Bless His Holy Name (Bless the Lord) -- Andrae Crouch

Andrae Crouch took a page from a musical ancestor’s book of praise one day in the early 1970s, perhaps as he was thinking of himself in a very basic way. Who was he, fundamentally? Andrae must have decided that a centuries-old songwriter (the boy harpist, and later king David -- see the painting King David Playing the Harp [1622] by Gerard van Honthorst here) had approached this question best when he began one of his songs with the poetic words “Bless the Lord”, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! (Psalm 103:1) If a person has not found himself and cannot decide why he’s been put here on earth, Andrae had found an answer. It’s not about you when you are trying to find your purpose, but instead it’s about the One who made you. If you want to really deal with that quandary, to solve that mystery of what’s my life about, begin with Him. That’s the way a poet and king dealt with this long ago, and Andrae echoed that with a few more words added to heighten what it meant to him. Would you like to join him, this songmeister who followed in another’s steps, in order to answer the question that even a committed disciple asks and answers himself by writing songs?  

 

Andrae was so taken with his song mission in life pointing to God and His Son Jesus Christ that he formed a group and named it The Disciples in 1965, a crucial undertaking that would spawn many of his best-known songs, including ‘Bless…Name’ some years later. Although we can be certain of little specifically, other than that Andrae was reading Psalm 103 and was reading it in the King James Version (since the opening line of David’s psalm and Andrae’s song match exactly), Andrae’s purpose was as clear as David’s was. This 31-year-old 20^th Century songwriter in 1973 was doing what David had done on so many occasions, and no matter what the circumstances were. Offer Him a praise. David’s psalm begins the same way it ends (vv. 1 and 21-22) – lauding Him. Just tell about Him, which is what David did in 22 verses, and what Andrae followed suit doing in his version. When Andrae launched The Disciples, he was enrolled at Valley Junior College in the San Fernando Valley, and was intending to become a teacher, an objective he chose not to realize to completion. But, when he wrote ‘Bless…Name’, he was nevertheless kind of behaving like a teacher, pointing others to a method employed by a faith practitioner that still worked. If David had lived on for another millennia, he too could have extolled God in the way that Andrae did, by telling of His sacrifice for sin and the lordship of Jesus as the Christ. Surely, David thought of God the Father as Lord and Savior, since He had protected and extended mercy and grace to David on so many occasions. So, when Andrae borrowed David’s opening exaltation of God, and married it to verses telling of the God-Son’s death for sin’s payment, and of His triumph as Lord, he must have felt certain that David would have joined in to sing with gusto this update to his poem. Songwriters from different eras can still be of one heart, as long as it’s the heart of God.    

 

There’s really not much more that could be said of Andrae’s adaptation of David’s psalm. The verses he added on to the opening have us offering broad acclamations to God – that ‘He’s done great things (v.1); that ‘He died for my sin’ (v.2); and that ‘Jesus is Lord’(v.3). Those are three short but potent things to remember about Him. That He has accomplished those without the assent or help of you and me is of course true. And yet, He did these things and will continue to do so because of you and me. Andrae and David and the rest of us have Him, something that can never change, as long as we remember all those facets of God that Andrae’s song spells out for us. Want some more words to go deeper, in a closer look into God’s work in David’s life? Andrae’s partnership with David’s psalm gives you and me a reminder that Psalm 103 is still there in its entirety. He’s still there for me as much as he has always been there, ever since He made the first one of us. Similarly, David and Andrae’s song goes on and on and on, because He still does.   

 

 

See more information on the author and song story in this source: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.

 

Read about the author-composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andra%C3%A9_Crouch

 

See information on the image of David here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:King_David,_the_King_of_Israel.jpg … The author died in 1656, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1931. …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David

 

 

I Will Bless Thee, O Lord -- Esther Watanabe

 

We don’t know much about her, except that she was perhaps reading from the Psalms. Esther Watanabe was her name, and what she had to say around the year 1970 was personal, echoing what her musical ancestor, David, said on more than one occasion – “I Will Bless Thee, O Lord.” What David experienced, and what Esther would have noticed when she read his poetry, was that he had many reasons to thank and lift up God’s name, no matter what the circumstances. Maybe Esther didn’t have or need a vision of this God (like Ezekiel did [Ezekiel 1], as imagined in this 16^th Century work of art by Raphael) whom she wanted to bless. But it doesn’t take much imagination to ponder why Esther might have needed His presence, for the human condition has so many pitfalls that to say one never needs Him would be the anomaly, rather than the norm. What might be considered unusual, however, is the attitude to sing of His goodness when one is suffering; complaining and feeling desperately abandoned would perhaps be more appropriate. And David and the rest of us, probably Esther too in 1970, have felt that way, and yet where else can we go but to Him? Maybe it takes just one episode when it seems He indeed listens to coax a bit of faith and praise from deep within, even when trouble pays a visit.

 

We might not have specific information about Esther’s walk that day/s around 1970, but we could hypothesize that what David had to say in two of his psalms, Psalms 34 and 145, struck her as worthy of an ‘Amen’. Was she in the same situation or something similar to what David was going through when he crafted Psalm 34? The preface words to that one indicate David was feeling pretty upbeat in the wake of a strange episode, when he feigned madness before a king in order to escape danger. ‘…at all times’, David said, indicating that in trouble or comfort, or whatever might be an in-between situation, God was still worthy of acclaim. In that particular psalm, David indicated in multiple verses that danger and stress were present (vv.4, 6-7, 15, 17-19), so if these were multiple incidents, or even just the one with the foreign king, it dawned on David that he emerged unscathed from an impossible situation because God was protecting him. In Psalm 145, David again felt God’s protection in difficulties (in vv. 14 and 19), but the praise that arises from David’s heart in that poem is more about who God is, revealed in His ‘greatness’ (v. 3), His ‘mighty acts’ (v.4), His ‘majesty’ (v.5), and righteousness (v. 7). It is God’s character that causes the overflow of David’s heart in exaltation. That God’s goodness and His dominion would ‘endure(s) throughout all generations’(v.13) was also what gave David such ecstasy, perhaps as he realized that his progeny would still prosper even after his (David’s) earthly kingdom ended. We know not whether Esther had any children or successive generations of friends and acquaintances that came after her, but how would you and I feel if we knew that others we’d known in this life could reach eternity some day and reunite with us? Mortality is a certain thing, isn’t it? Looking to Him, offering Him who is good a blessing of praise, is a hope exercise. And, hope is not empty (see Hebrews 3:6; 6:11,18-19; 7:19; 10:23; 11:1).        

