Death, Where Now Hath Gone Thy Stinging?

Death, where now hath gone thy stinging?
Fled it at my Lord’s forth-springing!
Grave, hath hence thy vict’ry vanish’d?
Christ thy hellish host hath banish’d!
Though thou didst me once imprison,
Christ from out thy bonds is risen;
He me freeth from thy subjection
By His glorious resurrection!

Once my sin had quite enthrall’d me;
High within its gates I wall’d me.
It, the sting of death, had shown me
How the Law did quite disown me,
Yet the guilt that o’er me reigned
Could not stay His hand, Who deigned
On a wretch to show His pleasure:
Mercy great in greatest measure.

Christ, Thou, great High Priest in Heaven,
As my Paschal Lamb wast given;
Thou aton’d’st for my transgression
And now makest intercession
To Thy Father, Who doth know Thee
And hath plac’d all things below Thee:
He doth love Thee for Thy bleeding—
He shall rule as Thou art pleading.

Praise to Thee that deign’d to love me
Though Thy Law was quite above me;
Through Thy Christ Thou gain’d’st the vict’ry
And from death to life hast quick’d me;
Thou hast promis’d life immortal;
Now is death but Heaven’s portal.
Made was I to this end for Thee:
E’er to ceaselessly adore Thee.

—4/18/11? On 1 Cor 15:55-57. To “Schmücke Dich.”

Break Unto Us the Living Bread

Break unto us the living Bread
Which Thou hast promised Thine;
Keep ever Thou our spirits fed
And with Thee let us dine,
That we may rest at peace in Thee
And Thou in us reside,
For never shall we hunger see
While with Thee we abide.

Faith, Hope, & Love

My faith is in the God of grace
And in His pow'r to save me;
He sent His Son to take my place
And His own Spirit gave me.
I cannot see it, but I know
His wondrous grace hath made it so;
In Him I am established.

My hope is in God's faithful Word;
He said He would remake me
In His own likeness - sweet accord!
When death shall overtake me.
He hath not done it yet, but will;
Till then I can be certain still:
His Word may ne'er be broken.

The love I bear unto my Head
I have, for He first loved me,
And when I was in trespass dead,
He quicked my heart and moved me.
Though yet I love Him and adore,
I pray for grace to love Him more -
How else should I repay Him?

My faith, my hope, and all my love
I give to God, their sender,
But when I am at rest above,
Two shall repay their lender:
For unto sight shall faith be turned,
And hope shall see for what it yearned,
But love shall be for ever!

—2/14/2011. On 1 Cor 13:13. To “Mit Freuden Zart.”

The Second Coming

The saints, whose names fill Heaven's roll,
Their ardent praises e'er outpour,
Yet all await the sev'n-sealed scroll.
And silence great doth still their roar
As now is giv'n the Lamb His right;
He wicked husbandmen doth send
His wrath in searing pain and fright,
With flame and plague the earth doth rend.

On steed of white descendeth He,
Fire in His eyes, His words a sword!
When His dread Holiness they see,
All nations own Him as their Lord
Too late; He judgeth them in might,
The earth doth raze and form anew,
Doth bring Jerus'lem down in light,
And reigneth there, fore'er in view!

—9/4/2010? On Rev 4-22. To “Jerusalem (Parry)” (“And did those feet, in ancient time”).

Tonight have I supp’d with the heroes of old,
And the things that I heard were more seemly than gold
Of the deeds of the past that were gracious and bold.
Oh! I fain would have stayed 'til the night had turn’d cold
As I hark’d to those heroes of old.

—13 August 2010

Election

Sinful and wretched one, what canst thou glory,
Who, for thy sin, stoodest justly condemned,
But that the Lord, ere Creation, foreknew thee,
Did for thy guilt His atonement send?

Though thou despised Him, yet did He save thee:
'Twas not of thee nor of deeds thou hadst done;
Great is His grace, and He gave it thee freely,
Cleansed thee of wickedness, made thee son.

Kept of the Blessed One, what can destroy thee?
Who thine adoption shall render it null?
Thou hast been sealed of the Lord, unto glory;
Thou of His Spirit hast been made full.

Worm that a son wast made, that shalt thou glory!
Boast in thy Father's unfath'mable love!
Speak to the world His immeas'rable mercy;
Bid men pray God wrath and sin remove.

—8/8/2010. To “Russian Hymn.”

The Faithful Pastor

A faithful pastor who has known?
His value countless is
Who ever cares for all God's own
And makes their troubles his.

