Have You Been to Jesus? --Elisha Albright Hoffman

He asked many questions, in fact many bold queries that left little wiggle room for the listener. Is that perhaps what the minister inside Elisa Albright Hoffman thought was most effective, most provocative? His words “Have You Been to Jesus?” sound like something straight out of the pulpit, the conclusion of an address in which he was challenging his hearers to look deep inside and answer honestly, and with urgency. It was part of the Great Awakening era in America, as Elisha wrote songs in 1878 to rouse people out of their spiritual lethargy. But, was he in fact delivering this message from a pulpit, or was he thinking of another venue, or perhaps of a time in his future when he would talk to large groups to coax their commitment to God? This Cleveland resident had someone or a group of people in mind as he made his inquiries in poetic form. But, his own recent experience may have provided the most penetrating inspiration for his series of questions.

Elisha’s expressions in “Have You Been to Jesus?’ probably came pretty naturally, given his upbringing  and how his life would play out over some 90 years in the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries. Hoffman was the son of a minister, and no doubt must have heard his own father ask many or all of the same questions that he would pen as a 39-year old. Additionally, this was a time when he was widowed with three sons, and living in Cleveland, Ohio as an employee of the Evangelical Association’s publishing enterprise. It was a bit of a turning point in Elisha’s life, as the mortality of himself and those closest to him must have still been very palpable with the death of his first wife just two years previously. The questions he posed in “Have You Been…” were intensely relevant for this fellow. Is your eternal destiny a settled matter, and do you know how to rectify your condition if it’s still uncertain? This sums up Elisha’s outlook in the wake of events not too distant from him and his young sons. Death, especially at a young age, is a provocative event, and must have treated Elisha as he approached middle-age no differently than anyone else. How Hoffman responded speaks volumes. He remarried (in 1879), embarked upon his preaching ministry for the next 40-plus years in three states, and composed over 2,000 hymns, most of them after 1878. “Have You Been…” preceded these new avenues he traveled, giving us some insight into his grief management method. Others might have blamed God, and distanced themselves from Him. Not Hoffman, who tried to persuade others to embrace Him; and for himself, perhaps this was the only tonic that truly salved his spirit. ‘He’s it – the only way out of sin’s trap and the inevitability of life’s conclusion’, one can sense Elisha had surmised. ‘Don’t be resigned to death’s penalty. Jesus is the answer!’ Cleanse yourself of that sin-caked scum and its grip on you with a bath…in blood. Are you ready ‘...for the mansions bright... (v. 3), Elisha asked. While he may have been lifting himself with these words, this songwriter probably knew others who needed the medicine prescribed in his poetry. Don’t we all?

 “Have You Been to Jesus” is probably more commonly known as “Are You Washed in the Blood?”, an appropriate alternative title, given the number of times that Elisha Hoffman has the worshipper repeat these words. With his dead wife’s premature departure perhaps still sticking to him like a spiderweb, Elisha didn’t worry himself with that one-word—usually unanswerable—question. ‘Why?’ he probably said at least once. Yet, he didn’t stay there. Instead, he drew upon other questions that provided an answer. Washing in blood sounds unnatural, even repulsive. But, is it really, compared to what death offers? His blood is something pretty rare, capable of washing and renewing. It’ll be the only way to get that death-stink off yourself. Just ask Elisha Hoffman.        

See here for all the verses of the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/a/r/u/aruwashd.htm
See composer/author’s biography here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/o/f/hoffman_ea.htm
Also see a more lengthy biography here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Hoffman

To Christ Be True -- Elisha A. Hoffman

What was on the mind of a 61-year old minister who’d held several positions and had taken on a new position not too many years earlier, as the 20^th century dawned? It shouldn’t have been too surprising that Elisha Albright Hoffman considered what human characteristics someone carries with himself from one place to another, and probably more importantly what he leans upon through difficult circumstances. Hoffman had been through many places and various situations, and so no doubt had concluded that he needed the words of “To Christ Be True” as much as others who would sing its words, as the 1900s developed.   

