I Have a Hope

This past Sunday my wife worked in one of my son’s Sunday school classes, so I attended service alone. Now I have to preface everything else that I say with an admission of bias. I like hymns, old hymns. This doesn’t mean that I don’t like modern choruses. I just don’t care for the ones that repeat over and over and over and over and over and over… you get the idea.

They don’t prepare me for worship. It has the opposite affect. Case in point, a whlie back a friend of mine was standing next to me at a service and we sang a one phrased line that went “I have a hope that will never fade away”. This went on for almost eight minutes. I’m not exaggerating. OK – maybe I am, by one minute. At about the five-minute mark, my friend leans toward me and sings, “I have a song that will never go away”. As I smirked and looked around, I noticed a lot of others looking around too. They had a collective look on their faces that appeared to say, somebody bump the turntable to get this record unstuck. It just seemed to go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on – you get the idea.

Sunday we sang another song that seemed to have no end. I looked around and noticed that others were fading after a certain point. I know I may be approaching a sore subject for some, but you have to admit, after a certain point, God must hear me sing, “I have a hope that will never fade away”.

One thing about old hymns, you know they are uniquely for the Church. As I analyze some modern choruses, I notice that they can be sang with equal meaning in a church, in a temple, in a mosque, and in a reading room. Another thing I notice is that many of these songs are focused on me, and about me. I have a hope – I bless you – I, I, me, me. I like choruses and hymns that instruct and inform, the kind that are uniquely for the Church – you know, the big slab of meat songs. Some day I hope we get past this phase of repetition. I have a hope.

sideache@sideache.net