Alleluia, Sing to Jesus

Word & Song by Anthony Esolen

It may slip our minds — it certainly has slipped my mind — that when his foster-father Joseph died, Jesus was left an orphan in the sense in which the word is usually employed in Scripture. That is, he was fatherless; in the earthly way, I mean. He was no orphan absolutely. We can recall his words to Mary and Joseph, when, as a twelve year old boy might do, he set himself apart in the wide world, staying behind in the Temple, and asking and answering questions with the elders there, whom he astonished. “Did you not know I must be about my Father’s business?” he replied, when Mary asked him why he had caused them so much worry.

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The author of our Hymn of the Week, William Chatterton Dix, wasn’t a minister. He worked in a marine insurance company. His father, John Dix, wasn’t a minister, either. He was a surgeon. But in those days, understand, poetry was in the heart’s blood of human culture, so if it surprises us that John Dix wrote a biography of the boy poet Thomas Chatterton, who died at age 17, and that he named his son after the poet, we’re the odd ones out, and not the Victorians. So William grew up with poetry, and with the Christian faith; he wrote many hymns, some of which are among our most beloved in English, including the lovely and heartfelt Christmas carol, What Child Is This? He seems also to have loved children. I’ll let you judge for yourselves. These words come from a very large book he wrote especially for children, called The Pattern of Life; or Lessons for Children from the Life of Our Lord (1885). Here he encourages the little children who are reading or hearing his words to imagine what life was like in the home at Nazareth, after Joseph had died:

“We can easily fancy how kind and tender Jesus would have been to His dear Mother in her sorrow. We can watch Him working hard, day by day, for the daily bread of the little household; we can see Him go to the well to draw water, lest his Mother be tired; and, perhaps, He who was the light of the world would trim the lamps at eventide, when the dark purple shadows crept lazily over the Galilean hills and lake, and night shrouded the streets and houses of Nazareth in gloom. Then, perchance, He would read to Mary, or talk to her of mysteries, half revealed, until the time came for Him, who never slumbers or sleeps, to lay Him down and take His rest.”

I’m tempted to say quite a lot about such a book, and the sorts of things we peddle to children now, but here’s not the place. But in this week’s hymn, Dix has orphanhood in mind again. Just before Jesus was to be arraigned and sentenced to die on the Cross, in that intimate supper with his apostles, he said that he was going to be leaving them for a time, but, lest they lose heart, “I will not leave you as orphans.” The Revised Standard Version renders it thus, “I will not leave you desolate.” That translation can be justified, but I prefer the more literal one here, because being an orphan seems to imply friendlessness and lonesomeness, while being desolate only distantly suggests, by the connecting idea of being sole or isolated, the condition of orphanhood. Either way, the promise is clear. We are not orphans, no matter what happens to us. We are not alone.

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The hymn itself is a weaving together of many strands of the New Testament, seemingly without effort. We have verses from John 6: “I am that bread from heaven.” And from John 14, as I’ve said: “I will not leave you as orphans.” And from Acts 1, describing the Ascension, and from Revelation 5, describing the triumph of the Son, and from Hebrews 6, with Christ the High Priest, entering “within the veil” — and more. That’s what a genuinely literary culture can do.
As for the melody, Samuel Sebastian Wesley, Charles’s grandson (and John’s great-nephew), wrote a tune specifically for this hymn, calling it “Alleluia,” but though I admire his work, I don’t think it’s nearly as grand and expansive as the Welsh melody HYFRYDOL. I’ve heard that organists jokingly call it “HYDROFOIL,” but it’s pronounced HUH-vruh-dohl,” and it means, in Welsh, “Cheerful.” Which is what it surely is. And we should be of good cheer, and our hearts should not be troubled, because we are not going to be abandoned. “I have overcome the world,” says Jesus.

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Alleluia! Sing to Jesus; His the scepter, His the throne. Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone. Hark! The songs of peaceful Zion thunder like a mighty flood: "Jesus out of every nation has redeemed us by His blood." Alleluia! Not as orphans are we left in sorrow now. Alleluia! He is near us; faith believes, nor questions how. Though the cloud from sight received Him when the forty days were o'er, shall our hearts forget His promise, "I am with you evermore"? Alleluia! Bread of heaven, here on earth our food, our stay. Alleluia! Here the sinful flee to You from day to day. Intercessor, Friend of sinners, earth's Redeemer, hear our plea, where the songs of all the sinless sweep across the crystal sea. Alleluia! King eternal, Thee the Lord of lords we own; Alleluia! born of Mary, Earth Thy footstool, heaven Thy throne: Thou within the veil hast entered, robed in flesh, our great High Priest; Thou on earth both priest and victim in the Eucharistic feast. Alleluia! Sing to Jesus; His the scepter, His the throne. Alleluia! His the triumph, His the victory alone. Hark! The songs of peaceful Zion thunder like a mighty flood: "Jesus out of every nation has redeemed us by His blood."

Listen to today’s hymn sung by the always excellent Choir of King’s College.

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