1 O
sing unto the LORD a new song: sing unto the LORD, all the earth. 2 Sing unto the LORD, bless his
name; shew forth his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the
heathen, his wonders among all people. 4 For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised:
he is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the
LORD made the heavens. 6 Honour
and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 7 Give unto the LORD, O ye kindreds
of the people, give unto the LORD glory and strength. 8 Give unto the LORD the glory due
unto his name: bring an offering, and come into his courts. 9 O worship the LORD in the beauty
of holiness: fear before him, all the earth. (Psalms 96:1-9)
In that day shall the branch of the LORD be
beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and
comely for them that are escaped of Israel. (Isaiah 4:2)
What is beauty, and what is the end of every masterpiece of art – whether
canvas, stone, or chorus? Is it not to imitate the beauty of God’s Creation?
Anything that passes itself off as art which corrupts or vulgarizes the works
of the Lord is not art, but profane abuses thereof. Art should lift our souls
above the common plane of the worldly. It should inspire and uplift, not
degrade and depress. The point of today’s great hymn of praise is to inspire
and lift up our souls by asking nothing of the Lord, but only praising His Holy
Name.
The lyrics are by Folliot Sandford Pierpoint, 1864, who was, unfortunately, an
avid Tractarian of the Oxford Movement. As a result of that high Roman view,
the last three verses were excluded in the 1940 Hymnal; however, I have
included one of those verses as it has no Roman implication, but reference to
the Church of Christ. The hymn’s intended purpose was that of Holy Communion
and draws inspiration from the Prayer Book prayer of Invocation: “And
earnestly desire thy fatherly goodness, mercifully to accept this our sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving.” The music is by Dix, England's Lane, Lucerna
laudoniae, or, St. Hugh.
For the Beauty of the Earth
For the beauty of the earth,
for the beauty of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies,
Refrain:
Christ our God, to thee we raise
this our sacrifice of praise.
For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon, and stars of light, Refrain
For the joy of ear and eye,
for the heart and brain's delight,
for the mystic harmony
linking sense to sound and sight, Refrain
For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth, and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild, Refrain
For each perfect gift of thine
to our race so freely given,
graces human and divine,
flowers of earth and buds of heaven, Refrain
For thy Bride that evermore
lifteth holy hands above,
offering up on every shore
this pure sacrifice of love, Refrain
“For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the
skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies.” The
beauty of the Lord is everywhere and in all His creatures. The fragile
butterfly speaks of His gentle art and so does the unkempt main of the African
lion. The mountains, rivers, and clouds, also point to that immeasurable beauty
that is the Art of God. The tender love of a mother for her newborn baby is
truly beautiful, and all love yearnings are imparted to her heart by the God
who made her – and her baby.
“For the beauty of each hour, of
the day and of the night, hill and vale, and tree and flower, sun and moon, and
stars of light.” Each
beautiful hour of life is a gift from our Father in Heaven. Each night and its
dawning day are given for our rest and labors. All of the heavenly bodies,
flung into their orbits, in the primordial gloom of time, by the Hand of God
are for our admiration, hope, and beauty. 1 O come, let us sing unto the
LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before his presence
with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. 3 For the LORD is a great God, and
a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the deep places
of the earth: the strength of the hills is his also. 5 The sea is his, and he made it:
and his hands formed the dry land. 6 O come, let us worship and bow
down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker. (Psalms 95:1-6)
“For the joy of ear and eye, for the heart and brain's
delight, for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight.” If
any man believes there is beauty in a painting by Picasso, he has yet to learn
the beauty of God’s Creation, for Picasso and his ilk have profaned the beauty
of that which God made and saw that it was “very good.” There are two
colors that science has classified as the most restful to the human mind –
green and blue. The green earth is a pleasant sight, and so is the overarching
blue of canopy of heaven. What of contemporary so-called Christian music. Does
it fulfill the bill given in this phrase? “. . . mystic harmony linking
sense to sound and sight.”
Is there sense and sound of the beauty of a Bach or a
Handel in that mush that passes for inspirational today? When you are grieving
the loss of a loved one, or preparing your heart for Communion, does the little
kindergarten ditty, God is so Good, do you much benefit? Yet, it is sung
endlessly as a mantra in many churches today. What of the songs that the Lord
gives you in the night. Do they emerge from the depth of your soul, or are they
the flippant variety of our contemporary days? I believe that song of the night
that moves your heart in times of darkness to be more of the “Abide with Me”
variety. What do you wish to utter when courage fails? Would it be consistent
with the words of Job? “Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the
night; 11 Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and
maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?” (Job 35:10-11)
“For
the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth, and
friends above, for all gentle thoughts and mild.” I have always
thought it an amazing miracle that God is able to instill love in a mother’s
heart for a newborn baby that does not yet love her, or even KNOW her. He is a
dirty, sniveling, helpless little creature that needs feeding and cleaning 24
hours a day. Yet, mother diligently sees to his needs. This verse speaks
of the Church Militant as well as the Church Glorious. God, being the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is also the God of those loved ones who have passed
into Glory. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living! The very essence
of what identities us as the children of God is that unaccountable love we bear
for one another in the Lord. It is the evidence of who we are as a Church. “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one
another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all
men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
(John 13:34-35) I believe those two verses to say more than volumes of the
books of men can say.
“For each perfect gift of thine, to our race so freely given, graces
human and divine, flowers of earth and buds of heaven.” I need not
remind any reader that there are no divisions by race in Heaven. This refers to
the Human Race who are in Christ, but also to those who know Him not. We do
have human graces of love, beauty, art, kindness, knowledge, and movement; but
there will be far greater graces experienced in Heaven. The beautiful Rose of
the Garden will appear paltry and undeveloped when we compare it to the
beautiful Rose of Sharon in Heaven.
“For thy Bride that evermore, lifteth holy hands
above, offering up on every shore, this pure sacrifice of love.” Here
is a heavenly and poetic reference to the Church. Does she still, in our day,
lift Holy Hands to Heaven? Are her hands yet Holy? Perhaps in the remnant
churches, this is yet true. It is likely that the holier hands are lifted on
foreign strands rather than from our once holy halls in America. But there are
yet some, perhaps thousands and millions, who have yet to bow the knee to Baal
in America. God will always preserve His Remnant among the heathen. There is
only ONE sacrifice we can offer God – LOVE! And even love is not native to our
hearts, but streams as a River of Life, from God’s heart to ours.
REFRAIN: “Christ our God, to thee we raise this our
sacrifice of praise.” Certainly, our songs and prayers of praise are a
sacrifice, but such praise is germinated in the springs of love in the depths
of the heart that knows God.
Do you know Him in this way?