Many years, songs, churches, and experiences were in Elisha Hoffman’s rearview mirror in 1900, coloring what he would write as his newest ministry effort was developing. He was in Benton Harbor, Michigan at the time, a place on the far southeastern shore of Lake Michigan (see map), where he and his family had been for some five years. The strong sense of duty and loyalty of which he wrote in “To Christ Be True”, as well as the musicality he demonstrated in it, was inbred probably during his upbringing by Christian parents, including his father who was also a minister. Perhaps it was Hoffman’s first evident exhibition of duty and loyalty, albeit a short one, that showed itself when he volunteered in the Union Army in 1863 during the Civil War. His postwar education at Union Seminary was a precursor to his work at the Evangelical Association in Pennsylvania, following loyally in his father’s footsteps. During the next decade, his first wife died, leaving him a widower with three sons. Elisha would remarry and begin the first of four church ministry efforts by 1880; Benton Harbor was the third. Along the way, Hoffman would edit scores of hymnals and write some 2,000 hymns of his own, most of them probably while he was in the Michigan ministry. He must have encountered countless numbers of people in ministry by the time he reached three-score years, worshipped in various churches, and thought about what God wanted from him and fellow believers. How does one endure service in a war, suffer the loss of a young wife and have single-parenthood thrust upon you, and move around to take on new ventures in one’s chosen profession? By the time he reached 61, Elisha must have surmised that God provides. Why wouldn’t some choose to enlist in His army? Though his stint as a private in the Union Army had been brief (about a month, reportedly), perhaps its imprint on Hoffman was one of the most enduring of his life, including as he thought about loyalty to his God. Were those battlefield images still in his thoughts as he wrote about unfurling the Lord’s banner in conquest (v.1), volunteering for service (v.2), and especially about confronting conflict (refrain)? Does God provide difficult experiences so they propel us toward Him, and forward for the rest of life?   

Elisha may have asked himself, as any individual might after three decades, has this been worth it? What other way has a better track record? One might imagine Elisha telling others of his own episodes, and how he managed to come out the other side. He’d had good examples, apparently, including his parents, but he was molded by his own unique set of experiences too. In Benton Harbor, Elisha reflected and realized, probably not for the first time, that he was God’s tool, wielded in various places and despite—or perhaps because of—the challenges he’d met. No one is like me, exactly. But, I have the same God available to me as you. He can meld us all together to Himself, with this glue called Christ-loyalty.

See biography of composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Hoffman

Brief biography and list of composer’s works here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/o/f/hoffman_ea.htm

 
Site describes where composer was during the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benton_Harbor,_Michigan

Leaning on the Everlasting Arms -- Elisha Albright Hoffman and Anthony J. Showalter

How long to do suppose hugging between humans (like what’s in this picture) has been around? Forever, right? And yet we don’t seem to get tired of it. In fact we need it, like medicine or daily bread. Babies are said to be underdeveloped if they don’t get this treatment, in fact. So, when Anthony Showalter received a couple of letters one day in 1887 that reached out in heart-brokenness, he responded, even though the fellows whom he sought to embrace were not within arm’s reach. “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” was what he and his collaborator Elisha Hoffman composed to salve the hurt of not just two broken hearts, but countless others who might hear of their remedy for this condition. There’s not only a mortal quality to this therapy, but also a divine one that carries the ultimate cure.

Showalter was a 29-year old music teacher from Georgia, who happened to be in Alabama, and sought out his 48-year old friend Hoffman in Pennsylvania, with help from inspired words Moses spoke in a wilderness thousands of miles and years from 1887. Two former students had lost their wives in death, and somehow they each knew to whom they could go for solace – their former music teacher, Mr. Showalter. He didn’t disappoint them, offering sympathy in letters, referring to Moses’ words about God’s ‘everlasting arms’ to his people as he prepared to leave them in his own death (Deuteronomy 33:27). But, he didn’t stop there, feeling moved that a hymn worth remembering was hidden inside this episode. So, when he wrote his friend Elisha with the words to the chorus and what motivated them, his cohort responded with three verses. Anthony soon had the music written to match the words Moses, Elisha Hoffman, and he had authored. An amazing thing had happened, even though it took fatal blows to generate the product. Moses’ words came as he thought about his own passing, and they echoed centuries forward as A.J. Showalter confronted the same issue. Did the dual nature of his former students’ loss accentuate the experience for Showalter? Perhaps he felt overwhelmed by his young friends’ despair, an engine that propelled him to Moses’ episode and a people preparing to move on without him. The potion the two 19^th Century men and their forefather Moses prescribe for this death struggle we all face, probably numerous times in an average lifetime, never loses its potency. Their words in “Leaning…” say that it grows stronger, in fact.  

