Blessed Be Your Name -- Ken Young

 

They had succeeded in their task, and God had blessed them mightily. So, all was good, right? If Nehemiah and the people he governed, who had returned to the land God had given them centuries earlier, had felt satisfied and merely celebrated after completing the wall around Jerusalem (see a depiction of that effort here), we might have thought that was actually pretty reasonable. And yet, these people of Nehemiah’s day felt convicted, and offered a prayer of confession and devotion. Ken Young and his Hallal music ministry turned their attention to how this group of Israelites was led by Levites who began this prayer with the stirring words “Blessed Be Your Name” that over 2,000 years later roused Ken’s spirit. The message of this episode evokes an attitude that should resonate for any generation – don’t forget Him and get complacent about the source of mercy and grace upon which you stand.

 

The people of Nehemiah’s era had been in exile in Persia for years, and were blessed with an opportunity to return to their homeland and rebuild a wall and make the city of David secure, a task they completed despite foreign opposition. The taunts and plots of Sanballat, Tobiah, and Geshem (see Neh. 2:19; 4:1-7; 6:1-16) were persistent, and yet God protected his people through Nehemiah’s wise leadership. It must have been a reminder of how this faithful Yahweh had been present through all of their history, not just in this latest episode. And so, they prayed with this in mind as they marked the successful conclusion of their mission. The Levites who prayed ardently to God basically recited Israel’s history of rescue by Him, but also their ancestors’ subsequent and repeated departures from His covenant with them. It was time to own up to what had brought them to this post-exilic point (sometime in the 5^th Century BC), and to recommit to His way. The first verse of Ken Young’s echo of this prayer is a virtual word-for-word praise to Him that the Levites raised that day (see Neh. 9:5-6), as they stood on the shoulders of what God had done from them. Ken’s second verse reads like a summation of what the Levites said in the rest of their prayer – remembrance, confession, and a pledge of obedience (see Neh. 9:7-10:39); this 1993 version of this prayer wrapped up what the Israelites said in portions of two chapters (Nehemiah 9 and 10, comprising some 44 verses), with three brief sentences that said roughly the following: Lord, You are ‘awesome’, ‘endur(ing)’ – in other words, patient --, and all-‘see(ing)’; and You have ‘warn(ed)’ us repeatedly (four times in Neh. 9:26-34), and this time we will ‘obey’. The Hebrews certainly had experienced punishment, and also His forbearance.

 

Can any of us identify with what the Jewish race had endured up to Nehemiah’s day? What about history since that time? We’ve probably all seen horrific pictures of the Holocaust’s effect – concentration death camps, showing some survivors with little more than skin and bones, staring at the cameras with sunken eyes, or other gruesome images showing emaciated bodies piled up like cordwood. Perhaps those pictures in the last century make Jewish suffering more fathomable for those of us who’ve suffered little comparatively. But we all need rescue, whether we admit it or not. Was there some recognition by Ken and Hallal Music that this was true for themselves, perhaps in some episode that made this Levite 5^th Century BC prayer reverberate 24 centuries later? Look at you own mortality honestly for a moment. Is any one of us immune from trouble if He’s absent from our corner? Don’t get to the endline and look back wishing you had uttered a prayer like Ken and some Levites have spoken. There’s still time to do that today.        

 

Read about the 20^th/21^st Century songwriter’s music ministry here: https://hallalmusic.com/about/

 

Read the background of this song-prayer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Nehemiah

 

See information about the image here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Building_the_Wall_of_Jerusalem.jpg …This media file is in the public domain in the United States. This applies to U.S. works where the copyright has expired, often because its first publication occurred prior to January 1, 1931, and if not then due to lack of notice or renewal. See this page for further explanation. …found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Nehemiah

Like a River Glorious -- Frances Ridley Havergal

 

You cannot read anything about this English hymnist without encountering the word peace for which she was known by all who met her. Frances Ridley Havergal did not live a long life, and yet she apparently welcomed her own death with a serenity that may have been best reflected in one of her hymns, “Like a River Glorious”, which she wrote a few years before her eternal inheritance and the tranquility she cherished came to fruition. Frances’ deep and abiding familiarity with the ancient biblical texts undoubtedly provided much of the foundation for what would flow from her pen, but could she have also been moved by the creation she observed, like any number of rivers that she might have observed and which could have provided further inspiration for what she wrote (perhaps not unlike the River Wey in southern England, shown here)? Frances did not really need to explain what motivated this hymn, for she lived it.

