Saturday, March 23, 2013

Why Did My Savior Come to Earth? -- James Gerald Dailey



He was inquisitive, that much we know. Maybe even puzzled, or bewildered, you might say. But, that type of thinking led him toward an answer as he pondered several parts of Jesus’ biography, and as he composed his response in “Why Did My Savior Come to Earth?” in 1892. James Gerald Dailey had some talent for composition and music publishing, and would spend his life between several locations as he spread the message of God through the music he must have loved. But, what was he encountering in 1892 that made him ask questions and dwell on the answer he found?    


A few details of James G. Dailey’s life are known that tell us he was someone who wanted to propagate the truth about God through the music medium in the eastern United States in the latter 19th and early 20th Centuries. He was born in Delaware in the mid-1850’s, and must have lost his father early on in life, as he is known to have moved with his mother to Brockwayville (known today probably as Brockway), Pennsylvania around age 18. It’s a small town in north-central Pennsylvania, not far from Punxsutawney, and today is part of the national historic culture of that region because of a nearby railroad and its many stops near there (like the one pictured in nearby Scottsville here in 1874, as it might have appeared to the Daileys). What would make this mother and her son go to a small town like Brockway is not known. Perhaps they had a family connection there. We can guess that his mother may have played an influential part in his musical development, one which led him to write some 15-20 songs over his life, and publish at least three works, including one of which compiled some songs for use in worship while he and his mother lived in this small-town environment. It was during the Daileys’ life there that James also composed his hymn with the question mark. Later on, in the latter years of the 1800s and early 1900s, James lived in Freedonia, New York and then in Philadelphia. He apparently especially appreciated the God-Son’s love for him by the time he was 38 years old, as he marked 20 years of living with his mom in small-town north-central Pennsylvania. Can you imagine James and his mom, from a rather humble, obscure area? Perhaps James felt he didn’t really stick out as anything special, a theme that is apparent in his prose. Why’d he come to earth for me, this nobody from nowhere, and go through hurts and sorrow like I have? And, why did he decide to die for somebody like me? James’ questions have but one answer. Love.

James answers that Jesus gave His life because of this love…a thought we might often limit to appreciating how this was manifested during His execution. But, perhaps James Dailey was thinking of more. He seems to appreciate that the incarnate God also gave up His life the whole time He was here. When He was born in the manger, when He was scorned by the multitudes for befriending ‘sinners’, and when He experienced the distress of everyday living in the 1st Century, He was sacrificing then too. Would it surprise us if Jesus was longing to be in heaven again at those moments? Is that maybe why He spoke of His Father’s kingdom so much, because He missed it so? He loves me so, James Daily reminds me. ‘I’m nobody’, James might have been saying, but somebody in Brockway, Pennsylvania made him realize that that’s who Jesus came to find and take back with Him. Feeling insignificant, small, and obscure? Come join the rest of us!     


See following sites for brief details on the composer: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/d/a/i/dailey_jg.htm


No comments: