On Jordan's Bank

[ancientandmodern]

I know a priest who approaches the Third Sunday of Advent with mixed feelings. John the Baptist, whose week of Advent this begins, is not a cuddly kind of saint, even compared to the rest of them, and, given that we also celebrate his birth (in June) and his beheading (in August), one tends to run out of things to say about him. Which can be a problem, particularly if one happens to be the rector of St John the Baptist's. (This cuts both ways, of course. My current church appears to take its dedication to the Trinity as an excuse to avoid tackling complex theological issues on the first Sunday after Pentecost, but rather to talk about what the parish is up to.) In this household any John the Baptist-related festival is used as an excuse to sing This is the record of John until politely requested to desist.

Choosing hymns for John the Baptist is not such a problem. This one is probably the most obvious:

On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry
Announces that the Lord is nigh;
Come then and hearken, for he brings
Glad tidings from the King of kings.

Then cleansed be every Christian breast,
And furnished for so great a guest!
Yea, let us each our hearts prepare
For Christ to come and enter there.

For thou art our salvation, Lord,
Our refuge and our great reward;
Without thy grace our souls must fade,
And wither like a flower decayed.

Stretch forth thine hand to heal our sore,
And make us rise, to fall no more;
Once more upon thy people shine,
And fill the world with love divine.

All praise, eternal Son, to thee
Whose advent sets thy people free,
Whom, with the Father, we adore,
And Spirit blest, for evermore.

As is only proper, the focus shifts early on from John to the one who comes after him, the one whose sandals he is not worthy to tie. We come to listen to John, but more important than John are his tidings - the tidings of, and from, the King of kings.

John's tidings are both invitation and warning. Jesus is coming, and it's not worth our trying to put him off to some more convenient day. We had better get on with the cleansing and furnishing. 'Come down, Zaccheus, for I must dine at your house today.' Did Zaccheus run around like a headless chicken, worrying about whether there was food in the house and whether the table was clear? I would have done. The one thing that we can count on is that the heavenly guest will not, upon finding our house a tip, stomp out again in a huff; he'll get an apron on and start sweeping the floor for us. Embarrassing, isn't it?

Common Praise has significantly altered words, incidentally, although there is a note below the text timidly pointing out that they were 'altered by compilers of Hymns Ancient and Modern'. You can't pin anything on us, guv. I am ambivalent about changing the words of hymns, if only because it's so confusing, but I must admit that the altered second verse, with its nod to Isaiah and John's Gospel, in particular is appealing:

Then cleansed be every breast from sin;
make straight the way for God within;
prepare we in our hearts a home,
where such a mighty guest may come.

We are dependant on God's grace to accomplish this cleaning, says the third verse. Salvation, refuge, and reward, God is all in all to us, and without God we are nothing. He brings healing and forgiveness, cleans up the muck and lets the light shine out. And, to finish things off, a doxology, rendered by 'whose advent sets thy people free' just relevant enough to tie up with the rest of the hymn. Perfect.

I've only ever sung this to Winchester New, which is to my mind an excellent tune - also commonly used for Ride on, ride on, in majesty, which is interesting. Both hymns deal with the impending arrival of Jesus, but they are two very different arrivals.

Once again, I can't find a video featuring the words and the tune I know, but this is a particularly clear recording of Winchester New. Sing along!

This is an interesting interpretation, sung to a tune that I'd normally associate with Come, thou redeemer of the earth