The Power of the Cross -- Keith Getty and Stuart Townend

 

They wanted to remind their hearers about ‘the story’, what Christian believers consider the most important one ever told. To Stuart Townend and Keith Getty, the historical truth of God becoming man, and then willingly dying for everyone on planet Earth is “The Power of the Cross”. You can read their own thoughts about this 2003 song in the first two links below – they stand pretty complete without further explanation by this blogger-writer.

 

After you’ve read what Townend and Getty have said, and also listened to this Easter-like song try this: Let what they wrote inside yourself, perhaps with your eyes closed, as you imagine what they describe in the four verses they crafted. It’s not difficult music, and doesn’t stretch anyone’s voice range very much; yet, don’t be underwhelmed by this. It’s the words, and the progression of the notes and thoughts in concert that penetrate the spirit. Let them move you, and as Keith and Stuart say in their comments, this song is about fundamental Christianity. It’s the most basic truth and hope for all humankind, what’s been described as the hinge-point of all history. If you aren’t yet a believer, it’s for you too – that this God came and died for you, and there’s still space for you in His eternal home. You should not now, and will not be able at death’s door, to ignore the truth about this God. ‘What a love, what a cost’, Stuart and Keith write, and what a God we have!     

 

See here for brief remarks about the song from one of the authors-composers: https://www.stuarttownend.co.uk/song/the-power-of-the-cross/

See also here what they say about this song: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/resources/the-power-of-the-cross

Read briefly about the two authors-composers here: https://hymnary.org/text/o_to_see_the_dawn_of_the_darkest_day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Townend_(musician)

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

More here on their philosophy of hymn-writing: https://worship.calvin.edu/resources/resource-library/keith-getty-on-writing-hymns-for-the-church-universal/

Lead On, O King Eternal -- Ernest W. Shurtleff

He was just 25 years old, and feeling as if the roadmap was laying out before him, with more than a bit of anticipation and zeal. It was graduation day in 1887, and Ernest Warburton Shurtleff was thinking about not just himself, but also about his classmates, and probably wondering what it would be like if he could stare into a crystal ball and see where they all might be, what they might accomplish in the next several decades. And so, Ernest besought God with the words “Lead On, O King Eternal” as he and his fellow graduates prepared to bid the Andover Theological Seminary (see it in this painting) outside Boston goodbye and go in their various directions doing God’s work. What did Ernest think it would be like – tough or enjoyable with a few hurdles? See what you think after you consider his poem.

 

Ernest Shurtleff’s Andover classmates’ recognition of his poetic ability led them to solicit his creation of three verses to commemorate their special day in 1887, but they probably couldn’t have anticipated that what Ernest would compose would eventually capture his life’s biography so well. Ernest must have thought that the worker in God’s field would respond to the call in multiple places, with his reference to ‘tents...our home’ (verse 1), and indeed Ernest served from one end of the American continent to the other – California to Massachusetts, and Minnesota in between, and then in Germany and France by the early 20^th Century. His call out to God to ‘lead on…’ in each of his three verses suggests he intended to listen and obey as he thought in 1887 about where he might travel as a minister, to treat his ministry as a ‘day of march’ (v.1). Would it always be pleasant? This was a question he seems to have considered as he penned his words, with the answer being in the negative; his use of martial words like ‘conquest’, ‘battle’ (vv.1, 3), and ‘fierce war’ (v.2) indicate Ernest knew the enemy would be present to offer resistance. Ernest nevertheless looked ahead with courage, feeling that day in 1887 that Andover had been his ‘days of preparation’, that he had been ‘made..strong’ (v.1); that ‘…not with fears’ was a bold attitude not unwarranted when God was out front. Ernest knew that his battles were not mingled with the typical military trappings, but with weapons uniquely in God’s arsenal – with ‘grace’(v.1); holiness, a ‘sweet amen of peace’, and ‘deeds of love and mercy’ (v.2). While some poetry and an accompanying melody have an enchanting quality to draw its devotees for many years, Ernest’s words when paired with the music of Henry Smart (from an 1836 tune) are more like a soldier’s cadence, an obedient heartbeat played for the minister who is on task each day. Perhaps Ernest thought this image captured more appropriately what he saw his classmates and himself doing in the next few years – not necessarily near each other, but nevertheless shoulder-to-shoulder in pursuit of the Lord’s mission.               