He shepherds all his flock of God;
Their guarding is his pride;
With tenderness he bears the rod
And staff, their lives to guide.

His life is blameless, without spot,
He cannot be accused;
Example sets he to the lot
Of them that God did choose.

A preacher of God's wondrous Word,
A man of truth is he.
He makes the Gospel to be heard,
For souls works jealously.

When strays a member from the Way,
He feels the utmost pain;
He urges him to Christ obey
And prays 'tis not in vain.

When teachers false invade the church,
He suffers sore in heart;
For ways to show their lies does search,
Of truth forsakes no part.

So therefore, double honor pay
To them that labor hard,
To them that strive to show the Way
And struggle in the Word.

O Lord, we pray, please grant that we
May such a man receive—
Who makes You all his life to be—
And never let him leave.

—7/19/2010

A/N 11/25/25: The church I wrote this at would later violently split. I pray I do not dishonor anyone involved by reposting this old poem here.

A Prayer for Daily Strength

Today, dear Lord, Thy strength bestow,
For I am weak and full of sin.
Subdue my pride; rein in my lusts,
And mold my will till it is Thine.

Today, dear Lord, forgiveness grant,
For I Thy Law have oft disdained.
Ashamed, I venture near the throne,
And kneeling, beg for grace again.

Today, dear Lord, deliver me
And save me from the tempter's lure.
For ev'ry trial that I meet
Please give me power to endure.

Today, dear Lord, Thy favor show
And satisfy my ev'ry need.
And grant that I may prove to all
Thy love, with loving word and deed.

Today, dear Lord, Thy truth impart,
For Thou alone art wholly true.
Remove all falseness from my heart
And teach me what is right anew.

—20 June 2010. To “Hesperus (Quebec)” or “Tallis' Canon.”

May the Mind of Christ, the Humble

May the mind of Christ, the humble,
Teach me servitude afresh.
He, though God, Himself did empty,
Taking human flesh.

May the will of Christ, submissive,
Supersede and swallow mine.
He, though anguished, prayed the Father,
“Not my will but Thine.”

May the death of Christ, the lowly,
Keep my soul in awe employed.
He endured that earthly shaming
For His Heav'nly joy.

May the life of Christ, the risen,
Make me live, though I should die.
Raised in glory, now He sitteth
At the Father's side.

May the hope of Christ's returning
Spur me on to do His Will,
That, when He shall judge the nations,
I'll be faithful still.

—6-7 June 2010. To “St Leonards” (“May the mind of Christ, my Savior”).

Funereal Thoughts

Tonight, I to the fun’ral-parlor went,
There to see the body of a saint,
Who, two days past, this mortal coil did leave
And to the arms of Christ, her Lord, was sent.
And as I stood, surrounded thus
By friends, who many months I had not met,
Both young and old, who came as I—
Their last respects to pay,
I wondered if any of them felt as I—
Sad, and ready now to weep and mourn—
Though not for her, who unto Paradise
Was giv’n, nor even for her husband,
Who for more than sixty years hath had her.
The one no heartache knows,
For she in everlasting pleasure rests;
The other, tho’ old, is strong
And shows no outward sign of loss.
No, the reason that I give for feeling thus—
As though I should betake myself to bed
And cry for hours, if not days—is this:
Sometimes the world seems joyous to me,
As if there were no care or end of good,
But now, surrounded thus, by relatives and friends,
Her body in the casket, gently lit
(How odd the earthly temple seems,
When, bereft of spirit, it lies still—
It seems made of wax, and molded by a master)—
It is now that I remember that from dust came men,
And thence they go again—
That nothing here forever will remain,
But all is doomed to sometime its end know.
How can I be happy in this world and body of death?
Tomorrow, the church's hallowed halls
I, with my presence, shall grace,
And there, with all these people I have seen tonight
And more besides, will learn of her life—
When she was born, when she wed,
How she trusted Christ as Head—
Meaningless to the rest of the world,
But not to us, the few who knew her.
And then I will enter depression, as I have done
After every other funeral that I ever attended—
Is it wrong to feel thus?
To mourn not that she died,
But that death lives?
It seems to me that ‘tis not right,
For “death is swallowed up in victory,”
Yet something in me also says ‘tis right,
For did not even Christ, our Lord,
Also groan inside, that this world
In sin should so exist?
I know not, but with this hope console myself—
However dim, at times, it may be seen—
This world is not my final stopping-place,
But go I on to worlds as yet unseen,
Where Christ shall wipe all teardrops from my face,
And I shall worship Him, my Master
And my Saviour, in the light of His glory.

—12 May 2010