Tuesday, June 27, 2017

215. Incarnation Hymn

Two months isn't much of a dry spell as a hymn-writer, unless you factor in the fact that I once wrote approximately 100 hymns in a bit over one year;
but here's a hymn that I couldn't stop writing in my head during a desperately needed naptime this afternoon - and it wasn't one of the hymns I've been brainstorming during the past two months. It just started coming out of my brain, as if writing itself; but that was a mean trick, because after I gave up on the nap and sat up to write it,
the rest came out only with much effort and many crossings-out. I have no particular hymn-tune in mind at this time. If that changes, I'll update you.

Incarnation Hymn

Come, praise with songs of priestly joy
God's holy Son and Mary's boy:
Begotten ere the world's first morn,
Now at the end of ages born.
If from our flesh God does not shrink,
What cup for us will He not drink?

Now He who shaped the fiery spheres
In puny, infant flesh appears;
A virgin's breast, a workman's hands
Embrace Him who the cosmos spans.
So far committed for our sake,
What will our God not undertake?

Befuddled shepherd, heathen sage,
Your worship warms the holy page;
While He whom seer and angel sing
Is marked for death by priest and king.
If they so treat the tender shoot,
What will befall the ripened fruit?

So Christ, our All in all, was born
For all, and daring pain and scorn,
Did all that must for man be done,
And in man's place became as none.
Can God be bound in such degree
And fail to set the captive free?

Your love, O Lord, Your gracious plan
Compelled You to unite with man;
Your Word is given, sealed in blood,
Applied by washing, shared as food.
Since You have so restored the earth,
Can we but sing with heav'nly mirth?

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