Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary -- John M. Moore

 

This songwriter was prepared, or someone might actually say he was surprised, when the story of “Burdens Are Lifted at Calvary” is told. The Scottish minister John M. Moore responded to an urgent call one day in 1952 while going about his daily routine in Glasgow, and he did what ministers do when called to visit someone in the hospital. The young fellow whom he saw could not have been said to be in a foxhole, since he was in fact a seaman, but he nevertheless did what others in danger like that do: call for a man of God to help ‘lift the burden’, and bring some sense of peace and protection. John had a handy piece of literature (see a picture from it here) to give this seaman, probably a sign that he had some experience at this sort of ministering – you give the afflicted some really good, to-the-point advice that is written just for that specific circumstance. John must have felt a sense of accomplishment and confirmation, as he left that hospital, that he had done his duty well. Later that night, John’s hospital experience stayed with him, perhaps in a way that he could not have predicted.

 

The day’s events compelled John to write some song words to match the picture of what had happened. Part of their inspiration came from the tract he had probably carried in his bag for some time; it was one from Pilgrim’s Progress, and it had seemed very appropriate for the young seaman’s troubled spirit that day. The sick mariner nodded that he felt the weight of a burden on his back, but his facial expression when he prayed with John and sensed that the weight had been removed got John’s attention.  John just had to write what his mind would not allow him to forget. What he saw on the man’s face was a glow -- no more ‘sorrow and care’ (v.1), ‘worry and fear’ (v.2), or heartache and tear (v.3). John must have felt especially that ‘Jesus is very near’, because he wrote this concluding thought in every verse. Though John may have seen similar reactions from others from time-to-time, something special had occurred in that hospital room. Was it the depth of this merchant mariner’s conviction, as if his life was filled with more debauchery than the average person, that underscored the transformation of the man’s despair into peace? It was like a man walking out of the prison cell through the door opened at long last. How would you feel toward the person who put the key in the hole and turned it so the door unlatched and let you free? That’s kinda what John Moore saw happen that day in 1952.

 

John Moore was just 27 years old that day in 1952. Just a young pup in ministry was he, he might say, looking back on this episode. He went on to several other locations in a lifelong ministry that was ongoing still in 2013 (he was apparently still living, as of 2022, making him 97 years old, according to available sources). How many more times did John pull out that Pilgrim’s Progress that had proved so effective that day in a Glasgow hospital? What’s so great about this incident is not that it happened one time and created a special memory. No, it keeps going on, because the heart of the song’s message is still true. John just rediscovered that it was so in 1952.

   

   

   

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

 

Also see this link for a brief version of the author’s biography: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/m/o/o/r/moore_jm.htm  

 

See link here to the key piece of information the author used in this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim%27s_Progress

Let the Lower Lights Be Burning -- Philip P. Bliss

It must have been an illustration that was unique, involving perhaps the speaker’s delivery or the poignancy of the story’s ending, capturing Philip Bliss’s attention one night, causing him to imagine and create a song. “Let the Lower Lights Be Burning” were actually some words that Bliss’s friend spoke that gave him the mental picture and the words he needed to spark this musical creation in 1871. Had the 33-year old Bliss been at sea before, heightening his awareness as he listened to the speaker that night?  Did he know someone who needed to heed the words he composed? What are lower lights, and why are they apparently necessary if we have lighthouses (like the one shown here)?

Philip Paul Bliss was a gifted hymn-writer of the 19^th Century whose career output was only abbreviated because of his untimely death, five years after he composed this song about lights. He reportedly heard many messages that spurred the poetry he composed, including through the well-known speaker Dwight Moody.  It was one of Moody’s stories, told of a ship that foundered on a rocky shoal in Lake Erie outside of Cleveland, that gave him the inspiration for “Let the Lower Lights…”. From a far distance, a lighthouse is all a sailor needs to safely guide his navigation, but that changes the closer one draws to land. Rocks and sandbars are a deadly hazard, which ‘lower lights’ illuminate – if they’re working. One hardly hears about these lights, perhaps because the bigger, more obvious lighthouses get the attention. In Moody’s narrative, the failure of these lower lights left the ship blind, and ultimately wrecked with loss of life. The analogy is clear. God – the lighthouse – never fails, but we mortals cannot do without other, lesser lights to help us through difficult passages. Moody and Bliss wanted their hearers to notice that in God’s Divine wisdom, He needs us to watch out for each others’ welfare – we’re lights for our peers. I warn you, and you warn me, when danger is nearby. You and I help protect each other.

