Sunday, September 18, 2011

Oh, How Good and Truly Pleasant

Set to the tune BEACH SPRING, the text was written in 2007 for Our Savior Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  God bring His healing to the MNS Distict.

1. Oh, how good and truly pleasant 
    When we dwell in unity:
    Gentle sisters, caring brothers
    Loving others selflessly!
    This the oneness God desires
    For the people called His own,
    So that we, by our affection,
    Might His love to all make known.

2. Like the oil of consecration
    Running down from Aaron’s brow,
    On his beard and sacred collar,
    To his priestly role endow,
    So our love, to God devoted,
    Spreads His fragrance everywhere;
    Royal priests by God anointed,
    One in service, faith, and prayer.

3. Were the heavy dew of Hermon
    On Mount Zion to descend,
    There the Lord commands His blessing:
    Life eternal without end;
    So would God, from Calv’ry’s mountain,
    Rain down love on desert lives,
    Causing them to bud and flower
    Till His grace our world revives.

4. Come, O precious Oil of Gladness,
    Help us love and live as one,
    As the Son is in the Father
    And the Father in the Son,
    You, as love from both proceeding,
    Three in One and One in Three—
    One in love at the beginning,
    One in love eternally!

2 comments:

Amberg said...

Thank you for this, Steve. I have been broken-hearted over the sale of ULC, as I mourn not merely the loss of brick and mortar, but the divisions the world can see in our midst.

I have found myself coming back to this Psalm, and your hymn is so wonderfully in the Lutheran tradition of Psalms shown in their New Testament light.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

amelithpastor said...

Thanks for your kind words, Mark. I'm glad this stanza was restored in LSB...it is so true.

Though with a scornful wonder
The world sees her oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping;
Their cry goes up, "How long?"
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.