23/07/2020
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Canon Simon Doogan
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PRAYER FOR THE DAY SCRIPT Canon Simon Doogan - Thursday 23 July 2020
Good morning.
Presenter of TV’s The Choir Gareth Malone, recently expressed
his own understandable concern about wanting to feel safe
before he would next walk into a room with one hundred people in it.
No one wants to dwell on how long it will be
before our faithful church choirs and singing groups
can reassemble for worship in the normal way.
Though when they do, one Irish favourite they may well turn to begins
“In Christ alone, my hope is found, he is my light, my strength, my song”.
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It’s as powerful sung acoustically and solo, as with a full choir and organ,
though I’ve been thinking back wistfully to being one of nine thousand voices singing it last year at a sports stadium in Belfast.
It started with the melody, for writers Keith Getty and Stuart Townend.
Distinctively Celtic,
and ancient and anthemic in style though barely twenty years old,
nothing but lofty, timeless lyrics would do.
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They looked no further than the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
but gave it the distinctly modern twist of expressing what those truths mean for those who find them foundational.
“For I am his and he is mine” as one line puts it,
“bought with the precious blood of Christ.”
It’s become an important hymn for many around the world,
especially, say its authors, where Christians have experienced
a tearing apart of their safety and security.
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“No power of hell, no scheme of man,” claims the song,
“can ever pluck me from his hand”.
Grandiose as that may sound to some,
it seems the man from Nazareth continues to touch those
for whom order and stability feel really fragile.
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Lord you sent a choir of angels to herald the birth of your Son
bless the choirs of these islands, forced to be apart for now
and who yearn to stand shoulder-to-shoulder again
to proclaim with one heart and voice the word and works of God.
Amen
Broadcast
- Thu 23 Jul 2020 05:43±«Óătv Radio 4