Whatever trails he followed, Philip Bliss needed others to help his feet see the hazards, just like any of us. Ironically, it was a train wreck due to a collapsed bridge that ended the composer’s life in 1876. Mortality touches all of us. What about the life of my soul - what threatens it? These are easier to discount, since no immediate, tangible, penalties may result. But, Bliss and Moody would warn us of these, and the ‘Father’s mercy’ (verse 1) and ‘sin’ (verse 2) we need to see. These fellows traveled a lot, spreading the news about God, so they must have been conscious of things that might go wrong along the way, including transportation that would falter. Whether it’s by land, or sea, or air, no method is failsafe, particularly when it gets dark. Is there a light where you’re headed? If you’re safe, even after tripping, are you warning that next person behind you?

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

Also see these links: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/l/e/t/letlower.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Bliss

Jesus Savior Pilot Me -- Edward Hopper

He must have listened to lots of tales of the sea as he encountered men recovering from difficult journeys. Why else would Edward Hopper have penned words for “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me” in the latter half of the 19^th Century? Hopper was putting words to the yarns men related about their lives on boats, lives that must have been less than the romantic adventures others might have assumed sailors told. Swashbuckling would hardly be the adjective to describe what these fellows must have related to Edward as their minister, someone in whom they confided about rough times, both physically and spiritually (perhaps something like Christ and the Apostles experienced, shown in Rembrandt’s masterpiece here). So, this minister-composer put himself in their shoes as he wrote.  

Edward Hopper was a lifelong New Yorker whose encounters at one church there inspired the poetry of this sailors’ favorite“Jesus…Pilot..” that was published in 1871. Hopper was a 55-year old at that point, and may have composed the words soon after beginning to minister at the Church of the Sea and Land, in New York Harbor, the previous year. This stone church building on New York’s Lower East Side was the scene where Hopper met many men of the sea during the senior years of his ministerial life. That he composed the hymn early in his association with this church and its members suggests he was quickly absorbed into their lives, and wanted to identify with and help them. Do you suppose Edward related the stories of Jesus’ episodes in a boat with the Apostles (Matthew 8 and 14; Mark 4; Luke 8), or of Paul being shipwrecked (Acts 27) to the sailors of the 1870s that he met?  Did he visit them in their livelihoods, stepping onto their ships or going to sea briefly with them?  Perhaps he had firsthand experience with the rough sea of which he writes in five of the six verses of “Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me”. Or, more often probably, he heard vivid stories from men who were glad to be on solid ground again. These were people who needed rest and reflection, and also strength to return to their maritime trade. On another plane, did they meet and associate with those who would cultivate their spirits while at work? What do you think? Maybe some of them ‘cursed like sailors’, at least on occasion, or hung out with some who did.

Perhaps the seafaring crowd gets an unfair knock…don’t we all meet, work, and some of us live with saucy people? Even the most hardened folks may have periods when they soften, when they need someone to steer their paths toward the inspired, true, and saving work of the Almighty. He knew what it was like to be rocked about on a boat, and also rocked in other ways, too. Boats and ships rust, and can sink when fired upon. People have characteristics that are similar, and even churches may behave like that. Hopper’s Church of the Sea and Land disbanded in 1972, 100 years after he first ministered there, but it’s still used by Chinese Presbyterians today. But, notably, what Hopper wrote still exists – as does its inspiration. That fact just might speak to a sailor.

The following website has a soundtrack and all six original verses for the song: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/j/s/p/jspilotm.htm

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

See biography of composer here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/h/o/p/hopper_e.htm 

See here for information on composer’s church where hymn was developed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_and_Land_Church