“Son of God, Eternal Savior” ELW 655 and LBW 364
1 Son of God, eternal Savior, source of life and truth and grace,
Word made flesh, whose birth among us hallows all our human race,
you our head, who, throned in glory, for your own will ever plead:
fill us with your love and pity, heal our wrong, and help our need.
2 As you, Lord, have lived for others, so may we for others live.
Freely have your gifts been granted; freely may your servants give.
Yours the gold and yours the silver, yours the wealth of land and sea;
we but stewards of your bounty held in solemn trust will be.
3 Come, O Christ, and reign among us, King of love and Prince of peace;
hush the storm of strife and passion, bid its cruel discords cease.
By your patient years of toiling, by your silent hours of pain,
quench our fevered thirst of pleasure, stem our selfish greed of gain.
4 Son of God, eternal Savior, source of life and truth and grace,
Word made flesh, whose birth among us hallows all our human race:
by your praying, by your willing that your people should be one,
grant, oh, grant our hope’s fruition: here on earth your will be done.
Devotion
When Somerset Lowry wrote these words in 1893, it is clear that he understood God to be the source of all that is good – our gifts, our gold, our property and our service. How refreshing it is to sing about the good things God has done for us and given to us. How encouraging it is to know that God enables us to invest these good gifts with each other. God has entrusted us with a bounty, great or small, to steward and share. “We but stewards of your bounty held in solemn trust will be.”
Prayer
Dear God, enable us to be good stewards of your bounty. Amen.