Music Notes from Denise, September 27, 2025

This Sunday we will read in 1st Timothy 6: In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep the commandment without spot or blame. Our Sequence hymn illustrates this: I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath. It comes from Isaac Watt’s Psalms of David published in 1719 and was arranged by John Wesley in 1736. (hymnary.org)

Our Processional hymn will be the awesome praise hymn Praise to the Lord, the Almighty. The last psalm in the Bible, Psalm 150, ends with this invitation: “Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.” German composer Joachim Neander gave us words to do just that when he wrote his most well-known hymn, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.” Hymnologist John Julian declares this to be “a magnificent hymn of praise to God, perhaps the finest production of its author, and of the first rank in its class” (Dictionary of Hymnology). And indeed, this is a hymn that has stood the test of time (over 300 years) to remain one of the most beloved praise hymns in the Church. As we sing these words, we join with the voices, in many languages, of millions who have gone before us, and those across the globe, to sing these great words of thanksgiving and honor to the God who created us, protects us, and befriends us.

For our Season of Creation hymn, St. Martin’s Choir will sing an arrangement by Ralph Johnson of Jeffery Rowthorn’s creation hymn Creating God, your fingers trace. Rowthorn wrote this text in 1974, affirming the great tenets of the church: 1. God creating the earth 2. Sustaining the ecology of life 2. Redeeming God’s people from oppression and death and 4. The Holy Spirit living with God’s people. Ralph Johnson is a composer and church musician living in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. (2012 Kjos Music Press)

This Sunday’s Gospel reading in Luke 16 is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus and describes destiny and judgement and how we need to listen and follow God’s Word. Our Communion hymn will be I Surrender All by Judson Van deVenter in 1896. He wrote the text while he was experiencing some challenges in his life that led him to decide to surrender to Christ. He left his ambition and talent for painting to focus on what he felt was a higher calling to become an evangelist. His words were “God had hidden a song in my heart, and touching a tender chord, he caused me to sing.” (medium.com)

Here’s a photograph of a ceiling that I saw in Florence, Italy!