Posted by Roberta Grimes • December 26, 2020 • 46 Comments
Joy to the world! The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King! Let every heart prepare Him room, And heaven and nature sing! And heaven and nature sing! And heaven, and heaven and nature sing! – Isaac Watts (1674-1748), from “Joy to the World” (1719) It pains me to admit that I seem to... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • December 19, 2020 • 38 Comments
O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel. – From “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (9th Century Latin Hymn, Translated 1861) Every human-made god has human flaws, and none of them has... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • December 12, 2020 • 25 Comments
Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation! O my soul, praise him, for he is your health and salvation! Come, all who hear; now to his temple draw near, join me in glad adoration. – Joachim Neander (1650-1680), from the German “Praise to the Lord” (1680) The only approach to morality that... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • December 05, 2020 • 48 Comments
Don’t you think it’s rather funny That I should be in this position? I’m the one who’s always been so calm, so cool, no lover’s fool, Running every show. He scares me so. – Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice, from “Jesus Christ Superstar” (1971) The divine love that Jesus taught is the only kind... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • November 28, 2020 • 57 Comments
I don’t know how to love him. What to do, how to move him. I’ve been changed, yes really changed. In these past few days, when I’ve seen myself, I seem like someone else. – Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice, from “Jesus Christ Superstar” (1971) Animals reshuffle genetic material in the process of producing... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • November 21, 2020 • 33 Comments
What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear. And what a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer. – Joseph M. Scriven (1819-1886), from “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” (1855) Without the work of researchers who have studied the afterlife and the greater reality, we still... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • November 14, 2020 • 36 Comments
If I loved you, Time and again I would try to say All I’d want you to know. If I loved you, Words wouldn’t come in an easy way. Round in circles I’d go! – Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960), from the musical “Carousel” (1945) The harder we work to ever better understand the Gospel teachings... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • November 07, 2020 • 54 Comments
Lord, our Lord, How majestic is Your name in all the earth… When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have set in place; What is man that You think of him, And a son of man that You are concerned about him? Yet You have... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • October 31, 2020 • 36 Comments
God has not promised skies always blue, Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through; God has not promised sun without rain, Joy without sorrow, peace without pain. – Annie J. Flint (1866-1932), from “What God Has Promised” (before 1902) Jesus was not the first divine messenger who told us what God actually wants. Nor was He... Read More
Posted by Roberta Grimes • October 24, 2020 • 55 Comments
All hail the power of Jesus’s Name! Let angels prostrate fall; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown Him Lord of all! – Edward Perronet (1726 – 1792), from “All Hail the Power of Jesus’s Name” (1779) For most of my life I saw Jesus as one of the founders of Christianity. The religion carries... Read More
