HYMN FOR THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT I have decided to follow Jesus
- Gracia Grindal
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Text: Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)Â Â Â Â Â Â Tune: Assam
1.    I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
I have decided to follow Jesus,
No turning back, no turning back.
2.    The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me,
No turning back, no turning back.
3.    Tho' none go with me, I still will follow,
Tho' none go with me, I still will follow,
Tho' none go with me, I still will follow,
No turning back, no turning back.
4.    Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
No turning back, no turning back.
REFLECTION
This hymn, sometimes called, "No turning back," a theme song for the Billy Graham meetings, gives Lutherans the willies. Faith is a gift from God, not that of your own making, they say. But the story of the hymn should blunt most of those twitches. Welsh missionaries brought the gospel to Assam who welcomed them, but there was a fierce tribe among them that violently persecuted the Christians. One family was chased down by the tribe and forced to deny their Lord. As they stood before the chief and the people, the chief asked them to renounce their faith or die. The father, Nokseng, a man of the Garo tribe from Meghalaya, refused, and said something like the first words of this hymn. When asked again, his sons were killed, as he said something like the lines in the second stanza.
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As his sons lay dead before him, he was again asked to deny his Lord, and he said the third line, and his wife was killed. Then again, and as he was being shot, the father spoke the word. The chief having seen the strength of their faith came to regret his actions and himself became a Christian.
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This hymn is a vivid and terrifying picture of what it means to follow Jesus. It is not about the decision to give your heart to Jesus. It is about what it means to follow--to live with--Jesus. No matter where he leads, and it will mean suffering and death, he is the way, the truth and the life. In today’s lesson, Jesus is challenging Nicodemus in this most vivid encounter to follow him into life, eternal life. Nicodemus is an earth-bound literalist and cannot understand Jesus’ challenge to receive everlasting life. Jesus came not to condemn the world, but to save it. To live with him is to follow him. The Christian life is not only about our ending, it is about our living life to the fullest here.
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It makes a difference when you walk with the Lord. One friend of mine said that when she became a Christian it was like the world became Technicolor rather than black and white. Jesus came to give us new life in this world as well as the next!
Nokseng made the decision to obey the Lord. he decided to follow Jesus by doing the Lord’s will. Prompted by the Holy Spirit, he was able to give witness to Jesus Christ. No turning back. God give each of us the strength in today's antagonistic world to follow Jesus no matter where he leads!
HYMN INFO
Sadhu Sundar Singh is said to have turned this story into singable verse using an Assam tune. Born in Rampur, Punjab, India, Sundar became a Christian missionary to Kashmir, Tibet and Afghanistan, and the Punjabi. Raised as a pious Sikh, he had a spiritual crisis after his mother died when he was fourteen. He prayed for some insight and a vision of Jesus appeared before him with the nailprints in his hands and feet. From then on, he believed and brought the gospel to everyone he met. He became a holy man (sadhu) to teach the Gospel to people in his own culture. For this he was persecuted and beloved. William Reynolds, a Baptist pastor and professor of hymnology, heard the music to the song from India and set it in 1959 so that people at the revivals could sing it. It became a standard of the Billy Graham revival meetings.
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LINKS
Elevation Worship
Rampert and Meghala
GooberSirhttps://youtu.be/S8jvfdDtoqY
Kathryn Scott
Tasha Cobbs Leonard
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For your Lenten reading
"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
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