When Time Was Full, God Sent His Son

Written in 1999 and set to the tune VALIANT ONE by Walter Pelz. "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here." (Matthew 12:40-41)

1.         

When time was full, God sent His Son

To save those under Law;

His destined path Christ did not shun,

But faced death’s hungry maw.

As Life was swallowed up and died,

Creation shook and groaned:

Its Lord and Maker crucified,

Deposed, entombed, disowned.

2.   

This holy Jonah undecayed

Lay still within the whale;

This Lord of Life on death then preyed,

Hell’s titan to impale:

From gaping jaws came forth this King,

With death the casualty!

Colossal foe, where now your sting?

Where, grave, your victory?

3.   

God’s valiant One, once sacrificed,

Is high-exalted now,

That at the name of Jesus Christ

Each knee should surely bow;

Each tongue confess and praise the Lamb,

Our resurrected Lord,

The First and Last, the great I AM—
Acclaimed, enthroned, adored!

Darkness Shrouds the Awful Mountain

Written in 1988 for Good Friday, set to the tune FREUEN WIR UNS ALL IN EIN.

1.  

Darkness shrouds the awful mountain;

Christ our Lord yields up His final breath:

“Father, now receive my spirit,”

As He bows His head in death.

2.  

Silent is the deposition

Of His sacred body from the cross;

Quickly to the tomb they bear Him

Hushed by grief at their great loss.

3.  

Be fulfilled, O sign of Jonah—

Bringing life from death on the third day.

God has not His Son abandoned
Nor will Jesus see decay!