View Him Prostrate

Redemption Hymnal offers us a goodly choice of communion hymns. A favourite is Come Ye Sinners, by Joseph Hart. Yet it contains a verse I simply cannot sing:

View Him, prostrate in the garden,

On the ground your Maker lies!

On the awful tree behold Him;

Hear Him cry before He dies:

“It is finished!”

Sinner, will this not suffice?

I find myself overcome with emotion. Those first two lines emphasise the dreadful humiliation and dishonouring of the Saviour while effecting our atonement. Three times I have attempted to sing that verse before the bread and wine, and three times my throat has refused to cooperate, my eyes welling with tears. To the spiritually dead, Christ’s sacrifice is just some theological dogma or shruggable fact. To we who believe, and know our eternal life was purchased at so dear a price, we cannot but wonder and marvel.

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