Easter Evening Hymn

I’ve long been intrigued by the interaction of shared tradition with Luke’s and John’s Gospels respectively. The woman of ill repute in the Pharisee’s house becomes Mary at Bethany as both wash Jesus’ feet in lashings of expensive ointment. And the disciples, the evening of Easter Sunday, hear a report of the Emmaus Road experience in Luke, whereas according to John they are met behind locked doors, and experience (unthinkably for Luke-Acts!!) Pentecost the same day as Easter!! John makes no reference to Luke’s fish supper, but as pervasively in the Fourth Gospel, suffuses the evening with the sense of Eucharist.

And there’s no hymn about this strange knot of themes, clearly common, which Luke and John split amongst themselves to produce strictly incompatible but weirdly complementary accounts of the same evening… Go figure…

Anyway, “Where scholarship fails, write a hymn and see where that gets you…” is sometimes a good maxim…

If this is useful, use it. Just say where you got it, in the usual way.

Tune – Wild Mountain Thyme (as for “In a byre in Bethlehem…” in Songs of God’s People…

…..

…..

When the doors were locked for fear

Christ came in and stood among them,

News too good for them to trust

Was now real; they heard him greet them,

And he shared their meal with them.

[Refrain] As you stood there among them,

Breathed on them your own Spirit,

Made their evening meal your supper,

You are here, Risen Lord.

…..

…..

When we bolt our souls for fear,

And the doors of our communing

We have locked against real life

And a world we find too threatening

Come and stand among us, Lord.

[Refrain] As you stood there among them,

Breathed on them your own Spirit,

Made their evening meal your supper,

You are here, Risen Lord.

…..

…..

Tease the seized bolts of our lives,

Ease their jammed doors gently open,

And the life of your church –

Lift the siege that saps our hoping

For the world is overcome.

[Refrain] As you stood there among them,

Breathed on them your own Spirit,

Made their evening meal your supper,

You are here, Risen Lord.

(c) John Owain Jones, 2015