Hymn of the Week: January 29, 2024
Awake, My Soul, and with the Sun
Text: Thomas Ken
Hymn published: 1674
Awake, my soul, and with the sun
thy daily stage of duty run;
shake off dull sloth, and early rise
to pay thy morning sacrifice.
Lord, I my vows to Thee renew.
Disperse my sins as morning dew;
guard my first springs of thought and will;
and with Thyself my spirit fill.
Direct, control, suggest, this day,
all I design or do or say,
that all my pow'rs, with all their might,
in Thy sole glory may unite.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
praise Him all creatures here below;
praise Him above, ye heav'enly host;
praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Hymn Texts: A Devotional
A Hymn for the Morning!
Over the next few weeks, I want us to look at Ken Thomas’ Morning and Evening Hymns. Today’s reflection is a paraphrase from Eric Routley’s 1954 book, Hymns and the Faith.
Trilogy
This hymn, as you read last week, is part of a trilogy of hymns. One dedicated to the Morning, another to Night, and a final one for Midnight. The Night hymn (Glory to Thee, My God, his Night) and this morning hymn have often been called twin brothers for they have both been in English hymnals for the last 150 years. But they are by no means identical twins.
Within themselves and in relation to one another they may be described with some accuracy as non-identical twins, for in character and import they are not merely different – they are complementary. Where the evening hymn has a solemn grandeur, this morning hymn has springtime grace; where the evening hymn prays for protection, the morning hymn prays for strength – and so on. This is all obvious but here is another thing.
While evening hymns sound a note of resignation, almost sounding as if “well, none of us is getting any younger”, the morning hymns generally sound a note of praise and hope. Morning hymn writers evoke a feeling of hope and resurrection. Belief in the new day.
Our morning hymn begins with imagery of the sunrise. The sun awakes to run her course, and we will do well to emulate her. The energy of the sun is immortally depicted in Psalm 19:4-6.
In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs his course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.
Ken goes on to describe the morning sun, dew and light from heaven. All is done with a kind of Puritan characteristic in its efficiency and common sense. Christianity is a religion of the present the here and now, today! We do well to live not by ends or beginnings but by daily manna. To live in the past is one error; to strain toward the future is another error. Between them we worry and despair about what has happened or what is about to happen. As day succeeds to day, the thought that that means one day less of our lives becomes more and more insistent. I woke up one-day thinking, I am now half-way to the day of my death by some estimates. Yet, I remember a gentleman in his 90s who was overjoyed and experiencing Beethoven he had not been familiar with and hearing it for the first time. It is possible to worry about the little life has left – that is wasting time. It is possible to pay no heed to the passing of time, as though any good deed and fresh vision can wait until tomorrow.- that also is wasting time. But to live as long as may be allotted, 30 years or over 100, and to let no day pass without some new knowledge of God’s goodness and some opportunity taken of doing good – that is living. That is redeeming the time we have.
The question at the beginning of every day is:
Will the things that the day brings advance or set back my faith in God and knowledge of him? The beginning of the modern day is a particularly trying event in most lives. The morning news screams at you from your phones and computers, doom and gloom are announced from all sides. his children have to be packed off to school, the buses to and from are relentless; and with it all, that dark and ill-humored interval, which usually includes breakfast awakening our mental faculties. There is enough in one morning to make one morose and want to climb back into bed. The person who can cope with life’s daily travails is the person who has said his prayers and has said in them the words that we see in verse one of this week’s hymn. “Awake, My Soul”. If we have done that, and ended with doxology, we are more able to move into life responsibly and good humoredly than to allow life, in its blundering way, to move into us.
