A Musical Message
10th Sunday after Pentecost and Church Picnic – One worship service at 10 a.m.
Beloved People of God….
1. A Mighty Fortress is our God:
Guess what begins this week? That’s right! Ohio State’s Football Training Camp! It’s the start of the 2026 Football Season! To me there is just something about football camp that begins to build some excitement that the season of fall and football are just around the corner. Soon, we’ll hear those fight songs played by TBDBITL those beloved words of the Ol Buckeye Battle Cry. Do you know it? Sing it with me!
Buckeye Battle Cry
In old Ohio there’s a team
That’s known thru-out the land;
Eleven warriors, brave and bold,
Whose fame will ever stand.
And when the ball goes over,
Our cheers will reach the sky,
Ohio field will hear again
The Buckeye Battle Cry-
Drive! Drive on down the field,
Men of the scarlet and gray;
Don’t let them thru that line,
We have to win this game today,
Come on, Ohio!
Smash through to victory.
We cheer you as you go:
Our honor defend
So we’ll fight to the end for O-hi-o.
Of course, that team up north has their own as well, but to be fair, I didn’t learn the words quite the same way, so it’s probably not appropriate for me to try and sing it. Every team has a fight song. It helps not only to identify who your team is but helps build unity and common mission.
1. Did you know we Lutherans also have a Fight Song? A Mighty Fortress is our God! It’s based on Psalm 46 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult. Psalm 46:1-3
This really has become our fight song. Through its words we are encouraged in our identity and our common mission. How many times have you sung the stirring words of Martin Luther’s hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God? You may not know this, but Luther wrote this amazing hymn during a pandemic, when the bubonic plague was ravaging the city of Wittenberg. Many people had fled, but Luther and his family decided to stay and care for the sick and dying. Luther’s son contracted the plague but recovered. His wife Katie’s exposure while pregnant with their daughter Elizabeth may have weakened the baby who died when she was just 5 months old.
It was during a time of tremendous fear and uncertainty, that Martin Luther wrote the words to this hymn. It has provided hope and assurance to untold millions throughout the world. Even while it seemed that the world was crashing down around him, Luther realized: A mighty fortress is our God, a sword and shield victorious; he breaks the cruel oppressor’s rod and wins salvation glorious.
Throughout history humans have confronted pandemics, or wars, or uncertain economies, and each time it is a new and frightening experience. Of course, it doesn’t take those things to make us feel like: The old satanic foe has sworn to work us woe! With craft and dreadful might he arms himself to fight. On earth he has no equal.
What Luther wanted us to hear and sing is the overarching message of this hymn and the Psalm upon which it is based is “Fear Not! God is ultimately in charge.” Our victory is not based upon our strength, but God’s: No strength of ours can match his might! We would be lost, rejected. But now a champion comes to fight, whom God himself elected. You ask who this may be? The Lord of hosts is he! Christ Jesus might Lord. God’s only Son adored. He holds the field victorious.
What the words remind us is that no matter what we face we can stand strong because we do not stand alone, God stands with us and for us: Though hordes of devils fill the land all threatening to devour us, we tremble not unmoved we stand; they cannot overpower us. Let this world’s tyrant rage; in battle we’ll engage! His might is doomed to fail; God’s judgment must prevail! One little word subdues him.
Luther wrote about 37 hymns. From that tradition, we Lutherans have learned to love music. We love our hymns and songs of praise, singing with one voice. So, today, Bob and I thought we would share a musical message with you, singing some of our great hymns as a fun and hopefully inspiring way on this picnic day. I will share a little reflection on the hymn and then we will sing a portion of the hymn together. Sound good? I know it will!
2. My Hope is Built on Nothing Less
The next hymn is a great hymn known to us as, “My Hope is Built on Nothing Less.” It was penned by Edward Mote.
