Because of its tune, this hymn always reminds me of “Stouthearted Men.” Of course, the tune is different, but it has a remarkable strength – indeed, a feeling of inevitability. You could march to it. So it comes as a surprise that the text was written by a frail young English woman, who was an invalid for much of her life. Caroline Maria Noel (1817-1877), the daughter of an Anglican clergyman, began to write poetry while she was a teenager. She wrote devotional poetry to encourage herself and others with illnesses. Her poems were published in 1861 in The Name of Jesus and Other Verses for the Sick and Lonely. The collection was later enlarged, and this hymn appears in the 1870 enlarged edition. Although her poems were intended for private meditation, this hymn is well suited for public worship. It is the traditional processional hymn for Ascension. Day.
Miss Noel has been compared to Charlotte Elliott, another English hymn writer, who wrote Just As I Am, H1982 No. 693. Both women dealt with serious illnesses, and their hymns arose out of their suffering.
This hymn is based on the Epistle reading for Palm Sunday, from Philippians 2, so it seems the perfect hymn of the month to carry us through Eastertide. It takes us from “In the beginning” all the way to the second coming. The first stanza starts with Philippians 2: Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. The stanza finishes with a reference to John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Stanza 2 takes us from the incarnation all the way through Jesus’ ministry, to his death and resurrection. Stanza 3 talks of the ascension. Stanza 4 asks us to name him, to acknowledge him. In Matthew 10:32, Jesus said, “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.” This stanza also references Song of Solomon 8:6: Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death.
Stanza 5 reminds us that Jesus is not the usual King. It asks us to enthrone him in our hearts. Ephesians 3:17-19: That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
It also takes us back to the beginning of that Palm Sunday Philippians 2 reading: (Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.). As in the Philippians text, this hymn uses the word “let.” Let Jesus subdue what is not holy. Let his will enfold you. It is matter of allowing Jesus to rule our lives. I love the line, “Crown him as your Captain in temptation’s hour; let his will enfold you in its light and power.”
Stanza 6 brings us to the second coming. And then shall they see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. Mark 13:26:
The tune, KING’S WESTON, by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1877-1958), was composed specifically for this text, and it is a wonderful fit. We Anglicans owe an enormous debt to Vaughan Williams. It would be hard to imagine Anglican church music without him. He was the music editor of The English Hymnal (1906), one of the forebears of our Hymnal 1982. If you look in the back of our hymnbook in the Index of Composers, Arrangers, and Sources, you will see that Vaughan Williams has quite a large number of hymn tunes in our book. Some of the Choir’s favorite anthems are by Vaughan Williams, and then there is his organ music, large choral works, orchestral music, and on and on the list goes. The tune is named for a village and country home near Bristol, the same town in which John Wesley founded the first Methodist chapel.
As mentioned earlier, this is a strong tune. When you think about it, it has to be strong to carry such a strong text. (Imagine a sweet lullaby sort of tune for this text. The cognitive dissonance would undo us!). Notice how the first three lines begin with the same rhythmic pattern (short, short, LONG, LONG), and the last line reverses that pattern to (LONG, LONG, short, short). This pattern delivers the text in a most oratorical way. The first three lines of each stanza set us up for the conclusion, which, with that flip of the rhythmic pattern, powerfully drives home the summation.
— Carolyn Parmenter, Music Director
