HYMN FOR EASTER III Abide with me
- Gracia Grindal
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Text: Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847) Tune: William Henry Monk (1823-1889)
1. Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.
2. Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see;
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.
3. I need Thy presence every passing hour:
What but Thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be?
Through cloud and sunshine, oh, abide with me.
4. I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless:
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness:
Where is death’s sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.
5. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
REFLECTIONS
This most popular hymn for death and dying is used at funerals so often it is hard to hear its strains without tearing up. Because it uses the phrase “Abide with me,” we also hear the couple walking with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, asking him to stay for dinner, since the hour is late. Abide with us, they say. Then, as they sit down to eat, Jesus breaks the bread and they see him suddenly revealed in that instant. But he does not linger. In a flash of light, he is gone, but they have recognized him. Now they know he is risen from the dead so they run all the way back to Jerusalem to tell the others. We have seen the Lord, he is risen!
While singing this hymn may seem less than a triumphant hymn for Easter, it's last stanza is thrilling. it speaks to us because we know the words from so many occasions where the tears were flowing and we needed the Lord to abide with us. We maybe don’t want to recognize him and then have him disappear. We want him to abide.
Maybe he hasn’t disappeared; he is there still in the bread. Through his food he becomes one with us and lives in us as he has always promised to do.
Upon realizing this truth, the couple run to tell others. And what they tell is the good news that death has been defeated and Christ has risen from the dead showing he can raise us one day.
We hear some of Paul’s great chapter 1 Corinthians 15 in the hymn: "Where is death’s sting? where, grave, thy victory?/I triumph still, if Thou abide with me."
If we do not believe Jesus has been raised, Paul says, we are most to be pitied. It makes our faith a laughing stock for the main thing in the whole story is that Jesus’ resurrection is the end of the powers of death, sin and the devil. While he abides in us, as he promised to, he also bears in his body the promise of the resurrection, so even as we face that last enemy, we can look with joy on the flash of light before us, as “heav’n’s morning breaks” and the one whom we now know to be our Lord and Savior, is risen from the dead. And he will raise us also from the dead. And abide with us forever.
HYMN INFO
Henry Francis Lyte (1793-1847), an Anglican minister, who wrote this classic hymn in the 1820s, suffered poor health his entire life. He knew his need for the Lord every minute of the day. It is said he wrote this hymn after attending a dying friend who kept repeating, Abide with me, abide with me.
The writer of the tune, Eventide, William Henry Monk (1823-1889), organist, composer and choir master in England’s most prestigious post, edited one of the most famous English hymnals of all time, Hymns Ancient and Modern (1861). The hymn has gone around the world. It is considered one of the patriotic hymns of England. It became especially important during World War I. Remembrance Day commemorating the tragic losses of the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli, always featured a moving rendition of the hymn. One can hear it in grand highly liturgical services, to folk and rock concerts. Even Elton John sang it in a concert! It is the anthem sung at the Rugby Challenge Cup. I have included a variety of styles and versions here.
LINKS
St. Olaf Cantorei and Congregation
Australian /Nathan Lay
Band version at the Anzac Remembrance Day
Ole Paus/Norway’s Bob Dylan
Thelonius Monk
Rugby Challenge
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For your devotions
"With these 366 sonnets, remarkable in artistry and number, Gracia Grindal has made literary history. The scriptural and theological knowledge that supports these poems is vast, but it is the imagination infused with the holy in poem after poem that reveals the poet's grace and skill and the astonishing work of the Spirit." --Jill Baumgartner, Poetry Editor, Christian Century, and professor of English emerita, Wheaton College