The name of Edward Mote does not often rest on the lips of the Church today in the same fashion as some of the other great hymns of faith. However, the testimony of his life is one that should inspire all of us. Mote was not brought up in a godly home. In fact, his parents managed a pub in London and often neglected young Edward, who spent most of his Sundays playing in the city streets. Of his theological upbringing, he said "So ignorant was I that I did not know that there was a God." He was imprisoned by lack of opportunity, lack of time, lack of education, lack of desire.
He was apprenticed to become a cabinetmaker, a career which he successfully conducted for another 37 years. When he was sixteen, he was taken by his master to hear the esteemed preacher, John Hyatt, of the Tottenham Court Chapel. Through the words, became a changed man. He was freed from that which held him back. And because of the change—couldn’t help but share the Good news with others. Over the next many years, he became a successful craftsman and a devoted churchman. At the age of 55, Mote realized a life-long dream. Largely through his personal efforts, a building for a Baptist congregation was built in the village of Horsham, Sussex, England. The church members, out of gratitude to Mote, offered him the deed to the property. He refused their offer, saying: “I do not want the chapel; I only want the pulpit, and when I cease to preach Christ, then turn me out of that.” Mote did not miss a Sunday in the pulpit for the next 21 years.
He resigned from this pastorate in 1873 due to ill health and died the following year at the age of 77. Just before his death, he said: “The truths I have been preaching, I am now living upon, and they do very well to die upon.” Edward Mote lies buried in the churchyard of the Horsham church. Near the pulpit in the church is a tablet with this inscription: In loving memory of Mr. Edward Mote, who fell asleep in Jesus November 13, 1874, aged 77 years. For 26 years the beloved pastor of this church, preaching Christ and Him crucified, as all the sinner can need, and all the saint desire.”
It was with this background that Mote wrote the hymn we have today, "The Solid Rock." He actually wrote it while still a cabinetmaker. One morning in 1834 as he was walking to work, it entered his mind to write a hymn. By the time he got to work, he had the chorus. He wrote four more verses over the course of that day and two additional verses before he was finished. Here’s an account from one of the local papers about the hymn:
In the day, I had the first four verses complete and wrote them off. ON the Sabbath following, I met Brother King as I came out of the Lisle Street Meeting…who informed me that his wife was very ill and asked me to call and see her. I had an early tea and called afterwards. He said that it was his usual custom to sing a hymn, read a portion, and engage in prayer, before he went to the meeting. He looked for his hymnbook but could find it nowhere. Mote said, “I have some verses in my pocket; if you like, we could sing them.” We did, and his wife enjoyed them so much that after the service he asked me, as a favor, to leave a copy of them for his wife. I went home, and by the fireside composed the last two verses, wrote them off, and took them to Sister King. The verses met the dying woman’s needs.
In the first stanza, hardly a clearer statement of total dependence on Christ could be made. Mote recognizes that our hope for eternal life depends completely upon Jesus’ righteousness. Nothing in this hymn ever hints that any work on our part can add to Christ’s work to secure our eternal salvation. However, the hymn is not ignorant of the reality of our daily struggles.
In the second and third stanzas, Mote recognizes that there are times when, I quote, “The doubts, cares, and darkness of this world will seem to weaken our fellowship with God and veil His face from us. Even in these times, when "all around [our] soul gives way," God has not left us. Our anchor of faith can still hold in the darkness, knowing through faith that even though not seen (Heb 11:1), He still sustains us. It is at these times that it is most important, in Mote’s words, to "rest on His unchanging grace." It is the immutable, certain promise of God that allows us to have assurance of our freedom even in times of great spiritual darkness.
Throughout the hymn, from a declaration of God’s grace in the first stanza, to the application of that grace in times of trouble in the second and third stanzas, the writer brings his hymn full circle in the final stanza, with the ultimate realization of God’s grace. Let’s sing.
