Category: Morning Worship

“Holy Spirit End our Sadness…”

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The following are the words of Lutheran minister Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676), considered by many to be Germany’s greatest hymn writer. We will be singing it this coming Pentecost Sunday. My favorite lines are in the first stanza: “Come, O Source of sweetest gladness; Breathe your life and spread your life.” Only through the new birth and the sanctifying power of the Spirit shining the life and light of Christ into our souls, can we ever hope to experience the sweetest gladness that the Lord has laid up for His people in the person of His Son. May this be your prayer as you prepare your souls to worship the Lord on this Pentecost Sunday.

Holy Spirit, end our sadness;
Pierce the clouds of sinful night;
Come, O source of sweetest gladness,
Breathe Your life and spread Your light!
Hear, O hear our supplication,
Loving Spirit, God of peace!
Rest upon this congregation,
Great distributer of grace!

From the height which knows no measure
As a gracious show’r descend.
Bringing down the richest treasure
We can wish, or God can send!
Help us flee what e’er would harm us,
Both from error and from sin.
Guard us, less the world alarm us,
Holy Fountain, cleanse within.

Be our friend on each occasion,
God, omnipotent to save!
When we die, be our salvation,
When we’re buried be our grave.
Seat us with Your saints in glory,
When from out the grave we rise,
Then forever we’ll adore You,
Round Your throne above the skies.

Tunes for Psalm 148, Psalm 2, and “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted”

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In an effort to familiarize the congregation with the tunes for our Lord’s day Psalms and hymns, I’ll begin posting a link to the OPC website where you can listen to the tunes from our Trinity hymnal.  This week we are singing:

Psalm 148:1-13 (p. 105; to the tune “Kirkpatrick”)

Psalm 2 (p. 227; to the tune “Uxbridge”)

Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted (p. 192; to the tune “O mein Jesu, ich muss sterben”)

The Votum and Apostolic Greeting

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You may have noticed a slight change in our liturgy over the past few Sundays.  Instead of immediately beginning with a call to worship, we’ve begun the service with our acknowledgment of the Triune God in whose name we enter into divine worship, followed by the votum and apostolic greeting.  Why begin the service in this way?  I’ve found Clarence Bouwman’s explanation of the liturgical use of the Votum and apostolic greeting very helpful.  The whole article can be accessed here.

The worship service can be broken into a number of sections, each section made up on several parts. The parts of the first section are as follows:

-The service begins with the words, “Our help is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” Those words are borrowed from Psalm 124:8, and constitute a confession of dependence on God. In our congregation, the man on the pulpit speaks these words; in some other churches (eg, the Aldergrove church as well as in the Abbotsford URC) the congregation speaks these words. This opening word is known as the votum.

-Next comes a quote from 1 Corinthians 1:3: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (though sometimes a similar longer quote is used from Revelation 1:4,5). This salutation or greeting comes from the mouth of the man on the pulpit, and is accompanied (when a minister is on the pulpit) with the hand upraised in greeting.

-After this greeting the congregation sings a song of praise.

Please note that these three parts form a conversation, or dialogue. The words of the votum express the sentiment of the congregation (be it that it’s voiced by the congregation or by the minister on behalf of the congregation). With the words of this votum, the congregation confesses that in the midst of the bruises and trials experienced in the course of the week past, “our help is in the name of the Lord.” In fact, that’s why we’ve come to church.

In the greeting the Lord God responds to the congregation’s confession of dependence. How rich that is: as a sinful congregation confesses dependence on God in the troubles of life, the Lord replies not with a statement that life’s bruises and tears are deserved, but with a word of grace!

How understandable, then, that once the congregation has heard this word of mercy from their Father in Jesus Christ –sinful though this congregation is!- the assembly breaks out into a song of adoration! This song catches the gratitude that lives in the hearts of the people on account of God’s mercy caught in those familiar words of Greeting.

 

Psalter Notes, #2: Psalm 46

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The second Psalm we’ll be singing this Lord’s day is Psalm 46, found on page 37 of the Trinity hymnal.  The tune is very familiar and can be listened to here.  This metrical version of the Psalm is divided into five parts. The theme of this Psalm is the protection of God and the confidence of his people.  Spurgeon called this Psalm “The Song of Holy Confidence.”  Each stanza highlights the fact that God’s people are protected, strengthened, and helped, even in the most perilous of providences.