 

And so, Esther echoed what David had said long ago. ‘Bless the Lord’ might sound a bit strange at first. How can I, a mere mortal, offer the Almighty, the Divine Creator of the universe, something that would bless Him who is possessing of such greatness already? It would be easy to feel so humble, that you wouldn’t feel right lifting your head and giving Him a gift. Moses was afraid to look at Him (Ex. 3:6) and indeed was later warned not to look at God’s face (Ex. 33:18-21), and yet this same God wanted Moses to know Him, wanted a relationship with him. We are His creation, the most special creatures in His image (Genesis 1:27). Every father wants to hear his sons and daughters, the very offspring of himself, say ‘thanks, Dad’. If He made us to relate to each other in this way, why should He feel different about us and Himself? This Father is one you and I can have forever.    

 

See information on the image here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raphael_-_Ezekiel%27s_Vision.jpg … The author died in 1520, so this work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1931. …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_the_Father

Flee As a Bird -- Mary S. Dana

 

It was her way of therapy as she grieved. Thirty-year old Mary Dana (some 11 years later, she remarried and took the last name of her second husband Robert Shindler) had experienced enough death in her life in the period around 1839-1840, and one of David’s psalm images gave her some solace, as she thought about “Flee(ing) As a Bird” to escape and find in the Lord the One who could provide comfort. Perhaps she’d had enough of funerals and even the beautiful flowers at them that are intended to bring hope and healing (See here the typical habit of placing flowers at a gravesite in a cemetery, like this one in France, on 4 July 2011.) And so, Mary turned to writing verses to express her feelings, crying out to Him on behalf of herself and others like her. Evidently, she had found what she so desperately needed in His embrace, and thus she urged others with her poetry put to music.    

 

Mary suffered one tragedy upon another, then another, and another. At what point in watching as many as four others die did Mary think of fleeing? Her young son and husband both succumbed during a fever that became rampant in Iowa where they had recently arrived in 1839. This was after she had apparently already lost a sister and a brother in the space of the previous two years. She soon thereafter returned to her native South Carolina, perhaps as a way to leave behind the gloom and start anew. She must have felt like she was in flight, much like the bird fleeing to a mountain in David’s Psalm 11:1, even if that psalmist felt that this refuge-seeking method was ill-advised. When one is afflicted repeatedly, the reaction is oftentimes a gut-level response to fear, and one could excuse Mary if she was indeed feeling so much distress that she retreated into a secluded place. Unlike David, she must have thought that the mountain shelter was where she eventually found the succor of the Lord, for her poetry indicates that it was in this isolated place where she could wash in the ‘clear-flowing fountain’ that He provides (v.1). In short, she needed a place where only His voice – not death’s -- was in her head and heart. Instead of standing firm, as some might advise, Mary said to ‘haste’ (or ‘fly’, as some versions have it) in order to avoid ‘th’Avenger’ (v.1). Indeed, could Mary have also read of the many episodes when Jesus retreated, including so often to mountains, to pray by Himself and seek His Father’s face? (See Luke 5:16; Matt. 14:23/Mark 6:46; Luke 6:12-13; Luke 21:37; 22:39-46.) Especially if it’s sin that is ‘weary(ing)’ the soul, one needs to find Him in His space, to find ‘His bosom’ on which one can rest. Other miseries will surely come, but Mary said that He would not ‘forsake’ (v.2) someone who would ‘haste’ to Him, who needed to be free of ‘sighing’. He ‘wipe(s) every tear’, a promise that Mary must have read with hope in her bible’s concluding book (Revelation 7:17; 21:4).

 

Mary wrote the tune for ‘Flee As a Bird’ in the key of either D- or E-minor, but evidently not as a way to wallow in her sorrow. Instead, the uplifting parts of her lyrics are counterpoints to the burdens she bore that she could not just wish away. The woe she felt was not easily laid aside, but was certainly salved when she realized that He’s the remedy. Part of life’s challenge is not to wear rose-colored glasses and pretend that troubles are insignificant, but to know to whom you and I can go for strength, a most-certain strength. He also suffered in His physicality, and so His own body felt pain and His spirit also felt desolate, but He ultimately overcame. Hence, part of the minor key sensation that you and I hear in ‘Flee…’ must also be an acknowledgement of His awesome power to conquer death. Try hearing 1 Corinthians 15:54-55 in a minor key in your head, which is what Mary might have been thinking when she thought of death. You can hear it too, if you got Him with you.

  

Read about the hymn’s origin here: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9780271096308-004/html  and here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40071689 and here: https://drhamrick.blogspot.com/2018/11/flee-as-bird.html

 

See the hymn’s original verses and the short biography of the hymnist here: https://hymnary.org/text/flee_as_a_bird_to_your_mountain  and http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/f/l/e/e/fleeasab.htm  and http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/h/i/n/shindler_msbd.htm

 

See information on the image here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2011_Enterrement_de_Jacquotte.jpg …The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of their rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law. You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission…. https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en  …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funeral