Good Morning My Friends, and welcome to my Thursday thoughts.

It is another singing day. On Sunday we will all share our beautiful rendition of

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine:
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God;
born of his Spirit, washed in his blood.

This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Saviour all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song,
praising my Saviour all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
visions of rapture burst on my sight;
angels descending bring from above
echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Saviour am happy and blessed;
watching and waiting, looking above,
filled with his goodness, lost in his love.

I have a number of stories to tell concerning this one. In a previous parish we had a lovely man called ‘Born again Bill’. Had had a very strong and lively faith, which he loved to share, and you will see why this hymn reminds me of him.
Whenever he was asked ‘How are you?’ he would reply ‘I’m saved and assured of it brother, saved and assured of it!’

It was heartfelt, but on occasions it might seem a little too much. So I changed my greeting one day to ‘Hi Bill, are you well?’ and he said, and I love this, ‘I’m saved and assured of it which is better than well!’ Bless him.

This hymn, for me has the perfect balance of assurance and humility. Our faith would be pretty thin if we didn’t feel that we were included in the consequences of Jesus’ resurrection, and our place in the Kingdom of heaven. Indeed at a funeral service we say the following

God our creator and redeemer,
by your power Christ conquered death
and entered into glory.
Confident of his victory
and claiming his promises,
we entrust N to your mercy
in the name of Jesus our Lord,
who died and is alive
and reigns with you,
now and for ever.

Notice that we ‘Claim his promises’, not in a demanding way, but because we trust in his amazing grace.

Our relationship with Jesus unfolds during this him.
We begin with this sense of assurance, and acknowledgement that Jesus is ours. The mine is both personal, but because we sing together it is corporate as well. Then we immediately move on to the idea of a ‘foretaste’ of the divine glory. This is to do with both the Eucharist being a foretaste of the Kingdom of heaven, but also the idea of singing, which looks forward to us being part of the great heavenly choir. Make no mistake about it, we are glory bound!

Salvation, Spirit and Sacrifice are Jesus’ story played out for us, and our response is to sing
‘This is my story, this is my song, Praising my Saviour all the day long’. How can we not sing the praises of God when we reflect on all that he does for us.

Perfect Submission and perfect delight seem like a pretty powerful juxtaposition. The truth, and we know it, is that true delight comes from trying to follow the will of God rather than doing our own thing. We sing our hearts out about the joy and delight that is found in faith. It is not to do with being weak or timid, but rather a bold expression that the message and teaching of Jesus is absolutely the best. In fact it leads us into a sense of rapture, and the angels come with messages of love. This is glorious, and so we burst into song again.

Perfect submission, all is at rest, leads us straight to St Augustine’s phrase ‘Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you’. We rest in the love and presence of Jesus, and we feel happy and blessed – we get lost in his love. And so once again we sing our hearts out with the chorus.

This is one of those hymns during which we can abandon our inhibitions, and let it all flow out, because we will be singing like we are already in heaven.

I don’t use the language that Born again Bill did, but I might try the following response next time I am asked if I am well.

‘I am loved by God more than I can imagine, which is better than well!’

Bless you, Bless you, Bless you,

Fr Marcus