Lord Jesus, You Shall Be My Song (ELW 808)
1 Lord Jesus, you shall be my song as I journey;
I’ll tell ev’rybody about you wherever I go:
you alone are our life and our peace and our love.
Lord Jesus, you shall be my song as I journey.
2 Lord Jesus, I’ll praise you as long as I journey.
May all of my joy be a faithful reflection of you.
May the earth and the sea and the sky join my song.
Lord Jesus, I’ll praise you as long as I journey.
3 As long as I live, Jesus, make me your servant,
to carry your cross and to share all your burdens and tears.
For you saved me by giving your body and blood.
As long as I live, Jesus, make me your servant.
4 I fear in the dark and the doubt of my journey;
but courage will come with the sound of your steps by my side.
And with all of the family you saved by your love,
we’ll sing to your dawn at the end of our journey.
Text: Les Petites Soeurs de Jésus and L’Arche Community; tr. Stephen Somerville, b. 1931
Text © 1987 Les Petites Soeurs de Jésus, admin. Augsburg Fortress. Tr. © 1970 Stephen Somerville, admin. Augsburg Fortress.
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Devotion
This hymn paints a picture of the Christian pilgrim walking along the journey of life. Along the way, the songwriter is belting out a full-throated song to Jesus Christ. Evolutionary biology studies suggest that humans sing when their brains depict that a task is difficult, or when the brain needs a rest from the activities that it is doing. Perhaps Jesus sang a lot. After all, his short life was full of trials. Whether the biologists are right or not, life is hard, so we should sing! Even if the song isn’t happy, we can sing. Our singing is a way to carry Jesus with us. It avoids the boastful prayers in public, but it coaxes us out of our closets so that we are not alone in our faith. The divine community of God surrounds us always, no matter where we find ourselves. Let us sing!
Prayer
Lord, help me sing when I cannot sing! And when I can, Lord, thank you for giving me a voice to sing to you and to the amazing works you have done for all of humanity and for me. Amen.