Sunday's Hymn

I’ve been posting lesser known hymns by prolific well-known hymn writers. Last week I used a hymn by Isaac Watts and I wanted to do that again this week—I’ve been featuring each hymn writer for two weeks in a row—but among all the hymns written by Watts, I couldn’t find one that had to do with the resurrection of Christ. So I’m posting one by Phillip Doddridge, who also wrote lots of hymns. You many know his Grace, ’Tis a Charm­ing Sound.

Yes, the Redeemer Rose

Yes, the Redeemer rose, the Savior left the dead,
And o’er our hellish foes high raised His conquering head.
In wild dismay the guards around,
Fall to the ground and sink away.

Lo! the angelic bands in full assembly meet,
To wait His high commands and worship at His feet.
Joyful they come, and wing their way
From realms of day to see His tomb.

Then back to Heav’n they fly and the glad tidings bear.
Hark! as they soar on high, what music fills the air!
Their anthems say, “Jesus, who bled,
Hath left the dead, He rose today.”

Ye mortals, catch the sound, redeemed by Him from hell;
And send the echo round the globe on which you dwell:
Transported, cry, “Jesus, who bled,
Hath left the dead, no more to die.”

All hail! triumphant Lord, who sav’st us with Thy blood;
Wide be Thy Name adored, Thou rising, reigning God!
With Thee we rise, with Thee we reign,
And empires gain beyond the skies.

Other hymns, worship songs, sermons etc. posted today:

• Christ is Risen! Alleluia! at Conjubilant with Song
• Lord’s Day 15, 2009 at The Thirsty Theologian
• Low in the Grave He Lay at The Happy Wonderer
• Easter Day at Nova Scotia Scott
• Jesus Christ is Risen Today at Hiraeth
• Lift High the Cross at Fieldstone Cottage
• Jesus—He’s Alive at joythruChrist
• Your weekly dose of Spurgeon at Pyromaniacs: The Resurrection: Christ’s Final Answer to Unbelief

Have you posted a hymn today and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar and I’ll add your post to the list.

He Is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!

Gustave Doré

• Resurrection of Jesus (Theological Term of the Week)
• What the Resurrection Says to the World
• What the Resurrection Means for Believers

Seven Stanzas at Easter

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His flesh: ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes,
the same valved heart
that–pierced–died, withered, paused, and then
regathered out of enduring Might
new strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
analogy, sidestepping, transcendence;
making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the
faded credulity of earlier ages:
let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mâché,
not a stone in a story,
but the vast rock of materiality that in the slow
grinding of time will eclipse for each of us
the wide light of day.

And if we will have an angel at the tomb,
make it a real angel,
weighty with Max Planck’s quanta, vivid with hair,
opaque in the dawn light, robed in real linen
spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
for our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are
embarrassed by the miracle,
and crushed by remonstrance.

—John Updike (1932-2009)