3. O Day of Rest and Gladness
Our next hymn is, “O Day of Rest and Gladness.” It is written by Christopher Wordsworth, a nephew and the biographer of the noted eighteenth-century English Poet, William Wordsworth. He was educated at Cambridge University, where he received high honors for his academic accomplishments. Wordsworth was eventually elevated, in 1869, to be bishop of Lincoln. Throughout his life he was a man of many words. He authored topography of Greece, a commentary of the entire bible, and a collection of 127 different hymns for a hymnal called, The Holy Year. The hymns were written by Wordsworth to illustrate his convictions that hymns should not deal with personal, individual interests, but rather should teach the truths of Scripture and voice the worship of the entire congregation. He also believed that it was the first duty of the hymn writer to teach sound doctrine to believers, and to reach the unchurched with the gospel. Wordsworth writes, “A church which foregoes the use of hymns in her office of teaching neglects one of the most efficacious instruments for correcting error and for disseminating truth, as well as for ministering comfort and edification.” “O Day of Rest and Gladness” is the first hymn in the hymnal, “The Holy Year.” And is the only one still widely used today. (From 101 More Hymn Stories, by Kenneth W. Osbeck, pp. 101-102.)
The entire hymn is based on Psalm 118:24: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It begins where we are to begin—with a call to worship. Richard Foster says, “The divine priority is worship first, service second. Our lives are to be punctuated with praise, thanksgiving and adoration. Service flows out of worship. Service as a substitute for worship is idolatry. Activity may become the enemy of adoration. It is a mistake to set our efforts to the discovery of our God given gifts and then function in them to exclusion of worship and participation in the body of Christ. Indeed, it is likely idolatrous.”
At the conclusion of the hymn we are reminded that Christian worship is important because it is the proper context for where God imparts the gifts of grace, forgiveness, life and salvation. It is in worship; in receiving the sacrament and hearing God’s word that God confirms our forgiveness and his love for us. Robert Webber says, “In worship God is speaking and acting, bringing to me the benefits, of redemption. Through worship God works on my, on your behalf. He repairs and renews my relationship with him. Just as he has always sought people out to bring them to himself, so he now seeks me out in worship to bring healing into my life. Worship and its intent is not primarily about our faithfulness to a Lord, but the faithfulness of the Lord to us and to his work in us and on our behalf.”
Let’s sing!
4. Be Thou My Vision
Our next hymn is one that sharpens our eyes and hearts, “Be thou my vision.” Vision—a many words have been spoken and sung about vision. Jonathan Swift defined vision as “The art of seeing things invisible.” Peter Marshall wrote, “Give us a clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.” Katherine Logan proclaimed, “Vision is of God. A vision comes in advance of any task well done.” Scripture proclaims, “Without vision, people perish.”
“Be thou my vision” is an eighth-century Irish hymn whose author is unknown. There are some that believe that it may have been penned by Saint Columba, the visionary 6th century Irish saint who established a renowned monastic community on the tiny, remote, barren island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland. It is a place that is sometimes called the Island of Dreams. Author Martha Ainsworth describes the area as an “evocative “thin place” where there seems little separation between heaven and earth. Deep in the hills of Iona, there is a small circle of stones known as the cuildich, or hermit’s cell, marking a spot where Columba is said to have seen visions of angels. Columba was a musician, and this hymn and tune has a quaint Celtic style, and addresses our ageless need to have a heavenly vision and to experience God’s care and personal presence throughout our earthly pilgrimage.
Regardless of who the author is, there is, no doubt, a high regard for God. Just listen to the titles used throughout the hymn to describe God, “Vision, Lord, Best Thought, Wisdom, Word, Great Father, High King, Inheritance, Treasure, Sun, Ruler, and Heart.”
I share this because I believe vision to be critical to growing Faith’s mission and ministry. It’s like the story I read: about 350 years ago a shipload of travelers landed on the northeast coast of America. The first year they established a town site, the next year they elected a town government. The third year the town government planned to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. In the fourth year the people tried to impeach their town government because they thought it was a waste of public funds to build a road five miles westward into the wilderness. Who needed to go there anyway?
