'Common Ground' Song 111 ‘Sing for God’s Glory’
Words: © Kathy Galloway. Music: traditional, arrangement © Panel on Worship
YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKj-04iPlHs
Featured image: Sunrise over the Indian ocean, Kanyakumari, India. © Stephen Craven

The melody of this upbeat modern hymn is an old and familiar one: ‘Lobet den Herrn’, an old German hymn. The notes suggest that this new arrangement in 3/4 time shoud be sung ‘vigorously’, as it is based on a dance tune. Certainly I would sing it faster than in the recording linked above.

The original hymn is usually sung in English as ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the king of Creation’. The words here start with a reference to creation, but this is not just a revision of the old hymn. My first reaction on singing the words was that the writer of the lyrics (Kathy Galloway) must have been wearing rose-tinted spectacles. The first verse praises God for the beauty of a warming, colourful sunrise such as the Indian one shown above. I sit here at 9pm on a wet, miserable February night in Northern England, when there has scarcely been a glimpse of the sun yet this year. To cap that, the third verse praises God for his justice ‘tearing down tyrants’, ‘resisting evil’ and ‘offering freedom’. Where is that God in Kyiv, in the DRC, in North Korea, in Minneapolis?

But Galloway (who died last year) was no amateur songwriter. Her Wikipedia entry credits her as being a Church of Scotland minister, former leader of the Iona Community (therefore no stranger to stormy weather), and liturgical and theological consultant for the World Council of Churches and Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. She knew what she was writing and why. If those verses seemed crazily optimistic in a dark world (literally and metaphorically), the second and fourth verses are more measured in their words, and begin to offer an explanation.

Verse two praises God for his power. A power that ‘shatters the chains that would bind us’, ‘touching our shame with love’ and ‘reaching out gently to find us’. This is more about inner transformation, about God working quietly within those who turn to him. And the final verse praises the saints who ‘have travelled faith’s journey before us’ and ‘give us their hope to restore us’. This is a reminder that in every age faithful Christians have passed on that message of love and gentle power to a new generation. Many of them were martyred in doing so: it is they, not the tyrants who oppressed them, who have achieved everlasting life in heaven and lasting fame on earth.

So, perhaps the overall message I am taking away from this hymn is that it is by being strengthened by God’s gentle power, and inspired by the example and prayers of the unseen saints, that I can play my part in resisting evil. And even if the night is dark and wet now, winter will soon be over and spring will return. As one of my favourite Bible verses puts it, ‘weeping may remain for a night, but joy comes with the morning’ (Psalm 37:4).