One morning a few weeks ago, I was lying in bed in that vague state between sleep and wakefulness, when I started thinking about something someone had said to me a few days before – that there weren’t enough good hymns about the future, and the certain hope Christians have, in Christ, of the new creation. And, as I lay there, words started to run around in my mind, falling seemingly effortlessly into rhyme and meter.
This has happened to me once before, a few years ago. That time, I didn’t write anything down, and when I woke up, I forgot it all. This time, I didn’t make the same mistake. A few days ago I found the scrappy post-its and typed them up. With really very little additional polish, here is the result.
There’s A White Robe Waiting For Us
version 0.1
There’s a white robe waiting for us –
Cleaner than new-fallen snow,
Brighter than the sun at noon-day,
Radiant with a heav’nly glow.Such a garment we can’t merit,
Given by the Lord we serve.
Symbol of his love and kindness,
Sign of grace we don’t deserve.There’s a body waiting for us –
Perfect, whole in every way.
We will suffer no more sickness,
Slaves no longer to decay.Weak and frail are earthly bodies,
Into dust they fade away.
But our resurrection dwelling
Fit and strong will ever stay.Perfect bodies, robed in splendour –
This will be our final state.
And that time is nearly with us,
Not much longer now to wait.Mindful of that new creation,
Send us out to love and serve.
Tell your message to the nations
Of forgiveness undeserved.(C) 2006 Gervase Markham
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5
License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Given that I’m normally not creative in this way, the authoring credit should go to the Holy Spirit… but I’m not sure the law would recognise His copyright.
Dream on…
Gerv,
Thanks for posting this – it’s a blessing to me this morning. Thanks for putting your heart out there for the world to see.
“Look, I am making all things new!”
Amen, come Lord Jesus.
Scott
FSM loves white robes (not as much as pirate regalia, mind you)
Gerv,
Hey. Urm, whatever. But could you post these sort of messages so they don’t turn up in the mozilla feedHouse please? Not much to do with Firefox (and I’m not a Christain)
Nice one!
monk.e.boy
Don’t mind them, they’re just jealous :P
Good work though! You should show it to a few Christian artists and see if anyone will sing it.
Robin
Nice one Gerv. I’m quite impressed, it would be great to see this put on an album or something.
What a shame that people are still fooled by “religion”.
What a shame that people are still self-important enough to post close-minded trash in response to a message that they have no obligation to read. Maybe they will grow up one day and realize that other people have different opinions and beliefs, but it’s doubtful.
Anyway, nice job, Gerv. This is your blog, so don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t post.
This is probably going to come out strangely, but… don’t you find that a bit depressing?
Such a garment we can’t merit,
Given by the Lord we serve.
Symbol of his love and kindness,
Sign of grace we don’t deserve.
I’ve always been extremely skeptical when presented with Christianity, as it seems to require that you see yourself as a worthless individual who only has any meaning because of God. Obviously there’s going to be some element of that if you look at any religion where God created humanity because then without God none of us would even exist, but why would God create something with no intrinsic value?
It makes no sense to me at all!
Just wanted to say that anyway.
…stolen from boingboing headlines, but apropos if we’re just one links’ breath away from “Intelligent-Design” discussions here.
http://www.humananimalhybrid.net/
I like that it has version number. How many songs get version numbers?
Please stop this coming up in the Planet Mozilla feed. There is (I think) a way to mark them not to be included.
Matt: Good question.
The Bible doesn’t teach that humans are worthless; on the contrary, we are individually created by and known by God, and precious to him. However, since almost the very beginning, we have been a rebellious people, turning away from God.
What that verse talks about is that God loves those he chooses not because of any merit within us – we cannot say to God “you have to love me because I did X or Y”. The Bible says that all our “righteous deeds” are like filthy rags in his sight. He loves his followers because he chooses to, even despite the way we ignore and resent him. That’s what the Bible calls “grace”.
Coincidently, that’s how I mostly feel about my cat. I think there’s something to that.
Gerv,
Great post.
Thanks for sharing the lyrics! (It’s great to see a Christian hacker blog too).
Have just found your blog by way of the Bristol and Bath Linux User Group digest:
Good to see the Gospel being lived out in hackerspace.
Yours in the Grace of God
John M
Gerv,
This is a really great hymn, I really enjoyed it even though I don’t like hymns :D God has really been showing me how great it will be one day to have the greatest wedding of all – one where we get to be with Him forever. :D