HYMN FOR SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY Hark! the Voice of Jesus Calling
- Gracia Grindal
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
Text: Daniel March (1816-1909). Tune: W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)
1. Hark! the voice of Jesus calling,
"Who will go and work today?
Fields are white, the harvest waiting,
Who will bear the sheaves away?"
Loud and long the Master calls out,
Rich reward he offers free:
Who will answer, gladly saying,
"Here am I, send me, send me."
2. If you cannot cross the ocean
And the foreign lands explore,Y
ou can find the needy nearer,
You can help them at your door.
If you cannot give in thousands,
You can give the widow's mite,
And the least you give for Jesus,
Will be precious in his sight.
3. If you cannot speak like angels,
If you cannot preach like Paul,
You can tell the love of Jesus,
You can say he died for all.
If you cannot rouse the wicked,
With the judgment's dread alarms,
You may lead the little children,
To the Savior's waiting arms.
4. Let none hear you idly saying,
"There is nothing I can do,"
While the lost of Earth are dying,
And the Master calls for you.
Take the task he gives you gladly;
Let his work your pleasure be.
Answer quickly when he's calling,
"Here am I, send, send me."
REFLECTIONS
(NB: you will notice that we have done a major upgrade of the site. After six years it was about time! All of the entries are still here, but there is more to attract and involve readers. Blessings to all!)
The Scripture for this Sunday from John gives us the picture of Jesus calling his first disciples. John the Baptist has been pointing to Jesus and crying out, Behold! the Lamb of God! And then he appears! Jesus asks the two who follow him, Whom are you seeking? And they ask in the older version, where do you abide?
That word comes up through the rest of the gospel. Abiding. It is more than staying, Jesus does not tell them, he says follow and you will see. While they will call him the Christ or Messiah, they have no idea what that means, really, or where he abides. They will discover that in the next three years as they follow him to the cross. And only after he is raised from the dead and ascended to his Father will they have the complete story. They will not even then fully understand who he is or where he abides, except with his Father. What that means will take a lifetime to discover. And as Paul says only after our resurrection will we see in full. Now we see as in a glass darkly.
This, however, does not stop us from a full life with Jesus. He calls us to share the light we have found in him. Even those glimpses are enough to propel us forward to tell others, to fish for people out there in the wild seas of life. Our calling is to bring the light to the whole world, not for our own sake, but for the sake of others. While the passage from Isaiah that sparked this hymn is a calling, the calling is to tell the people a strange thing: that they do not understand nor will they, a selection from Isaiah 6:8 which Jesus in Matthew 13 commends to his disciples. A strange passage to commend to them on the blindness and deafness of the people Isaiah is called to preach to.
Jesus praises his disiples because they do see and hear, but it isn't always a sure thing. The word can be stopped, like the seed, but it has a way of growing everywhere it is sown. And we are to sow it everywhere. For those who do hear and see, the harvest is great, as much as one hundred fold. So as the hymn advises us, we are called to be faithful in the smallest and humblest ways because this work is precious in his sight, it can help the smallest child, and poorest stranger.
Let this work be our pleasure as the hymn has it. We can only abide with him and trust that one day, as Jacob saw the heavens opened and the angels with the Son of Man climbing up and down, we will seem him coming to us again. We can believe he will bring us rich rewards, as the hymn has it.
HYMN INFO
This popular Gospel song from the 19th century was written, as many hymns are, by a preacher needing a hymn to go with the sermon. This one by a Congregational minister Daniel March before his sermon at the Philadelphia Christian Association. His text was Isaiah 6:8, as many call hymns and sermons are. The full text can be found in Brownlie’s Hymns and Hymnwriters of the Church Hymnary in 1895. It was originally 6 stanzas but has been reduced and revised to fit with modern sentiments. The tune Elesdie is attributed to Mozart.
LINKS
St. Matthew Lutheran Church
Concordia Publishing House
Dan sings Hymns
BEKOFI Creative Hub
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My latest book What a Fellowship: Remembering Augsburg Seminary and the Lutheran Free Church. You can read it in either a book or ebook!
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