Here were people who had the vision to see three thousand miles across an ocean and overcome great hardships to get there. But in just a few years they could not see even five miles out of town. They had lost their pioneering vision. I share this because it underlines what author of our hymn knew, that with a clear vision of what we can become in Christ, no ocean of difficulty is too great. Without it, we rarely move beyond our current boundaries.
With those thoughts in mind, let’s sing, Be Thou My Vision.
5. Amazing Grace
Finally, we have a hymn that proclaims the great gift of God’s grace and how it frees us from the stresses and strains of our sinful life and brings peace. It was written by John Newton
"Amazing Grace." Many of Newton's hymns were commentaries on the weekly Bible lesson read in his church. The occasion for "Amazing Grace" was the Old Testament story of God's promise to David that he will head a dynasty, to which the former shepherd boy humbly responds, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house that thou hast brought me thus far?" (2 Samuel 7:18; 1 Chronicles 17:16). Inspired by this passage Newton wrote the words to our first verse— Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found Twas blind, but now I see.
Some recent editions and renditions have changed "wretch" to "soul" or "jewel." I like what Elvis Presley did to update this song best: he changed "wretch" to "wreck," a word he said he knew well first-hand. But Newton liked that word "wretch." He used it in at least 10 other hymns. He knew he was a broken man. You’ll find Newton's hymns in one of the most famous hymnbook collaborations ever written, called Olney Hymns (1779). How Newton came to co- write this collection is one of the great stories of the faith, and one that sheds a searchlight on our theme this morning.
Contrary to public perception, Newton did not leave the slave trade after his conversion to Christianity. He actually entered it. The notion that once Jesus comes into your life, you suddenly get everything right, is wrong. A sailor since the age of 10 (his father was a sea-captain), Newton himself was forced into slavery for a year by a slave trader until he was rescued by a another slave trader and returned to England on the ship Greyhound, the ship on which he was converted to Christianity during a storm.
Upon his return, Newton got married and started a family. Newton needed quick cash to fund his family. He was under terrible financial stress. So, in 1748, after his conversion, Newton started commanding slave ships. By 1755 Newton had made enough money to come ashore, but his conscience was still clear about his slave-trading profession. About this time Newton began telling the story of his conversion during the storm at sea to churches and revivals. He was a captivating preacher, and in 1764, at the age of 39, he was ordained a priest in the Church of England and put in charge of a church at Olney, a village of impoverished lacemakers about fifty miles north of London. While pastoring this church at Olney, Newton began to get convicted about slavery and became a vehement abolitionist. He realized how much stress he had created in the lives of others.
It just so happened that Newton's next-door neighbor was the poet William Cowper, who suffered severe depression (melancholia they called it back then). Everything stressed him out. Every sermon stressed him out. Every person stressed him out. Cowper was one of the most stressed-out people who ever lived. To occupy his mind, and to give it some direction, Newton proposed that they write hymns for use in weekly services. Newton wrote about a hymn a week, which also stressed Cowper out (he couldn't keep up). But Newton handled the stress exactly the opposite of Cowper. The more stressed Newton became, the more he channeled the creative tension into hymn writing. The more stressed Cowper became, the more dysfunction and depressed he became.
When his collaboration with Cowper was published under the title of Olney Hymns in 1779, it contained 348 hymns, 282 of them by Newton. In his preface to Olney Hymns, the collection that included "Amazing Grace," Newton wrote these words:
"They should be Hymns, not Odes, if designed for public worship, and for the use of plain people, simplicity, and ease should be chiefly attended to; and the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all, should be indulged very sparingly . . . The workings of the heart of man, and of the Spirit of God, are in general the same in all who are the subjects of grace."
There it is—the prescription for peace, the gift of Amazing Grace which affects "the workings of the heart. Newton trusted God in every workings of the heart. May you experience the same gift of Christ’s peace through God’s Amazing Grace. Amen? Let’s sing…