Stuart Townend writes too many hymns, just like Charles Wesley and Graham Kendrick. And yes I do mention them all in the one sentence, because at their best the have given the Church some of the finest hymns in the worship repertoire. What makes a hymn good, great, even classic is a seriously contested question and no obvious answers forthcoming. Rhythm, imagery, tune, resonant experience, affective power, words - yes, and perhaps the precise cultural moment the hymn is composed and first sung.
Stuart Townend's "See what a morning", is one such hymn - theologically spacious, glistening with the imagery of hope, utterly Christocentric and rooted in Trinitarian faith, affirming of life and new beginnings and possibilities. I can't sing it without recognising the disjunct between this hymn and the litanies of despair and negativity that now dominate global news prostrate at the altar of The Economy. The irony is that the spacious, generous, inclusive safety of the term 'economy' is now lost in our worship of wealth, growth, the possession of power and the power of possession. The economy of salvation works quite differently in Christian theology, 'wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice.'
With a defiance every bit as unflinching as Paul in 1 Corithians 15, the hymn finishes each verse with the resurrection cry: "For he lives: Christ is risen from the dead!". Likewise the sixth line of each verse trumpets the great reversal of the Gospel, when all that ruins God's loving creative purposes is confronted with a power it can neither comprehend nor overcome. And the last verse is programmatic for the Church of Christ facing a world wearied and worn thin by human activity that is singlemindedly self-serving, and therefore resolutely destructive. To sing in such a world, "death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered", is to experience a trnasfigured worldview, to speak a different narrative, to look for a different ending that is in effect a new beginning.
The scandal of the resurrection remains for all sophisticated cultures, the late post-modern West included, the most radical questioning of what matters most, the most outrageous statement of what is ultimate, and the clearest most compassionate reticence about all explanations of purpose and meaning in the face of human suffering and the pain of all creation. Resurrection is not a statement that it all worked out in the end; it is a doctrine of utter disconinuity, a divine reversal of the order of things, the working out of a different economy in which cost, sacrifice and loss are borne in a transfiguring act of Eternal Love.
The Church is a resurrection community; a place where we are speaking life, stirring hope, bringing peace: a place where we sing and shout, "death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered"; for he lives, Christ is risen from the dead.
See what a morning, gloriously bright
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes
Tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce Christ is risen!
See God's salvation plan, wrought in love,
Borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man, for He lives,
Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping: 'Where is He laid?
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name:
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope,
Bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit
Who clothes faith with certainty,
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned
With power and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
See, what a morning, gloriously bright,
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes, tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce, "Christ is risen!"
See God's salvation plan,
Wrought in love, borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping, "Where is He laid?"
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name;
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope, bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit who clothes faith with certainty.
Honor and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned with pow'r and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives: Christ is risen from the dead!
"See, What a Morning" (Resurrection Hymn)
Words and Music by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend
Copyright © 2003 Kingsway Thankyou Music
See what a morning, gloriously bright
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes
Tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce Christ is risen!
See God's salvation plan, wrought in love,
Borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man, for He lives,
Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping: 'Where is He laid?
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name:
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope,
Bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit
Who clothes faith with certainty,
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned
With power and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
See what a morning, gloriously bright
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes
Tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce Christ is risen!
See God's salvation plan, wrought in love,
Borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man, for He lives,
Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping: 'Where is He laid?
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name:
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope,
Bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit
Who clothes faith with certainty,
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned
With power and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
See what a morning, gloriously bright
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes
Tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce Christ is risen!
See God's salvation plan, wrought in love,
Borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man, for He lives,
Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping: 'Where is He laid?
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name:
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope,
Bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit
Who clothes faith with certainty,
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned
With power and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
See what a morning, gloriously bright
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes
Tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce Christ is risen!
See God's salvation plan, wrought in love,
Borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man, for He lives,
Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping: 'Where is He laid?
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name:
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope,
Bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit
Who clothes faith with certainty,
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned
With power and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
See what a morning, gloriously bright
With the dawning of hope in Jerusalem;
Folded the grave-clothes
Tomb filled with light,
As the angels announce Christ is risen!
See God's salvation plan, wrought in love,
Borne in pain, paid in sacrifice,
Fulfilled in Christ, the Man, for He lives,
Christ is risen from the dead!
See Mary weeping: 'Where is He laid?
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name:
It's the Master, the Lord raised to life again!
The voice that spans the years,
Speaking life, stirring hope,
Bringing peace to us,
Will sound till He appears,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
One with the Father, Ancient of Days,
Through the Spirit
Who clothes faith with certainty,
Honour and blessing, glory and praise
To the King crowned
With power and authority!
And we are raised with Him,
Death is dead, love has won
Christ has conquered;
And we shall reign with Him,
For He lives, Christ is risen from the dead!
Your words were as a thunder clap to me today. The "economy of salvation" vs. the "litany of negativity" and the human drive for power. The idea that "death is dead, love has won, Christ has conquered" is not new to me, but was re-revealed to me as a crash of thunder, with rumbling echoes in my mind, of the universal hope of reversal, transfiguration, working out that is to come (and is come!).
And your description of the resurrection as "the most radical questioning of what matters most, the most outrageous statement of what is ultimate, and the clearest most compassionate reticence about all explanations of purpose and meaning in the face of human suffering and the pain of all creation", well, I will spend a few days with that, as one who has seriously grappled with the thought, or the cry, "what matters?!"
Seriously, I am printing out this post to read over again, and will search out a version of the song to listen to.
Thank you.
Posted by: Poetreehugger.blogspot.com | June 28, 2013 at 04:23 PM