And
when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Matthew 26:30
When in
distress to Him we cried,
He heard our sad complaining;
O trust in Him, whate’er betide,
His love is all sustaining;
Triumphant songs of praise
To Him our hearts shall raise;
Now every voice shall say,
“O praise our God alway;”
Let all saints adore Him!
Sir H.W. BAKER
Rejoice Today with
One Accord
This is the only record of our Lord’s singing when He
was on the earth. It is worthy of special notice that it was just as He was
starting out to Gethsemane that He sung a hymn with His disciples. It would not
have seemed so strange to us if He had sung that night on the Transfiguration
Mount, or the day He entered Jerusalem amid the people’s hosannas, or on some
other occasion of great gladness and triumph; but that the only time we hear
Him singing should be in the darkest night of His life is very suggestive.
It tells us of the deep gladness that was in the heart of Christ
under all His grief and sorrows. He knew the agony into whose black shadows He
was about to enter. He saw the cross, too, that stood beyond Gethsemane. Yet He
went out toward the darkness with songs of praise on His lips. There is a
Scripture word which tells us that “for the joy set before Him He endured the
cross, despising the shame.” This was the joy that broke forth here in a hymn
of praise. It was the joy of doing the Father’s will and of saving lost souls.
We get thus here another glimpse of Christ’s great heart of love.
The secret of Christ’s song here was His looking beyond the
garden and the cross; He saw the reward, the glory, the redemption
accomplished. If we look only at the sorrow before us, we cannot sing; but if
we look on to the joy of victory, and the blessedness of the reward, and the
ripened fruits that will come from the suffering, we can sing too as we enter
the sorest trial.
J.R. MILLER
1840-1912
Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she
feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has
wings.
VICTOR
HUGO
1802-1885