As a church musician and organist, I am often asked about my favorite hymn. My response is always something to the effect that I have a top 5 or 10 or 15… and it depends on the week. However, our gradual hymn for Sunday is pinned right up at the top. The text is brilliant, efficient, powerful. The tune is simply beautiful and evocative.
Writing in a simple and intense style, much like the Wesleys, Frederick William Faber penned “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” in 1854. The verses found in our hymnal are from a much longer hymn. Faber’s text soon became very popular and was found in the hymnals of many different denominations, although the verses and tune selected for each were rarely the same.
One of the tunes we find in our hymnal for this text is St. Helena, written by Calvin Hampton in 1978. Calvin was a brilliant musician who sadly died from AIDS much too early in his life. His tune is written specifically for this text. With undulating notes in the accompaniment and rocking melodic figures, his tune paints a picture of a vast rolling sea while at the same time capturing ever-present nature of God’s compassion and mercy.
The hymn as we sing it on Sunday represents a fine example of a perfect marriage of text and tune. I encourage you to not gloss over this text, but to pray it daily and allow its words to wash over you, to sink in, to grow within you. May it be a balm for your soul as we go about our daily life in a troubled world. You can listen to a wonderful recording of it below.
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior;
there is healing in His blood.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
are more felt than up in heaven;
there is no place where earth's failings
have such kindly judgment given.
There is plentiful redemption
in the blood that has been shed;
there is joy for all the members
in the sorrows of the Head.
For the love of God is broader
than the measure of the mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanksgiving
for the goodness of the Lord.
Soli Deo Gloria!
Ben Keseley, Minister of Music