This story tells us something about the nature of us, passed on from a God in whose likeness we’ve been constructed.  That the hymn has survived into the 21^st Century shows the three who gave us the words (Moses, Showalter, and Hoffman) knew what power lay in the words, necessary for humankind to endure its final tragedy. How did Showalter know to go find these biblical words? It must be that he’d discovered he couldn’t escape inevitable death, even if he himself hadn’t yet reached 30 years of age. Instead, embracing is the answer. This includes other people, and Him, too.

Information on the song was also obtained from the books  Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990, Kregel Publications; The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; and Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.

See following site also. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/l/e/a/leanarms.htm

I Must Tell Jesus -- Elisha Albright Hoffman

Elisha Albright Hoffman was doing what might seem to be a natural, expected thing for a minister to do one day, when a reverse-ministry circumstance – a kind of boomerang – happened to him in Lebanon, Pennsylvania (see location on map here). Was it the first time that he talked with some spiritually needy individual, and the person almost immediately absorbed his help, and gave back some words that stuck in his brain? “I Must Tell Jesus”, he had first uttered, but perhaps little knowing at that moment that this assertion would endure beyond a few hours. Or, on the other hand, maybe Hoffman had grown accustomed to unexpected musical encounters. See what you think.

Elisha had been a minister for some time by his mid-50s, as the end of the 19^th Century approached in 1894, but the episode that led him to “I Must Tell Jesus” may have had some elements that were different from the rest of his ministry life. Although he was a native Pennsylvanian, he ministered for the vast majority of his career in several churches in Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan between 1880 and 1922. So when he visited a discouraged believer in 1894 in a southeast Pennsylvania community, this was evidently a pretty small dot on the map of his life’s work. Whatever had brought him there was brief, yet meaningful. Hoffman’s own memory indicates he had visited a woman on multiple occasions, including one day when she was so depressed about her many struggles and listened intently as he read various bible passages to lift her. What would these have been – words of Peter (1 Peter 5:6-7), Paul (Philippians 4:6-7; Ephesians 3:14-20), James (5: 13-16), and even Jesus (John 14:27)? Elisha must have been very familiar with sharing God’s word with people, but had others responded as this woman apparently did, with the title of a song he’d compose later that day? Her apparently brimming confidence had struck him. The Lord is alert to reply, if I am bold enough to admit my weaknesses, Hoffman says in his prose. Newfound poise is a moment to remember, the composer must have thought to himself. God hasn’t forgotten. He’s just waiting for me to  depend on Him. Even a minister in his mid-50s can use a reminder, right?

    

Hoffman must have been thinking many thoughts as he left the woman whose words and demeanor still echoed in his mind. Is life here too distant from what I can read in my bible? Is it relevant? One wonders if Elisha may have pondered initially just how much he could really say to assuage this woman’s spirit. His account of the incident indicates she expressed desperation at one point in their discussion. Is that when she and the composer really rediscovered God’s ear still listens – when I have run out of options? How quickly desperation evaporates, when I am convinced He’s there – that’s another lesson to underscore here. Try it out, OK?         

See more information on the song discussed above in 101 More Hymn Stories by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985; Then Sings My Soul – 150 of the World’s Greatest Hymn Stories, Robert J. Morgan, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003; Amazing Grace – 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, 1990, Kregel Publications; and The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs, by William J. and Ardythe Petersen, 2006, Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 

Also see following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Hoffman

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/o/f/hoffman_ea.htm

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/i/m/u/imustell.htm