“Come you Faithful, Raise the Strain,” ELW 363
1 Come, you faithful, raise the strain
Of triumphant gladness!
God has brought his Israel
Into joy from sadness,
Loosed from Pharaoh's bitter yoke
Jacob's sons and daughters,
Led them with unmoistened foot
Through the Red Sea waters.
2 'Tis the spring of souls today:
Christ has burst his prison,
And from three days' sleep in death
As a sun has risen;
All the winter of our sins,
Long and dark, is flying
From his light, to whom is giv'n
Laud and praise undying.
3 Now the queen of seasons, bright
With the day if splendor,
With the royal feast of feasts
Comes its joy to render;
Comes to gladden faithful hearts
Which with true affection
Welcome in unwearied strain
Jesus' resurrection!
4 For today among the twelve
Christ appeared, bestowing
His deep peace, which ever more
Passes human knowing.
Neither could the gates of death,
Nor the tomb's dark portal,
Nor the watchers, nor the seal,
Hold him as a mortal.
5 Christ is alive!
Ascended Lord-
He rules the world his Father made,
Till, in the end, his love adored
Shall be to all on earth displayed
Devotion
Come you Faithful, Raise the Strain is a hymn that will not let us off the hook. The opening stanza commands us to open our mouths and sing. When we do, words like "triumphant gladness" find their way out.
As the hymn continues, we are not allowed to rest on merely one moment of salvation history. Instead we sing of God bringing forth "Israel into joy from sadness" (vs. 1, stanza 2).
In the last verse, we are forced to even confront death itself as we sing, "Alleluia, now we cry, to the Lord Immortal; who triumphant burst the bars of the tomb's dark portal."
"Come You Faithful," insists on our full, passionate, undivided participation in the story of God's salvation. Might it be that we carry this insistence with us into our living as well?
Prayer
O Lord, let us not fall unthinking into half-hearted participation in Your salvation story. Instead, let us live it boldly every day. Amen.