Let's sing the second verse!

Sometimes, snatches of scripture or phrases from a hymn will come to me when I least expect them. It happened again recently when we picnicked with friends at a public park by the Methow River in Central Washington state. There’s nothing like a river, roaring over worn rocks on its way to a mightier water—in our case, the Columbia. I snapped a photo of the sight as I vaguely recalled a classic hymn that mentioned “streams of living water.” I found the verse, “You give them drink from the river of your delights,” in Psalm 36:8a.

 

The hymn I vaguely recalled was “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,” whose author also penned “Amazing Grace” in recounting his conversion. His name, of course, John Newton. His devout, praying mother died when he was very young. Growing up, he plunged into the life of an infidel, ending up running a slave ship and being temporarily enslaved himself.  Wonderfully, through God’s amazing grace (and as the answer to his mother’s prayers), he became a Christian and went into the ministry in England. He also wrote hundreds of hymns, some still sung three hundred years later.  Besides the two I just mentioned, there’s “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.” I can’t sing that one without choking up.

My church’s worship style has changed to “contemporary,” but for those of us who grew up with the old hymns, there’s also a “hymn sing” two Sunday evenings a month in our church’s chapel.  Hymnals are passed out, and requests taken with the inevitable question, “Which verses?”  Often the answer is “1, 3 and 4.”  Poor verse 2!

Let’s hear it for verse 2 of Newton’s “Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,” sung to the majestic music composed by Newton’s contemporary Franz Haydn. Even as I type its words, I’m envisioning a river like the one we saw at the Methow Valley, bursting out of the mountains and proclaiming, “I’m part of the workmanship of God!”  I’m also reminded of the lyric’s analogy to “living water,” the Lord Jesus Christ, who nurtures and refreshes us along a journey on this planet.

See, the streams of living waters,

Springing from eternal Love,
Well supply thy sons and daughters,
And all fear of want remove.
Who can faint while such a river
Ever flows their thirst to assuage?
Grace which like the Lord, the Giver,
Never fails from age to age!
 
Remember, a man who once lived an utterly wicked life wrote this hymn. If the “old” John Newton could turn to God, we should never give up praying for those who still need to taste of the Living Water.

Benchmarks

Visitors to a garden park in my daughter’s hometown can pause on benches like this, many telling in whose memory they are donated. When I saw them, the term “benchmark” came to mind. But when I checked its meaning in the dictionary, I wondered if I might be wrong.  One definition started out:
“A mark on a permanent object indicating elevation and serving as a reference in topographical surveys and tidal observations.”
In other words, it’s a geographic indicator, like lowest or highest point in the continental U.S.
Then another dictionary offered this secondary meaning:
“Anything that is taken as, or serves as, a point of reference.”

What a great description of Christmas, the birth of Jesus! He is our point of reference. His coming in the unlikely package of a baby is the point of which history turned from despair to hope.  From the “lowly” miracle babe in a manger, He grew up to be the crucified, risen, and ascended Savior, who someday will come again.

The apostle Paul thought much about such benchmarks in his own life. In 1 Corinthians 15 he wrote much about the “high point” of faith, of Christ’s resurrection and the hope of eternity with Him.  At the same time, Paul didn’t hide the “low” point of his religious practices.

For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.(1 Corinthians 15:9-10).

John Newton, slave-trader-turned-minister, must have thought much about this verse. Similar words were engraved on the gravestone of the “Amazing Grace” author, who died in 1807:

John Newton, Clerk

Once an Infidel and Libertine,

A Servant of Slaves in Africa,

Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour

JESUS CHRIST
Preserved, restored, pardoned,

And appointed to preach the Faith

He had long labored to destroy

Nobody will deny that the Christmas season has become a frenzy of shopping, entertaining, and programs. When we take that all away, it comes back to this benchmark: that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.  That point of reference strips the holiday season to this one, non-negotiable response:

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. (2 Corinthians 9:15)