Sunday, October 5, 2003

Devotion

This hymn encompasses the scope of relationships addressed in this week’s lessons:

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above;
For all gentle thoughts and mild:
Christ, our Lord, to you we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.

This verse is preceded by three others extolling the broader creation: the beauty of the earth, sky, day, night, hill, vale, tree and flower. The human community is properly related to all of God’s expansive creation included in the arena of redemption.

The author, Folliott Pierpiont, began writing hymns in his sixties. Perhaps the wisdom of age accounts for his closing verse in which the agent of our redemption caps off a litany of God’s good gifts, bringing communion between heaven and earth:

For yourself, best gift divine
To the world so freely giv’n;
Agent of God’s grand design,
Peace on earth and joy in heav’n;