HYMN FOR PENTECOST II What a Friend we Have in Jesus

1. What a friend we have in Jesus All our sins and griefs to bear What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer Oh, what peace we often forfeit Oh, what needless pain we bear-- All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer 2. Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere? We should never be discouraged— Take it to the Lord in prayer. Can we find a friend so faithful Who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness— Take it to the Lord in prayer. 3. Are you weak and haven laden? Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge— Take it to the Lord in Prayer Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer. In his arms he’ll hold and shield you: You will find a solace there. REFECTIONS There are not many hymns about the demoniac and the sending of the pigs into the lake. For some reason the wild and terrible stories of Jesus’ life and ministry don’t seem to attract hymn writers. It isn’t that hymn writers haven’t suffered terribly. To read the biographies of hymn writers is sometimes a terrifying thing. Almost as if God is testing them to make sure that their words come from the heart. Most of them, however, write their hymns after the terrible times and things have calmed down.   This story of Jesus’ encounter with the demoniac is filled with good news and strange things. The demoniac has lived among the graves and has no friends who could help him. Even his demons beg to be released from him. Into the waters they go and drown. And, as we know from The Wizard of Oz , demons perish in water. Thus baptism, thus… Christian lore has it that when Jesus tells the man who wants to follow him to stay and work among the people there, he is really telling the man to establish a congregation. Which apparently he did since that place became one of the stronger Christian areas in the country. In his healing and his mission, the demoniac found a friend.   That is the message of our hymn today. The writer of this hymn, among the top ten favorites of all time, Joseph Scriven, a graduate of Trinity College in Dublin, suffered great anxieties and troubles. Raised in Ireland, in a home of substance, he left Ireland not long after his fiancé died of drowning the night before their wedding. It was an unimaginable blow. He fled to Ontario, Canada. There he heard his mother was dangerously ill. He wrote her this poem, calling it, “Pray without ceasing.” As he settled into life in Canada, he found new love and, in 1860, was about to marry when his fiancé died of pneumonia. This was a blow from which he never really recovered. He continued writing and working. That he had written the text, which he had published anonymously, became known only near the end of his life. In 1886, Scriven was caught in the depths of despair from his ill health, poverty and deep depression. The demons were at work in him. At a camp with some friends who were watching over him, he left his room in the middle of the night without notice. His body was found floating in the lake the next morning. Those with him were never sure if it had been accident or suicide.   One might have wished someone could have sung his famous words back to him in his time of despair. It may have encouraged him as his words have lifted millions around the world on hearing his song so simply set by Charles Converse. The line is open, as Scriven wrote in this poem. Take all your troubles without ceasing, all the worries and anxieties you are having just now, to the Lord in prayer. It is what he came for, to take on all our troubles, and exchange them for his peace. Bring your demons to him and let them be drowned in his waters. Jesus is right here. A friend indeed. HYMN INFO Charles Crozat Converse, who composed the tune, had studied law and musical composition in Leipzig, Germany, where almost every composer of the time would go to study composition. Converse, well along in years, died during the second wave of the 1918 influenza epidemic. LINKS Ella Fitzgerald https://youtu.be/iaXwRAZ6d5s Aeolians of Oakwood University https://youtu.be/7ign89A1NuY   Via Vitae https://youtu.be/zS5mFrEcogo   German https://youtu.be/Bsfv5QFczuA   Vision children’s choir from Uganda https://youtu.be/cwi_qKVI8lQ