Previous items in this series of posts about notable hymns from the gray Psalter Hymnal that were omitted from Lift Up Your Hearts focused on songs from the 1960s & ’70s and Psalm settings. Today’s theme is Bible songs, and I wish all four of these songs were in the new hymnal:
“I Will Sing Unto the Lord” (PH87 #152)
I will sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea.
“I Will Sing Unto the Lord” is based on “The Song of the Sea” in Exodus 15, one of the oldest songs in the Bible; there are no songs derived from it in Lift Up Your Hearts.
Like “The King of Glory Comes” (PH87 #370) and “The Trees of the Field” (see below), “I Will Sing Unto the Lord” has a lively Jewish-style melody. (Two of the three songs are set to Israeli folk songs, while “The Trees of the Field” was written by Jews for Jesus’ Stuart Dauermann.)
“The Trees of the Field” (PH87 #197)
You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills will break forth before you; there’ll be shouts of joy, and all the trees of the field will clap, will clap their hands!
Based on Isaiah 55:12, this is another exuberant song from the 1960s-70s.
“Our God Reigns” (PH87 #195)
How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, good news, announcing peace, proclaiming new of happiness: our God reigns, our God reigns.
According to The Banner’s article “A New Hymnal for a New Generation,” the author of “Our God Reigns,” “wouldn’t allow us to reprint it as it appears in the Psalter Hymnal.”
I’d like to know what that was about. The Psalter Hymnal includes only the first stanza (a versification of Isaiah 52:7). It’s not immediately clear to me what the CRC’s problem with the other four stanzas is or why Leonard Smith objects to including just one stanza.
This is another omitted song from the 1960s-70s. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook, Smith wrote the first stanza and chorus “in just five minutes” in 1973 and added the other stanzas in 1978.
“Christ, You Are the Fullness” (PH87 #229/SNT #201)
Christ you are the fullness of God, first-born of everything. For by you all things were made; you hold them up. You are head of the church, which is your body. Firstborn from the dead, you in all things are supreme.
In my opinion, this is one of the worst losses from the Psalter Hymnal, for which it was created. According to the Psalter Hymnal Handbook: “Bert Polman versified these Scriptures [from Colossians] in 1986 to be sung with the Korean tune ARIRANG so that the hymnal would include at least one Korean tune. A Korean musician recommended this tune as one that all Koreans would know” (p. 363-4). LIft Up Your Hearts includes an actual Korean hymn (“오 소 서/Come Now, O Prince of Peace” [LUYH #905]) so I guess this one was no longer needed. But if we’re not going to keep it alive, who will?
The tune is beautiful and the lyrics paraphrase “three essential passages in Paul’s letter to the Colossians: 1:15-18, about the supremacy of Christ (st. 1); 3:1-4, about our position in Christ (st. 2); and 3: 15-17, about thankful (doxological) living (st. 3)” (Psalter Hymnal Handbook). It’s one of my favorites.
“Christ, You Are the Fullness” did appear in the 1990 Presbyterian Church USA hymnal, but it didn’t make the cut for its recent replacement, Glory to God. The only current denominational hymnal it appears in may be Evangelical Covenant Church’s 1996 The Covenant Hymnal: A Worshipbook.
The hymn does appear in Faith Alive’s Singing the New Testament, but I don’t know how widely used that is.
The Christ hymn (Colossians 1:15-20) in the first stanza is the subject of Matthew Westerholm’s generic praise song “The First Place” (LUYH #15, SNT #199).
Next up: Christmas songs that didn’t make the cut.