 

Thirty-eight-year-old Frances was reportedly in Leamington, in central England, in 1874 when she wrote ‘Like a River Glorious’, and though her poetry is all we possess of her thoughts at that time, it offers several clues of her mindset at the time. We could reasonably presume that Frances was reading from Isaiah and perhaps also Psalms and many New Testament scriptures to find inspiration for what she would create. As she began, it could have been the prodigious prophet Isaiah whose words moved Frances initially, with the promises of the Lord on his lips to the people. ‘Peace…like a river’ could have been and could still be theirs, Isaiah said (48:18; 66:12), a metaphor that would have appealed to this 19^th Century hymnist as she thought about herself and the relationship with God that she valued so highly. At least two rivers are also in the Leamington area where Frances was at the time – the Rivers Leam and Avon – and could also have underscored for her His creative work in her midst. It wasn’t just a peace she felt, but a perfect one, which she saw as a glorious moving body of water, something that flowed more ‘fully’ and ‘deep(ly)’ as time went on. Could Frances have also found a kindred spirit in Isaiah through his song in chapter 26 about this perfect peace (26:3)? Is anything more secure than being in the ‘hollow of His hand’, in the protection of the one who had waters there in the same way when He made them (Isaiah 40:12)? That’s a very comforting reminder, one that could have spurred Frances’ second verse to tell herself and her readers that no ‘traitor’, ‘worry’, ‘care’, nor ‘hurry’ can overwhelm His shield for the believer. Frances could also have found such reassurance among David’s Psalms, including Psalm 37 (see verses 23-24, among many others there). Frances could have found the promise of peace throughout the New Testament also, including Jesus’ own words (John 14:27; 16:33), and from any of His apostles (like Paul – see Romans 5:1). That’s why Frances could stress the ‘trust’ she had for Him in her third verse, even during ‘trial(s)’ as well as ‘joy(s)’.

 

It is said that Frances actually welcomed death when it was ready to take her at the early age of just 42. Her health had apparently not always been optimum in the years just prior to her death, and perhaps that made her life in eternity one that she longed to inherit, one without pain. Frances had been a precocious child, reportedly reading by the time she was four years old, and then writing her first poems at age seven. She was a brilliant woman who learned to read La­tin, Greek, and He­brew, and who knew the Psalms and Isaiah (as suggested above, by what she wrote in ‘Like a River…’) and much of the New Testament by heart. So, someone might say how tragic it was that her earthly life was cut so short. Could that be why God gifted her so well at an early age, because her life would be a short one? Hers was what someone has said was a life well-lived, though short. And, look what she left for us to remember, especially how she handled not only life, but death, too. Bravery was one of her character traits, but it wasn’t something she could claim as her own. And, though she was talented, she didn’t feel her brief life had somehow cheated her. After all, what are four decades compared to the forever she began by 1879?            

 

Find all the original verses of the hymn here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/l/i/k/r/likriver.htm

 

A brief biography of the author/poetess is here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/a/v/e/havergal_fr.htm

 

See here also for the hymnist’s bio, and information on the song and its original date of authorship (1874): https://hymnary.org/text/like_a_river_glorious

 

A more complete bio on the author-hymnist is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Ridley_Havergal

 

Information on the location where the hymnist reportedly wrote this hymn: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leamington_Spa

 

Read some reflections on the author-hymnist’s life in the following: 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, by Robert J. Morgan, 2003, Thomas Nelson, Inc.

