Pastor's Corner: Hymns have superpowers

Hymns have superpowers. Hymns combine the power of poetry - often poetry inspired by Scripture - with the power of music, and the result is so potent that it can transport our body and soul as if to the throne room of the Lord. I'd call that a superpower.

This past Sunday at First Lutheran, we sang a hymn that was new to me: God, Who Stretched the Spangled Heavens. The worship team had chosen it because the hymn's mention of the spangled heavens reflected the image in our reading from Genesis 15, when God led Abram out of his tent and asked the old man to count the stars. God promised, "So shall your descendants be." Spangled heavens in the Scripture, spangled heavens in the song. Perfect!

Yet there was a deeper reason to sing that particular hymn on that particular Sunday, whatever Bible passage we read. Catherine Cameron wrote the hymn in 1967, when excitement about space travel and humanity's ability to explore deeper into the spangled heavens infused the world. But there was another side to this age of rapidly advancing technology: humanity had discovered atomic weapons and their horrific, mass-murdering capabilities - and we had already pulled the trigger on Aug. 6 and Aug. 9, 1945. The tension of the Cold War was as palpable as the thrill of space exploration.

Dr. Cameron penned the lyrics to this hymn with both that tension and thrill in mind. God gave us creative and inventive powers, and we have used those powers to bring about so much good ... and so much destruction. We sang this hymn on Aug. 7, in the gap between the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the bombing of Nagasaki. The words (and tune, which I find impossible to communicate through the written word, unfortunately!) remind us that God has given us good gifts and amazing potential. Echoing Pastor Curt's article from last week, we must ask: How will we use our gifts and potential?

Here is Dr. Cameron's ponderings/answer to that question:

Verse 1: God, who stretched the spangled heavens infinite in time and place, flung the suns in burning radiance through the silent fields of space: we, your children in your likeness, share inventive pow'rs with you; great Creator, still creating, show us what we yet may do.

Verse 2: Proudly rise our modern cities, stately buildings row on row; yet their windows, blank, unfeeling, stare on canyoned streets below, where the lonely drift unnoticed in the city's ebb and flow, lost to purpose and to meaning, scarcely caring where they go.

Verse 3: We have ventured worlds undreamed of since the childhood of our race; known the ecstasy of winging through untraveled realms of space; probed the secrets of the atom, yielding unimagined pow'r, facing us with life's destruction or our most triumphant hour.

Verse 4: As each far horizon beckons, may it challenge us anew: children of creative purpose, serving others, hon'ring you. May our dreams prove rich with promise; each endeavor well begun; great Creator, give us guidance till our goals and yours are one.

Hymns and humans both have superpowers. May we use them wisely and well and always in worship of our good and glorious God.

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Pastor Megan Hoewisch

First Lutheran Church