Common Ground Song 128 ‘The Servant King’
Words /Music: Graham Kendrick © Kingsway’s ThankYou Music
YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4FtZ9XzZag (words in the comments).
Featured image: star formation © Dr. Ing. Martin Junius

One of Graham Kendrick’s best known worship songs from the 1980s, this one is often sung around Holy Week, which finishes today (Easter Eve) – though you are probably reading this on or after Easter Day. The first verse reminds us that Jesus came to reveal the God who serves those he has created, as I wrote for my Maundy Thursday reflection.  The second takes us out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where despite tears and sorrow he accepted his Father God’s will that he should die a painful death as the ultimate act of sacrificial love.

The third verse has a memorable line reminding us that according to John’s Gospel and the Letter to the Colossians, Jesus was the incarnation of the very Word of God, the creative force of God: ‘hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered’. The poetry there sounds so much better than ‘hands that made gravity cause nuclear fusion’ or some other more accurate description of star formation!

The last verse – ‘so let us learn to serve, and in our lives enthrone him’ – has a particular place in my Christian journey. I was helping out, as a young adult Christian, on a summer camp for teenagers. This was one of the songs sung at the evening worship time in the ‘big tent’, and it moved me to tears in a way that few worship songs ever have. was one of the first nudges from God towards some kind of full time Christian service, though it would be another ten years or so before I found the right place for me (that’s a story for another time, but it definitely was not youth ministry!)  

This Eastertide, may you all celebrate Christ’s death and resurrection, and each find your own call to serve.