Jesus Calls Us – Cecil Alexander

She had someone or a group of people in mind as she penned words for a song to accompany her husband’s upcoming sermon one Autumn day in 1852. Thirty-four year old Cecil Alexander evidently wanted to draw some parallels between her neighbors or fellow churchgoers and a well-known apostle (see his picture here, along with his brother Peter and the Christ, by Caravaggio). It may even be assumed that her preacher-husband gave her some thoughts to get her prose rolling that day when “Jesus Calls Us” was written.  That she had been most accustomed to writing children’s songs may have also been why she needed the advice and encouragement of another adult when she went about composing this hymn for grown-ups. Do the words resonate with you, as an adult?

Cecil Alexander’s composition “Jesus Calls Us” indeed was something of an unusual exercise for this composer, considering the audience for the song and what was her routine for her poetry. She’d written many of her poem-songs for children by the age of 20, really not that long after she had left her own childhood behind. These had been published by 1848, and then she married two years later, an occasion that most people regard as entry into the adult world. Her husband, William, a minister in a poor local church in Ireland, was preparing one November to deliver a message based on the example of the apostle Andrew – a called individual. William asked his wife to think of a hymn for adults as the Anglican holiday, St. Andrew’s Day, approached on the last Sunday of the month. He evidently wanted a memorable song to accompany his sermon, and knowing his wife’s pedigree, he must have felt pretty confident, though most of her experience had been writing for children. But, her experience also included ministering to the people of the area herself, with lots of sick, cold, and hungry people that she saw daily. So, she no doubt had a personal and practical familiarity with a calling to help others. The ‘tumult’ and ‘sorrows’ she wrote about must have been not just in her imagination, but in fact real hurts that she witnessed every day, just as were the ‘vain world’ and ‘idol(s)’, interspersed with a few ‘joys’ and ‘pleasures’ that she observed also.

Her husband’s influence also showed in the words she wrote, although the verse she composed that he read in the church service has not normally survived in our modern hymnal texts. That’s unfortunate, because it helps communicate the hymn’s background, its genesis (see the link below). She calls out Andrew’s example of dropping his profession, literally, and following the Master upon encountering Him. That episode must have been electric, wouldn’t you imagine? It makes one ponder … to what does He call me today? Should I stop working? Is there a greater task He has for me to do? Cecil must have seen and heard a lot from her neighbors that had her thinking they needed to reach beyond their own world, perhaps because there was just too much privation, too much disappointment where they were. Would it be an ironic twist, if I have so much, and were less inclined to turn my head when he calls out to me?  He offers more, incredibly more, even if I am very physically blessed here. Read Cecil’s words, and see if they make you re-think things.           

           

See more information on the composer and the song in Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990; The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; and 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1985

See the link here for a 2^nd verse rarely seen in print, which really lends some context to the circumstances of the poetry that Cecil Alexander wrote – a reference to the subject of her husband’s sermon that day in November 1852. http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/e/s/jesuscus.htm