SAFE IN THE ARMS

If kittens could talk, this one might have quite a tale (notice I wrote tale, not tail). This winter some relatives noticed a stray cat shivering at their back patio sliders. Taking her to a vet, they learned she not only had a tapeworm but was pregnant. Before long she gave birth to a half dozen kittens, one deceased. Another, already dead, came later. (Poor Mama Cat!) We finally met the Meow Tribe a few months later when they'd been weaned and potty-box-trained (more or less) and would soon be adopted out.

I hadn't been around kittens for years. They are light as a feather and bounce around like autumn leaves on a blustery day. But they also will sit still for some lovin'--as in this photo I got of one that my husband held. I like this photo because is says “protected” and “safe” to me. It also reminds me of scriptures that express God's attributes to us in human terms.

Isaiah 41:10 portrays God's promise to help us in the image of his strong hand:

I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah 63:3, expressing God's desire for His people to have a fresh, holy, and God-honoring reputation:

You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of God.

In John 10:28-29, Jesus used the metaphor of God's hand to express eternal security for true believers:

I give them [His followers] eternal life and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand; My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.

And of course, the Gospels give us the tender picture of Jesus welcoming children to His lap, laying His hands on them and blessing them (Mark 10:16).

Besides those scriptures, the tiny kitten in my husband's hands reminded me of a hymn of yesteryear with a poignant story behind it. The hymn is “Safe in the Arms of Jesus,”written in 1868 by Fanny Crosby, prolific hymn-lyric-writer who was blinded in infancy and lived to her 90s. One little-known fact of her life is that after she married another blind person (whom she met at her school for the blind), she became pregnant. But the child—reportedly a little girl—died shortly after birth. Fanny would carry that sorrow close to her heart for the rest of her life. But she also penned the words that would comfort untold numbers who needed to feel themselves wrapped in the arms of God:

Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on His gentle breast,

There by His love o'ershadowed, sweetly my soul shall rest.

Hark! 'tis the voice of angels, borne in a song to me,

Over the fields of glory, over the jasper sea.

The last verse ends:

Here let me wait with patience, wait till the night is o'er;

Wait till I see the morning break on the golden shore.

Sometime, somewhere, somehow, all our lives will be marked by times of difficult parting. Of letting go. Death, disappointments, lost opportunities, fading health—all enter this fragile place called “life.” But the end of the story will come, someday. We'll find ourselves gently spilled out of the rough earthly hands that cupped us, and led by a celestial hand as we walk wide-eyed into Heaven's royal banquet hall.

This YouTube chorus video with scenery and hymn text features Mrs Crosby's tender hymn:

Safe in the Arms of Jesus - Bing video

THINE BE THE GLORY

A monthly feature on a hymn of the faith

Who would have guessed that an opera tune intended for secular audiences would connect with hymn lyrics that exalt the risen Jesus Christ? Yet that's the backstory for the hymn “Thine Be the Glory,” which came from the pen of a French-speaking Swiss pastor, Edmond Budry.Born in 1854, he studied theology in Lausanne. (About 120 years later, in 1974, that Swiss city would host more than 2,400 participants from 150 nations for the “First International Congress in World Evangelization.”) He became a pastor in the “Free church” movement that broke away from the Swiss National Reformed Church. He served parishes north and east of Lausanne, staying at his last parish for 35 years before retiring in 1923. He died at age 78.

Not just a preacher, he composed several original hymns besides translating hymns from German, English and Latin into French (including “Blest Be the Tie That Binds” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”).

But it's his hymn about Christ's ascension (reportedly written after his first wife's death) that's best remembered and which cemented its place in hymnody when it was included in the 1933 Methodist Hymn Book. The lyrics celebrate Christ's resurrection and reference several Bible verses: Isaiah 25:8 (“He will swallow up death in victory”) and 1 Corinthians 15, especially verse 55 (“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”).

As for the tune, it comes from the militaristic chorus in Handel's oratorio Judas Maccabeus. That dramatic vocal work retold events of 170-160 B.C., when loyal Jews sought to throw off the rule of the Seleucid empire, which tried to coerce them to worship Zeus and eradicate traditional Jewish faith. The hero of that story was an elderly priest who tore down a pagan altar and rallied Jews to oppose the Seleucids.

Handel's militaristic music for that scene was a good match for the lyrics of Budry's hymn, which depicted Christ as the victorious warrior over death and the powers of evil.

The hymn's popularity spread beyond the church to royal occasions. The original French version would be used for funerals and weddings of the Dutch royal family. Across the channel in England, it was often chosen for Easter church services involving the British royal family. It was also played during a special service commemorating the late Queen Elizabeth II's 80^th birthday. Outside of royal occasions, it was listed as a funeral hymn in the Church of England service book.

The hymn's best fit is “Ascension Day” which in the church calendar is marked 39 days after Easter Sunday. In many countries (including mostly Muslim Indonesia) it is a worker's holiday, celebrated on Thursday with many businesses adding Friday as an “off” day to make for a long weekend.

