongues.  But the greatest demonstration of power was in the incredible change of hearts in hearers that took place while Peter was preaching.  Three thousand people who were spiritually dead were transformed by the Holy Spirit, producing in them conviction of sin and faith in Christ, as they interrupted Peter’s preaching to cry out, “Brothers, what must we do?”  Such total reversal of thinking could only have happened by the power of the Holy Spirit.  He did what Jesus told Nicodemus needed to happen: “You must be born again.”

Musical reflections about Pentecost abound in the church’s repertoire, especially from the time of the Reformation.  Some are instrumental works, frequently for organ.  Others are choral compositions, including cantatas.  But almost all of them are based on hymns about the Holy Spirit and His coming at Pentecost.   Today, every hymnal will have, in its topical structure, hymns about God the Father, hymns about God the Son, and also hymns about God the Holy Spirit.  Many of these are actually addressed to the Spirit Himself. Quite a few composers have written works based on the ancient (9^th century) hymn, “Veni Creator Spiritus” (“Come, Creator Spirit”).

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Note: Dr. Roff has released an update to this hymn study, enjoy! — ed.

Singing the Psalms has long been a distinguishing mark of biblical faith.  It dates from the time of David, the author of half of the Psalms, about 1000 BC.  One of the Psalms, number 90, goes back even further, since that one was probably written by Moses four hundred years before David.  The divinely inspired collection of the 150 Psalms in the middle of our Bibles was the songbook of Israel throughout the rest of the Old Testament period, and continued into the New Testament era.  As a boy and as a man, Jesus sang the Psalms.  Growing up in Nazareth, He would have known them all very well, perhaps even by memory.

When we review the history of the Christian church, we find Psalms to be the heart of medieval worship in churches and monasteries as they were sung in monophonic chants (melody only, as in Gregorian plainsong).  When Calvin overcame the millennia-long ban on congregational song imposed by the Roman Church in the fifth century, it was to the Psalms that he turned.  He provided music and texts for all 150 Psalms for the churches in Reformation Geneva, employing the finest musician and finest poet in France to compose the 1551 Genevan Psalter.  In Reformed churches on the continent, in the British Isles, and in the American colonies, believers sang the Psalms exclusively in corporate and family worship.  And that is still the practice in the Covenanter denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA).

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The Bible makes it clear that what the Lord most wants from us is neither slavish obedience to His laws (though a rightly-motivated embracing of His laws is an essential part of biblical religion) nor casual engagement with worship rituals (though He has made plain in His Word those elements of worship – like reading Scripture, preaching, singing, praying, etc. – which He desires).  Jesus was very direct in His criticism of the Pharisees for following details of the law as proud works of self-righteousness (Matthew 23:23), and He called out the people of His time for their failure by thinking they were worshiping God when their hearts were “far from Him” (Matthew 15:7-9).

When Jesus was asked about the first and greatest commandment, He didn’t respond with something new and previously unknown.  No, He quoted from what was in His day one of the best-known verses from the Old Testament, a virtual Jewish John 3:16! Known as “The Great Shema” (because of the opening words in Hebrew: “Shema, Israel”), it was Deuteronomy 6:5. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

When Paul wrote his second letter to the church at Corinth, he addressed the issue of their progress toward spiritual maturity.  In 2 Corinthians 12:14, he identified what he most wanted from them.  It is the same thing the Lord desires of us in our daily lives as well as in our worship. The Apostle wrote, “for I seek not what is yours but you.”  There it is; what God wants from us is … us! Our whole selves!  It is the same theme about which Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2, where we read, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

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Our glorious Christmas and Easter hymns are too wonderful to sing just once a year!  We should find great joy in celebrating these two events of redemptive history many times during the year.  We have more hymns for those two seasons than could possibly all be sung during the short time they are observed on our calendars.  Since the biblical events associated with Christmas and Easter are so very special, it’s not surprising to realize how many hymns  have been written for those two events, some of which stretch back hundreds of years.

One of those whose origins go back a thousand years (!) is the Easter hymn, “Sing Choirs of New Jerusalem.”  We sing a more recent 19^th century translation of the Latin text that comes from Bishop Fulbert of Chartres.  He was born in Italy about 960 and died in Chartres, France in 1028, having served as Bishop there from 1006 until his death.  Having studied at Rheims, he was a pupil of Gerbert of Aurillac, who would later become Pope Sylvester II.  Fulbert also taught and became head of the Cathedral school at Chartres. He lectured on many subjects, including medicine, and was able to attract many well-known scholars to the schools, thus making the Chartres institution one of the best schools of its time. 

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America’s National Day of Prayer, now observed on the first Thursday in May, has roots stretching back to the nation’s founding. While not formally established until 1952, the practice of national days of prayer and thanksgiving existed even before the country’s independence. The First Continental Congress in 1775 called for a National Day of Prayer, and later Presidents like George Washington and John Adams also issued proclamations for days of prayer and thanksgiving. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed a Congressional resolution in 1863 designating a day of fasting and prayer. President Harry S. Truman formally established the National Day of Prayer in 1952, designating it to coincide with the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. President Ronald Reagan amended the law in 1988 to designate the first Thursday in May as the official National Day of Prayer. 