 

Ernest Shurtleff must have looked back to his 1887 graduation with lots of conviction for the following 30 years until his departure from life in 1917. Shurtleff’s poetry indicates he realized the end of his days at Andover were actually a commencement, a notion that frankly not many graduates grasp in similar moments, including this blogger-writer. I missed school, felt melancholy, and spent significant hours -- indeed years -- trying to hang on to those memories of school. Blessed is the person who instead is given or somehow acquires the vision ahead, to a place and with Eternal Ones, and memories that won’t fade. That’s what Ernest saw in 1887.     

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 Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1982.

 

Also see this link, showing all four original verses: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/l/e/a/d/o/leadonok.htm

Also see this link for author’s biography: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/s/h/u/shurtleff_ew.htm

Into My Heart -- Harry D. Clarke

Maybe he was reflecting on his own conversion some years earlier – was this the impetus for what he penned as a 36-year old musical publisher-composer? Harry D. Clarke would have had many reasons to look back and wonder to himself how his life might have been very different had circumstances evolved in other ways, and if God had not come “Into My (his) Heart” when He did. Sioux City, Iowa (see the map here) was a significant place in Harry’s world – there are several indications of this – making this one place where he could have been when asking God into his life, perhaps for the first time or on subsequent occasions for renewal. He was like so many others who examined himself honestly, and saw a yawning gap between whom he wanted to be and who he really was. He’d concluded that only One presence could make the difference.

Harry D. Clarke had come through so very much by the time that he was 36 and living a life that he hardly could have imagined two decades earlier. He was an orphan who sought escape from his youth as a seaman for 10 years in Britain in the late 19^th-early 20^th Century, an inauspicious beginning for any youngster’s life. Fortunately, with the aid of a brother, he made his way to London and then to North America, finally arriving in the United States after a brief interlude in Canada. Was it at this point in his life, on a new continent and far from familiar surroundings, that Harry first asked for God’s intervention, to come ‘into my heart’? Something revolutionary occurred, as the rest of Clarke’s life unfolded in a way much different than had been the case through most of his teenage years. His education at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and his close association with the evangelists Harry vom Bruch and Billy Sunday were firm evidence that Clarke’s conversion – indeed, God’s entry into his heart – was genuine. Harry was following in the footsteps of these two men, particularly Sunday, as he launched into music as a composer-publisher, and also into evangelism by the mid-1920s. He undoubtedly had a resonant story that made his witness compelling to listeners; without parents since his early childhood, one can imagine Harry telling of his adoption into God’s family with an uncommon personal conviction. God must have indeed been Harry’s resolution for a ‘burden of sin’ (v.2), and a cleansing and illumination (v.3) for a troubled and weary soul (v.1). Perhaps like some others to whom he spoke, Harry may have remembered with overwhelming regret lots of episodes in 10 years as a seaman, as well as other incidents early in his youth. Life need not be a ‘dreary way’ (v.2), if you just ask him to come in, Harry reasoned.

Much of Harry Clarke’s life must have been spent in the Midwest around Sioux City telling others about his heart’s connection with the indwelling Spirit. He established the Billy Sunday Memorial Chapel in Sioux City, and was a pastor in the city until 1945; he was also buried there following his death in 1957. Clarke also served as an evangelist in Pennsylvania and Indiana, showing that his message was not confined to Iowa. Neither is the Spirit’s ability limited in His joining with those who need Him. As Harry may have surmised, He can enter anyone, but a certain desperation and desolation are preconditions for His movement. He won’t overpower, but He can guide, even control someone who is willing. Are you willing?   

        

See here for some biographic information on the author: https://hymnary.org/tune/into_my_heart_clarke

See also here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/c/l/a/r/clarke_hd.htm

See a brief biography here also: https://www.hopepublishing.com/993/