 

See information on the image here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wey_source_farringdon.jpg …This work has been released into the public domain by its author, SuzanneKn at English Wikipedia. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: SuzanneKn grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law….found inside this document -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River  

Clean -- Hannah Hobbs, Michael Fatkin, Taya Gaukrodger

 

They might as well have called it ‘Gospel’, or ‘Salvation Basics’. But it seems as though Hannah Hobbs, Michael Fatkin, and Taya Gaukrodger had something more personal in mind when they wrote a song and pronounced themselves “Clean” in 2018. The three of them were part of the Hillsong Church and one of its groups, Hillsong United, in Sydney, Australia (see its convention center shown here) when they spelled out what being washed and purified meant to them. One has to realize first what being really dirty, and not with just a little dusty film on oneself, but actually being filthy and stinking up a place, to come to a point at which you could fully appreciate the opposite. Until you get that in focus, you and I cannot grasp the depth of what a pure sacrifice accomplishes, one with which Jews in the First Century were certainly baffled, and one with which many even today are averse to accepting. It’s called the human condition, which God is able to miraculously transform, if we humans let Him.  

 

Hannah, Michael, and Taya have not shared what sparked their desire to sing about being cleansed (at least according to what bloggers like this one can discover via the Internet…someone lend me a hand if you know something I don’t, which I would welcome!). And yet, their lyrics provide us with enough to make an educated guess, one that is undoubtedly universal for the living, and has been since He made the first one of us. We all make mistakes, and He’s the holy God. Those two basic facts are the beginning, but not the end. These three Australian songwriters obviously began with those two essentials, and launched from this foundation into what allows God to make the squalid clean. They might have been aware of seekers in their midst, or perhaps were actually thinking of themselves when they wrote that ‘shame (could) retreat’ and that this could happen through accepting the ‘covenant’ that God established to make people ‘whole’ (v.1). How? How does this actually take place, one might ask. Hannah, Michael, and Taya wasted no time getting right to the point – it’s through some ‘precious blood’ – the first two words they penned. Jewish people would understand the point – sacrifice to atone for sin was always a concept that His chosen people accepted ever since their rescue from Egypt and His covenantal relationship (based on the law He gave to Moses) with them began in a desert. So, they became well-acquainted with the need for shed blood and did not really ask God why. The animal was to be one of the worshipping individual’s best, but would he/she actually think of that animal’s blood as precious, the way Hannah, Michael, and Taya characterized it in their song’s first line? This animal was actually Jesus, and commonly called the Lamb of God among Christians, another point that would be a point of disorientation for Hebrews who’d been in covenant with God. But, understanding that God was too holy and pure to even look at was something the Jews understood, and it’s also something that we who are not Jewish today still understand, if we get in touch with our circumstances and acknowledge how far from God that separates us. That confession is what these three songwriters embraced, apparently, and invited us who would listen to also accept.  

 

That acceptance of ourselves, and then the agreement to let Him work on each of us, is where the believer arrives at the ‘forgiveness’ (v.1) which Hannah, Michael, and Taya have written. All the other things that follow in their song flow from that transaction between the forgiven and the God who makes it potent. Their words about being ‘pure…(like) snow’ (v.1), the ability to ‘lift my head’ and be ‘free’ (chorus), to find the ‘joy of holiness’ in His very ‘presence’ (v.2), are part of their message. There’s now a path for you and me to heaven and a part in the rejuvenation of creation that’s He’s planned – it’s been opened by what He’s done. It’s not a complicated message, if you begin with knowing and admitting to yourself that you don’t have a better offer, and seeing Him as the pivot point, the way of getting you out of your mess – whatever that is. Wanna get clean and start over?      

   

Watch/listen to an original Hillsong version here: Bing Videos

 

Read about the church where the song was developed here: Hillsong Church - Wikipedia

 

Information on the image is here: File:Hillsong Convention Centre.jpg - Wikimedia Commons…This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Tatie2189. This applies worldwide. In some countries this may not be legally possible; if so: Tatie2189 grants anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. …found inside this document: Hillsong Church - Wikipedia