In the first stanza (46:1-3), the Psalmist envisions the ruin and destruction of the created order, “the most terrible commotions within the range of imagination” (Spurgeon).  If God is our refuge and strength in the darkest of conceivable providences, then surely God is our refuge, our strength, our “ever present aid” no matter how dark and frightening the circumstances of our lives may be. We are safe in the hands of a good, gracious, and omnipotent God.

The second stanza (46:4-7) reveals that the presence of the Lord is the great delight of his people, even in profound trouble.  The souls of weary saints are refreshed by the abiding presence of the Lord.  The church is a kingdom of solid joys and lasting pleasures living in the midst of a raging and unhappy world.

In the third stanza (46:6-7), the Psalmist emphasizes the rock solid reality that the people of God are safe, even when her enemies lash out in furious rage.  His mighty word brings forth peace in the midst of chaos.  The Lord will never leave his church a prey to her persecutors.

The fourth stanza (46:8-9) is a call to behold the wondrous works of the Lord, in particular the cessation of warfare and violence. The “desolation” of the Lord is unlike the violent desolations of the wicked which leave bloodshed, violence, and war in their train.  The “desolation” of the Lord brings restoration and peace, healing wounds rather than making them.  The Psalmist looks, with the inspired eye of future hope to a time when the violent kingdoms of the earth will be supplanted by the peaceable kingdom of God.

The last stanza calls upon the nations (some see this command as addressed to the people of God) to, literally, “Be quiet!”  The nations are called to lay down their arms and cease from their attempts to rebel against the Lord and destroy his people.  In Jesus Christ, the raging of the nations has ceased; men, women, and children from every tribe, tongue, people and nation have laid down their arms, beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; exalting their just Judge who is also their loving Father, the Lord of all the earth in whose hands they are forever secure.

God is our refuge and our strength,
Our ever present aid,
And, therefore, though the earth remove,
We will not be afraid;
Though hills amidst the seas be cast,
Though foaming waters roar,
Yea, though the mighty billows shake
The mountains on the shore.

A river flows whose streams make glad
The city of our God,
The holy place wherein the Lord
Most high has his abode;
Since God is in the midst of her,
Unmoved her walls shall stand,
For God will be her early help,
When trouble is at hand.

The nations raged, the kingdoms moved,
But when his voice was heard
The troubled earth was stilled to peace
Before his mighty word.
The Lord of hosts is on our side,
Our safety to secure,
The God of Jacob is for us
A refuge strong and sure.

O come, behold what wondrous works
Jehovah’s hand has wrought;
Come, see what desolation great
He on the earth has brought.
To utmost ends of all the earth
He causes war to cease;
The weapons of the strong destroyed,
He makes abiding peace.

Be still and know that I am God,
O’er all exalted high;
The subject nations of the earth
My name shall magnify.
The Lord of Hosts is on our side,
Our safety to secure,
The God of Jacob is for us
A refuge strong and sure.

Psalter Notes, #1: Psalm 22:23-27

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PsaltersThe first Psalm we’ll be singing this coming Lord’s day is on page number 6 in the Trinity Hymnal (Ps. 22:23-27). After a call to praise and revere the Lord, the Psalmist specifically praises the Lord for 1) His grace in answering the prayers of his people, 2) His goodness which draws forth public praise within the congregation, 3) His kingly righteousness which will extend to all of the nations, a promise fulfilled in Jesus (Rev. 1:5; 5:9-10). In his face these attributes shine most brightly. The tune is “Park Street” and can be accessed here: https://www.opc.org/hymn.html?hymn_id=31

All ye that fear Jehovah’s Name,
His glory tell, his praise proclaim;
Ye children of his chosen race,
Stand ye in awe before his face,
Stand ye in awe before his face.

 
The suffering one he has not spurned,
Who unto him for succor turned;
From him he has not hid his face,
But answered his request in grace,
But answered his request in grace.

 
O Lord, thy goodness makes me raise
Amid thy people songs of praise;
Before all them that fear thee, now
I worship thee and pay my vow,
I worship thee and pay my vow.

 
The Lord’s unfailing righteousness
All generations shall confess,
From age to age shall men be taught
What wondrous works the Lord has wrought
What wondrous works the Lord has wrought.