HYMN FOR ASCENSION DAY AND SUNDAY I See You Standing, Lamb of God
- Gracia Grindal
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Text: Hans Adolph Brorson (1694-1764) Tune: Norwegian Folk tune
I see you standing, Lamb of God,
Now at your Father’s right,
But, oh, how painful was your road
That led to Zion’s height!
And what a burden that you bore;
The world’ distress and shame.
It made you fall so you could share
The woe that none could name.
O spotless Lamb, it was your will,
In love thus bound to be
Upon the cross on Calvr’ys hill,
From sin to set us free.
With lion strength, your nail-pierced hands
Our death the death-blow gave
And broken were our prison bands
When you broke from your grave.
Around your throne a throng does stream
In raiment white as snow.
Their eyes like suns with radiance beam
The Lamb of God to know.
The story how He chose to be
A servant for our sake,
The angels will eternally
Sing anthems with your praise.
Twelve times twelve thousand now acclaim,
Each with their harp in hand
Upon their brow, your Father’s name
Makes know that happy band.
As voice of many waters rise
In rapt’rous symphony,
To you who won us Paradise
Eternal praises be.
REFLECTION
Ascension Day is not celebrated in the US much, although the Europeans have traditionally made it a holiday. It has turned into a kind of spring day, in Germany, with spargel (asparagus) in many forms on the menu. It should be, however, a major festival in churches still. It marks the coronation of Jesus as King and his taking up his place beside his Father in heaven, as we confess every Sunday in the creed. The best resource on this is Sarah Hinlincky Wilson’s Forty Facets of the Ascension, available at her website. https://thornbushpress.com/product/forty-facets-of-the-ascension/
Even if you have had to turn the seventh Sunday in Easter into Ascension celebrations, you should make the day special. One way is to study up on this book.
The hymn I have chosen uses the language of Stephen in his sermon and ecstatic comments as he is dying—he sees Jesus standing by the Father. This not just an accident of Luke’s prose. He really is pushing a theological point that is worth noting. After Stephen’s exclamation that he sees Jesus in heaven standing by the Father, they go to kill him. It is pure blasphemy to see Jesus as the high priest now standing in the high holy place, heaven’s hill after standing on the holy hill of Mt. Zion. See Psalm 24, etc. There is much more to the story, but it intrigued me that my favorite Danish hymn writer, Brorson, in his Swan Songs, written as he lay dying, used Stephen’s language to describe the hosts of heaven. Most think of this as a hymn for All Saints Day, but in my tradition it was always there for Ascension, because of the first line.
Those of us who are long in the tooth remember the embarrassment our generation felt with the idea of heaven up there as the three-story universe had it, so we always wondered where Jesus went as the disciples gazed up at him. Where was he going? After Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet Cosmonaut, became the first man in space, the Soviets noted that he hadn’t seen Jesus in space. (Some say he said that, but the record is not clear on that.)
Now scholars are saying Jesus went into another dimension from which he will come again to reign “on earth as it is in heaven.” The biblical writers and scholars struggle to explain that, but we can take it on faith that as Jesus was raised up bodily, so we will be, not as spirits, but as resurrected flesh that Paul struggles to describe or at least hint at in 1 Corinthians 15. All we can do is wait in hope for that day.
HYMN INFO
Hans Adolph Brorson is among the three great writers of hymnody in Denmark. He grew up in Jutland where his father was pastor of the small parish of Randerup. He also became a pastor and later Bishop of Ribe. He served Christ Church in Tønder, a rich city of lacemakers who supported the church where he served as the Third Danish pastor since German was as common as Danish in the church. Brorson began writing Danish hymns in 1732 when he wrote a brief series of Christmas hymns in an effort to restore the central focus of Christmas tide from a drunken holiday to a Christian one. His first little volume of some few hymns—"Your little ones dear Lord are we," "My Heart is filled with Wonder," "In this happy Christmastide," and "I’ve found now the fairest of roses" are still among the most popular hymns for Christmas in the Nordic countries. The last collection he wrote, the Swan Songs, contain many of his more popular hymns on heaven, like "Behold a Host," and this one.
LINKS
Staff Band of the Norwegian Armed Force
Susanne Lundeng
Bergen Domkantori
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