This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story.
Christ our passover of gladness
Suggested tune: "Rhuddlan" - see below.
Christ our passover of gladness
Christ our Passover of gladness
has for us been sacrificed,
taking all our sin and badness:
once for all his death sufficed.
So let's celebrate
and participate
in the pure love feast of Christ.
Christ, once raised from death victorious,
has escaped death's power to slay.
Dying once for all to save us,
now he lives beyond decay.
We are dead to sin
and alive in him:
we will follow in Christ's way.
Christ is risen, we'll be risen:
he will save those now asleep.
Those fast bound in Adam's prison
from the grave in Christ will leap.
All his flock will come
to their final home
where the Shepherd they will meet.
Words copyright © John Hartley 2007.
- a setting of the Easter Anthems.
Suggested tune: Rhuddlan (which is usually set to "Judge eternal, throned in splendour") Note: you really do need this tune and not just any old 878787 one, as the two short lines in the verse rely on splitting the usual slurs.)
Story behind the song
This song arose when a member of the COIN Music list asked if anyone knew any responsive versions or modern-language versions of the Easter Anthems. Well, this isn't really either, but it might do for those who want a metrical version.
The "Easter Anthems" (which can be found here) appear in the Book of Common Prayer as a special celebration of Easter: the eight spoken couplets are from three short bible passages - 1 Cor 5:7b-8, Romans 6:9-11, and 1 Cor 15:20-22. It seemed natural to try to make a three-verse hymn: one verse to each of these short bible passages.
Click here for another metrical version of this canticle.
I guess those who are a bit nervous of universalist verses in the bible will be nervous about whether I've struck the right note of explanation of 1 Cor 15:20 in the above words? OK, I confess I'm a bit nervous myself. All I can do is to plead that I've made an attempt to say that it's really "his flock" to which the verse applies (it seems to me that this is the correct interpretation of the verse in its context). I made a longer attempt at tackling this verse in "As in Adam all die" where I had a verse to explain why all died in Adam, a verse to explain what Christ has done to make all live in him, and a tag to invite the listener to get "in Christ" so as to appropriate the benefits of what he did.
John Hartley.