Organ and orchestral instruments lend majesty to this singalong version:

Thine Be the Glory (Tune: Maccabeus - 3vv+refrain) [with lyrics for congregations] - Bing video

SAND PAPER

Who among us doesn't have fond memories of a sandbox or playing in sand at a lake or ocean beach? I sure do, and so do my children and grandchildren. Because the ocean, especially, provides such a tempting writing surface close to the water's edge, you've probably (like me) taken a stick and written messages in the just-exposed, packed sand. How many people in love have written their names that way, joined with a big heart? Oh, young love. Of course, the next tide would erase all that away.

Our back-yard toy-filled “turtle” sandbox has no room for messages in the sand. But it recently reminded me of a quote by the great English preacher Charles H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), the renowned Baptist preacher whose printed sermons still teach and inspire. He said: We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand.

This resonated with me as I pray for folks who repeatedly seek new sympathetic ears for their tales of woe. It's as though that particular life message is engraved into their souls. One mark of Christian maturity is accepting the reality that life isn't perfect. Our life scripts aren't like the movies, where everything turns out okay in the end. “Perfect” isn't earth's language. In His infinite wisdom, sometimes God leaves us in less-than-perfect circumstances to deepen our character and hone our faith. Yet in the midst of it He offers hope.

The book of Isaiah anticipated the fall of the prophet's homeland to a pagan conqueror, Babylon, in about 700 BC. To add insult to injury, there followed a mass Jewish prisoner migration to that land. Isaiah warned it could happen, and it did. But among his stern prophecies were also verses of hope. Because they reflect the character of a loving, forgiving God, they still speak:

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland....(Isaiah 43:18-19).

Even though removed from “The Holy Land,” the slice of earth where God planned for them to live and thrive, He reminded them that He would never forget them:

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. (Isaiah 49:16)

It brings me great comfort to know that whatever my circumstances—and especially the unwelcome or uncomfortable ones--God is still in control. I'm as close to Him as something inscribed on His hands. He's not confined by current circumstances, but has a redemptive vision for whatever negatives come into my life.

Even better, those things metaphorically “inscribed on His Hands” are permanent, not like the sands erased clean by the tides. They are even better than any sin-tainted scheme we may have come up for living without depending on Him. Or to rework what Spurgeon said so well: we should be willing to inscribe our blessings in heaven's marble, and trace our trials in sand, to be erased by His nail-pierced Hand of love.

HEADLINE EVENT

Yes, that's Pat Boone at the podium, me in blue, 
far right, half a century ago....

Pat Boone was coming to our small central Washington town—to sing and PREACH! He was the headline event for our valley's combined- churches spring worship service, held in the local football stadium. As the most youthful member (mid-20s) of our daily newspaper staff, I was picked to cover his visit. One problem: I didn't identify with the youth pop culture. My heroes (as a violinist) were Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and the like.  While my friends tuned in on their black-and-white televisions to Dick Clark's “American Bandstand” and watched selected teens (in modest clothing) wiggling away in a crowded dance space, I didn't. It just wasn't my style. And so, the least pop-culture-aware member of the newspaper staff found herself set up to interview the pop singer famed for his gleaming smile and white bucks—and for his Christian testimony.

I'd been so busy with my other newspaper assignments (which included obituaries and wedding writeups) that I didn't take the time to visit the library and find out more about him. (This was the early 70s—way long before the internet was just a few finger taps away.) Thankfully, the other reporter called to this press conference (a college intern for the local radio station) had a question ready as we gathered with Pat Boone and local dignitaries in a quickly-set-up interview in the girl's locker room of a local junior high. Well, he was speaking at the local town stadium, just a few hundred feet away.

The radio's reporter asked: “What is your favorite Bible verse?” Now, that made sense because, besides his fame as a pop song star who had his first “single” (best-seller record) at age 21, Boone was known as a clean-cut guy who identified as a Christian. Hollywood celebrities came to Bible studies at his home! I was surprised—through shouldn't have been—by Mr. Boone's quick answer: “Philippians 2:12: 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.'”

It wasn't “work FOR,” as though salvation had to be earned, but “work OUT.” Later, as I encountered that verse in my own Bible reading, I connected the dots (and understanding) to the following verse: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” In other words, the Christian life is a partnership: the Great and Awesome God of all Creation, stooping down to teach and train His human creations to live in a way that honors Him.

 When I last checked the internet (something I couldn't do back in the 1970s!) Pat Boone was still living, turning 89 on June 1. His wife Shirley, whom he married just out of high school, died just short of age 85. His biography details all his “singles” and high-charted hits. His 45 million records sold. How many were “gold.” His awards. But whenever I think back to meeting the man in white buck shoes—who not only sang but preached at the all-church Sunday worship our community held in the big football field (and I was there to photograph it)--I remember his confident answer, quickly quoted from scripture.

 One of Boone's hits was titled “Love Letters in the Sand.” I can almost picture that happening in a guy-girl date at the beach. But his higher focus was the “love letter” God wrote all of us, not in sand, but on a crude wooden cross where His son Jesus died for past-present-future sins. Pat Boone may have been the most famed singer the 50s and 60s of love songs, but I think he'd agree that the greatest love song remains this: that Jesus loves us, this we know.