Hymn: “Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy” – Joseph Hart
(1712-1768)
Tune: RESTORATION (from Walker’s Southern Harmony)
The title of Marcel Proust’s 3-volumne novel The
Remembrance of Things Past is a pretty good place to start with this
hymn-line. For some of us, it is the remembering of things long in our past
that holds us back from coming as poor and needy sinners to accept all that
Christ wants to give us and do for us. It’s our conscience* that causes us to
linger yet another moment, avoiding eye contact with the One who forgives all
and – if I understand biblical theology – forgets all.
While I’m namedropping great authors, I’ll say that many of
us are haunted by Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past instead of being comforted
by the Holy Ghost of our present life. (I haven’t called the third person of
the Trinity by that name in a while!)
We have fond dreams of getting our lives back together, of
being worthy or ‘fit’ to be called one who belongs to the One. When tragedy
strikes, and the television news reporters show up on the scene and ask about
someone who has been gravely injured or maybe even died in the event, it seems
that invariable somebody in the family or friend-circle says, “He/she was just
about to get their life back together, and this had to happen.”
Too many of us are trying too hard to work it all out for
ourselves, to pick up the broken pieces, to find the missing puzzle pieces that
leave our lives incomplete. We dream of being good enough – even perfect – all the
while knowing down deep inside that we cannot achieve this on our own… or in
reality, with the help of other humans, however well-meaning… even if they’ve
written many best-selling books or have been interviewed by Oprah and Dr. Phil.
If you fall into this category, I encourage you to drop
those rattling chains of lifetime past and be a forward thinking believer,
bathing in the grace of God not cowering from his judgment. Dreaming of and
racing toward perfection can impede – slow – our spiritual growth.
It would not be as easily sung to any tune I know, but this
seems to be what the hymn-line is saying to me: “Don’t let the realization of
guilt cause you to hang around and miss out on the forgiving grace of God. Stop
your day-dreaming of what could have been, because that will keep you from
doing what you can do now.”
Joseph Hart follows this hymn-line with another classic
thought: “All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him.”
Arise. Go to Jesus. Enjoy the bear-hug of his powerful arms.
It’s okay to be needy!
Played on the dulcimer
* Footnote: While it
typically means an awareness of right and wrong, one of the definitions of
conscience is to the conscious of guilt.
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