Today it is observed with suggested guidelines from a national task force.  In many communities, there is a noon prayer service on the steps of the city hall.  In some schools, students gather around the flagpole before classes begin.  And often nearby churches will join together for an evening prayer service.  In each of these, ideas are provided to have prayers led by local leaders (not just pastors) focusing consecutively on such topics as our president, congress, and supreme court, local schools, police and fire personnel, schools and school boards, families, members of our armed forces, as well as specific topics such as poverty and joblessness, political issues, judicial decisions, international relations, crime, and especially for the need for a widespread revival that would return our people and culture to biblical principles of true righteousness.

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One of the best words to capture the essential message of Easter is “Victory!”  By His death and resurrection, Jesus has been victorious over sin. He has conquered Satan, He has conquered the fall, and that will lead to His return when He will have conquered the world!  That’s when these biblical promises will be fulfilled: when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14), and as every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11).  The Puritan pastor/theological John Owen articulated this in his classic book on the atonement, with the eye-catching title, “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.”  J. I. Packer has expanded on that in his eloquent introduction to the reprint of Owen’s book.

When this victory has been applied to our hearts by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, that glorious victory becomes ours, as we are raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, and assured of eternal life.  At Easter, we sing of Jesus’ victory over the grave, and at the same time we sing about the victory that is ours by being united to Him by faith.  As Jesus said to Lazarus’s sisters in John 11:25-26, “Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.”

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Easter is a time of great joy for believers.  Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is not only an historical event of enormous theological significance.  It is the very center of the unique power of the Christian faith.  Paul made that clear when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ has not been raised from the dead, then our faith is in vain and we are to be pitied above all people for placing our hope in a myth.  But as Paul went on to say, Christ has indeed been raised the dead.  He is the Lamb who was slain but is now alive, and who is celebrated in heaven, as John recorded in Revelation.  For Christians, Easter is indeed a time for great joy.

Unlike them, non Christians have tried to impose a counterfeit joy on this holiday.  Chocolate Easter bunnies, Easter baskets filled with candy, Easter egg hunts, and new Easter dresses make a sorry substitute for the “real” Easter.  The joy that comes from such replacements is very brief and unsatisfying.  While we wouldn’t want to call such celebrations “evil” (they can be a time of valuable family joy), there is a sense in which Satan is behind such things as his way of trying to promote them in place the true Easter event.

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Children find a special kind of joy in the church seasons that are closely connected to the historical events of Jesus’ life and ministry.  When we list those seasons, we can all very quickly think of hymns we learned as children, from Christmas time through Passion week.  For many of us who grew up in churches, when we recall Palm Sunday, we can remember festive processions into the sanctuary on Sunday morning, carrying palm branches … especially those of us who grew up in parts of the country where palm trees grew in our yards!

Think about how much of the Bible is the record of stories, from Old through New Testaments.  This is significant now only in the fact that the gospel is rooted in actual history.  It is also a beneficial thing for our learning and remembering Bible truths as they are so vividly connected with stories, from the Garden of Eden to Noah’s flood, Moses and the Red Sea, Daniel in the lion’s den, and also Jesus in the manger, at the wedding in Cana, feeding the multitude, instituting the Lord’s Supper in the Upper Room, at the cross on Calvary, the open tomb, and the mount of ascension.

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The Bible has many contrasts, things that are opposite one another, because of the incredibly powerful transformation that comes about as a result of the gospel.  A number of those are found in the Gospel of John, contrasts like life and death, light and darkness, good and evil, this world and the world to come, the wrath of God and the love of God, angels and demons, God and Satan, heaven and hell.

Preachers and hymn writers have often imitated that pattern with eloquent creativity as a means of impressing people with the dramatic change that happens when the gospel re-creates a human soul in the image of Jesus.  Instead of having one thing, we then have another, which is actually just the opposite.  It’s a way of portraying what Paul emphasized in letters like Ephesians, where he taught that a Christian is not just an improved version of the “old,” but is actually something entirely new.   Paul said that very thing in 2 Corinthians 5:17. “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.  The old has gone, the new is here!” We also see that pattern of contrasts in Ephesians 4:22-24 where Paul calls us to put off and put on.

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Many of our hymns have special stories associated with them.  Some of these from the past have been recorded and passed on to us, like those of John Newton and Fanny Crosby.  We are fortunate to have some from our own lifetime with writers still alive and sharing their testimonies, not only in the lyrics they have written, but also in video testimonies and occasionally even with dramatic documentaries were they tell their story in their own words.

Such is the case with Christian writer, performer, and recording artist Dennis L. Jernigan. He was born in Sapulpa, Oklahoma in 1959 to Samuel Robert Jernigan and Peggy Yvonne Johnson Jernigan.  Soon after his birth, his parents moved to the farm that his grandparents had built and where his father was raised, three miles from the small town of Boynton, Oklahoma.  There he and his brothers attended school.  When he was six or seven, his grandmother Jernigan moved back to the farm in a trailer next to the old farmhouse where they lived, and she taught him to play the piano by the time he was nine years old.  Each day after school he could be found at his grandmother’s house practicing piano, even though he could not read music.  The family attended First Baptist Church where his grandfather, Herman Everett Johnson, had been minister, where his parents had met, and where his father led singing.

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