Jesus Is Coming Soon -- Robert Emmett Winsett

What would you expect to hear from a 66-year old Pentecostal preacher in 1940s Chattanooga, Tennessee (which might have looked something like this picture, shown here)? Considering the era and the background of Robert Emmett Winsett, one would not have been surprised to hear him utter the words “Jesus Is Coming Soon”. He’d already lived through plenty that would give him reason to say such a thing, but the words would continue to ring loudly for a few more decades in the ears of its hearers, culminating in this poem-song’s award recognition a quarter of a century after he first sketched out his thoughts. Why would a 25-year-old song provoke such an episode? Robert might say the words never go out of style.

Robert Winsett’s Pentecostal beliefs and the times that he lived through, including their impact on him personally as well as on those around him, certainly must have molded the ideas he expressed in “Jesus Is Coming Soon”. Winsett had lost two people close to him – his first wife and a son -- some 10-15 years earlier, so he was intimately familiar with personal tragedy, though he’d since remarried and had additional children. Winsett was said to be somewhat of an introvert, preferring to be in the woods for long hours, a trait that must have contributed toward the approximately 1,000 hymns and multiple songbooks he authored over his lifetime. By 1942, his 66^th year, Winsett would also have been witnessing the third war of his lifetime (Spanish-American War [1898], World War I [1914-18], and World War II [1941-45]), a particularly resonant event to make one aware of the mortality of oneself and those around him. Can you hear Winsett preaching the first words of this 1942 hymn ‘Troublesome times are here…’? They must have been effective with his hearers, who would have believed that ‘freedom …is at stake’ (v. 1). It would be much later, however, when Winsett’s words would actually earn the song the Dove Award for Gospel Song of the Year, in 1969. Were 1969’s events, amidst yet another war (Vietnam), enough to make Winsett’s words meaningful again? We can guess that Winsett and other Pentecostals were also reading apocalyptically from their bibles (including from 1 Thessalonians). Winsett’s world must have borne heavily upon him, but also made him aware and expectant for the coming heaven-bound events (see song’s refrain).     

Does Winsett’s message still make sense? Since his departure for another world, the world has hardly had reason to scoff at Robert’s sense of things. Wars and the trouble that accompany them are just one of the phenomena Winsett probably observed. Many ‘evils abound’ (v.2) terrestrially; but, heaven and my destiny there allow me to feel ebullient. Is that why Winsett’s tune to accompany his words, though entitled ‘Troublesome Times’, feels like a sprint, with a jaunty skip to them?  We believers will rise at the trumpet sound, meet each other in the skies, and greet Jesus. Takes the breath away, doesn’t it? And, it takes the wind right outta that doom era (refrain), at least for the saved. Are you dreading the doom, or looking around the corner past it?

Link here shows song’s three verses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Is_Coming_Soon_(R._E._Winsett_song)

These two links record a brief biography of the composer:

http://www.hymnary.org/person/Winsett_Robert

http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/i/n/winsett_re.htm

Living By Faith -- James Wells and Robert Emmett Winsett

One of these names and his biography are virtually anonymous, and while the other is more well known, his temperament made him more or less an introvert. Did they know one another…perhaps? They certainly shared something theologically and musically, as they both contributed some thoughts about “Living By Faith” in the early 20^th Century. James Wells wrote three-quarters of the song’s message, one of how to live terrestrially, and Robert Emmett Winsett added a verse to coax us to look beyond this earth, to see the end (perhaps not unlike how Michelangelo did in The Last Judgment, shown here).   As people, Wells and Winsett may have been in the shadows, but what this tandem says is not hidden, revealing that they identified with what I and every other person face – how to manage a life filled with challenge and a certain conclusion.

James Wells is about all that is known of the primary composer of “Living…”. I’ll have to be satisfied with just his name, the only facet of him that saves him from complete anonymity.  Or is there more that we can know? (Jan. 2024 Update: See comment #3 by R.L. Vaughn at the end of the blog; Mr. Vaughn provides a few details to help us know James Wells a little more. Thanks!) On the other hand, Winsett’s name is accompanied by well-known details that show this Tennessee native had a music education, wrote up to 1,000 songs in his lifetime, operated music publishing enterprises, and contributed the fourth verse to “Living by Faith” in 1918 when he was 42 and probably living with his first wife and family in Arkansas. Yet, it’s said that Winsett kept to himself somewhat, socially outgoing mostly at church singing events. The bookish Winsett enjoyed solitude in the woods with God, or in his study. We know nothing of the circumstances of how four verses came into being from the hands and thoughts of Wells and Winsett, yet their words are windows through which I can dimly peer. Wells’ words suggest he was a confident believer, yet not one with rose-colored glasses. Tempests, storm clouds, rain, shadows, overcast skies, and evils…these were conditions in Wells’ three verses that indicate he knew them well, yet he treats them as asides, nuisances to the main storyline – God overcomes. The middle-aged Winsett consummates the thoughts begun by Wells with the rapture…a believer’s buoyancy here on earth will be rewarded when He comes and takes home the saved. So we have one fellow (Wells) who was examining how to manage the temporal, or rather how to vault over it, through it, or around it. The other fellow (Winsett) had his mind’s eye on the finish line, a character trait he probably nurtured through countless hours in the woods or in his study with the Savior. Which way works best?

“Living By Faith” shows it was Wells and Winsett who decided that both ways they emphasize could inhabit the same life. I must decide which verses of “Living…” resonate most loudly for me from day-to-day. There are times when I do feel I’ve met a challenge successfully, and I let out a little cheer for His Providence. Thank you, James Wells. Other things linger, however, and gnaw at my conscience or my physical well-being.  I respond by glimpsing the pinprick of light at the far end, a steady presence that seems to be growing. Thank Robert Emmett Winsett for this vision-reminder. It may be that the urgent (today) or the important (certain future) call out at the same time…whaddya think?    

See here for biographic information on one of song’s composers: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/i/n/winsett_re.htm

See only very scant information on primary composer here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/w/e/l/wells_j.htm

See all four verses of the hymn here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/l/i/b/libfaith.htm