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Thousands, thousands, saints attending
Swell the triumph of his train
God appears on earth to reign!
But it ends with a wrenching and desperate plea for deliverance.
Saviour, take the power and the glory
Claim the kindgom for thine own.
O come quickly! O come quickly! O come quickly!
Alleluya! Come, Lord, come!
Both stanzas crack me up to tell the truth. But they sing to a contradiction that anyone can quickly spot. If God appears on earth to reign, why are we telling him, in panicked desperation to come quickly, for God's sake come! ?
It seems to me that when Bible verses say “God shall do this” or “God shall do that” -- as in deposuit potentes de sedes, et dispersit superbos in mente cordis sui (he shall depose the mighty from their seats and disperse the proud of heart) -- what is really meant is that God wants to do it. But since, in this physical world, God only acts in and through the flesh, this means that we ought to do it. After all, if God intends it how can we refuse to do it? With this in mind, the first stanza is an invocation to all of us to “attend the train” of our deepest and highest hopes.
The last stanza, however, speaks the sad reality that we have failed and, in our failure, God remains absent from earth. This is a terrible state of affairs and leaves us crying in a near failed hope for God to fulfill himself, once and for all, by rendering complete our incompleteness.
For these reasons, I think it is a beautiful hymn that reflects the paradox of an existence that leaves us waiting.
Anyone can see that this sentiment has its roots in Jewish messianic longing and atonement; and one can ask why the coming of the Messiah, in 753 AUC, left things so up in the air, as it were.
But that said, the hymn then turns to a hideous Calvinistic us/them escathology.
First is the phrase “favoured sinner.” Who are these like favoured sinners shinning? Why should God favour one sinner over another? In he not an equal protection saviour?
“What shall I be pleading
When the just are mercy needing?
-- Dies Irae
If it is true that all our sins are like a drop in the ocean of God's mercy; if he will hurl all our iniquities into the sea (Micah 7:19), where does anyone get off saying that some but not all sinners will be forgiven? The Nicene Creed states that “for us men and our salvation, he came down from Heaven.” It does not say “for us favoured men....” So that line in the hymn is clearly inconsistent with the cornerstone of orthodox Christianity.
Suffice to say that I am impatient with priests and prattlers who try to walk back the ocean so as to make room for their moral (and money making) sand castles on the beach. The force of joy that underlies the universe either overcomes man or man overcomes it.
The next line isn't as bad but is still problematic.
Those who set at naught and sold him
Pierced and nailed him to the tree
is clearly cribbed from Matthew 27-54, which recounts that
The the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus. .... Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified”
“Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium a ...They put [a crown of thorns] on His head, and a reed in His right hand....[and struck and spat upon him] Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments ... And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, 'You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.' Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing."
As is well known, the problem concerns “they all.” In Matthews's text, it is unmistakably a multitude gathered in Jerusalem whom the religious establishment had stirred up. (Sort of like Fox News goading Trumptards). But because Mark writes that “Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children” later religious establishments used the narrative to stir up multitudes of Christians against the Jews in general.
There are endless wrangles over these passages, all of which strike me as moot nonsense. Clearly the historical situation involved particular actors (Jewish and Roman) in a theological drama. But in the end, the guy who was spat upon, nailed and crucified said from the Cross, “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.”
Now, I think it is pretty damn special to be able to forgive someone at the very moment he is torturing you to death, and to forgive those who got you to that point. But he did and that settles that.
The crucifixion scene ends with Jesus' death and miraculous occurences that point to Judgement Day: “the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose ...” Can anyone argue with a straight face that come the Second Coming, Jesus is going to change his mind and not forgive people he already forgave in favour of only favoured sinners? Who might those “favoured” sinners be? If precedent stands for anything they would be those who called for him to be crucified and who drove nails into his hands. If he, who was “very God of very God,” was willing to favour his actual killers with forgiveness, he must certainly be expected to forgive those who merely transgress some portion of God's Manual for Better Living.
For me, personally, the refrains derived from Matthew are not problematic. They only become so from the force they take on in later historical context and from the allusion to “favoured” sinners. Charles Wesley (who wrote the lyrics) is unapologetically indulging in the divisive dichotomy of us the ransomed righteous / versus them the unransomed. I think this contrary to the spirit of Christmas. The promise of that event is not that some will be left Deeply wailing, Deeply wailing.
Given these concerns, there are several alternative lyrics. In some, “favoured” is replaced by “ev'ry.” In others the “those” is replaced by “we;” but this latter substitution doesn't make much sense since most of us don't go around piercing and nailing Jesus. I can't see anyway around this defect. The hymn certainly tries to convey the penitential sense of incompleteness and need for redemption, which I think is entirely appropriate to the season, but it flubs the issue by nailing the need onto others.
Too bad. Better to can the whole thing. :)
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