I’ve just got a short little joke. Why do you say amen instead of a woman? Because they’re hymns, not hers.
Every Sunday, we sing hymns out of a hymnal. We know that. Some we know well and have sung from the time we were very young. Others can be not so familiar. But we sing them just the same, right? We get through it. When we sing the songs, we may sing them with gusto because we like the words or the melody. And some, we just get through as best we can. Ah, the melody’s okay, the words are, ah.
So, how many of these songs do we really know? Do we really know about? Like how and why they came to be? Well, today is your lucky day because I’m gonna shed some light on that.
Henry Van Dyke was a well established as a professor of English literature at Princeton University. Henry Van Dyke was also a Presbyterian minister. Before teaching in Princeton, Henry Van Dyke spent 17 years as a pastor at Brick Presbyterian Church from 1883 to 1900. Parishioners and tourists would crowd the sanctuary to hear his sermons. One Christmas Eve, Van Dyke preached a sermon that was later published as The Story of the Other Wiseman. It was published in Harper’s Magazine in 1893. Now, I don’t know about you guys, I don’t even know Harper’s Magazine because it came out in 1893 or even before. As a book, though, it was considered a classic of Christian literature. So today you can still get his book. I have it. Oh, you have it? Oh, wonderful. Look at that.
When Van Dyke visited the president of William College in Western Massachusetts in 1907, he was overwhelmed by the beauty of the Berkshires. While preaching, he reportedly told the college president, here is a hymn for you. Your mountains were my inspiration. As a replacement for traditional and often melodic, I’ll get it, hymns, the words were specifically written to the accompanying of the Ode to Joy, the tune from Ludwig von Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Just saying.
The text first appeared in the third edition of Henry Van Dyke’s book of poems in 1911. Soon after, it was adopted into the Presbyterian hymnal. At the time Van Dyke wrote this song, tensions in Europe were escalating, leading to the way to World War I. But he held on to his progressive Christian view and found hope in humanity through the life of Jesus. Van Dyke describes the hymn as one of love, hope, and trust in God’s providence. The hymn remains one of the most beloved English hymns, often used to express a joyous nature based on theology. It is joyful, joyful, we adore thee, what we just sang.
So Helen Keller made a statement one time about Beethoven’s fifth symphony, which Joyful Joyful is the tune for that poem. She said, as I listen, yes? Ninth symphony. Ninth, what’d I say? Ninth, what’d I say? Fifth. Oh, I’ve got ninth right there. I don’t know why fifth came out. Who knows? The devil made me do it.
This is Justin’s favorite, that’s why I know. So Helen Keller had something to say about Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. She said, as I listen, now you remember, she was, it was amazing what she accomplished with all her disabilities. As I listen with darkness, and melody shadow, and sound filling all the room, I could not help remembering that the great composer, Beethoven of course, who poured forth such a flood of sweetness into the world was deaf like myself. I marveled at the power of this quenchless spirit by which out of his pain brought such joy for others. There I sat feeling with my hand the magnificent symphony which broke like a seed upon the silent souls of his soul and time.
I can’t imagine being deaf and blind and having to listen to music by the vibration. But if you ever have heard these kids with their stereo cranked and they go by and their whole car or if they’re parked behind you, everything is vibrating. So that’s what Helen Keller felt when songs were played. So, Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee, which we just sang, came from Henry Van Dyke, and it is to the Ode to Joy by Beethoven.
So that is the history of that song. In the history of our culture, you may have sung it at camp, in Sunday school, and VBS. It’s known as a children’s song, but it is so much more than that. I wonder if you know why it’s become one of the most popular American songs that we have.
It gained in popularity because of a woman named Marian Anderson. She was a famous classical contralto singer. Marion was born in Philadelphia in 1897, a long time before us, of course, with a powerful voice and a unique tone. But because of the color of her skin, she was prohibited from studying music at any of the academies. Therefore, her family had to scrimp and save to get enough money to buy her private lessons. But they managed to, and she learned how to sing. It is said that she could sing so loud and so powerful that she could rattle the windows in the buildings.
Her chance for success was very, very limited here in the U.S. because of the racial climate of that era. So she left for Europe, where she had a lot of success. People here in the U.S. heard about her success. They heard about who she was and what she was doing, which led them to asking her to come to the U.S. and sing.
In 1939, when the Daughters of the American Revolution asked her to come perform at a concert in Washington, D.C., there were certain people at that time that did not want this to happen at all, because this was a time when American segregation was in full effect. This led to them rejecting her from this concert in Washington, D.C. Well, at the time, Eleanor Roosevelt heard about this problem, and she, along with her husband, of course, who was the president, stepped in and put on a benefit concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. 75,000 people, and you can imagine, that was a lot of people back at that time, attended. They were all races, all colors, and all creeds.
Marianne Anderson stepped out onto the stage in front of this huge crowd, and she opened with My Country, ’Tis of Thee. She sang classical music, various pieces from operas, and wowed the crowd. She sang songs from her ancestry. Then she sang a traditional African American spiritual song originating from oral tradition likely created by enslaved people in the American South. As a folk spiritual, the exact author is unknown. We’ll get into what the song is.
The song was first published in 1927. In 1957, Laurie London recorded a version of this song that became an international hit, reaching number one on the US pop single chart and bringing the song to worldwide recognition. Anybody know what it is yet? The song’s lyrics reflected a message of faith, assuring that God holds all creation from this itsy bitsy baby to the whole world in his hands. The song is He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.
Now, you might be thinking, that’s not a hymn. You’re right, but it is a Christian song. So again, you might be thinking, huh, if it’s a Christian song, where in the Bible does it talk about this song? Well, there are not direct quotes from a single Bible verse. However, it is rooted in biblical verses talking of God’s sovereignty and care.
For instance, Psalm 24, one through two, the earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it. For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Isaiah 40, 12, who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hands, he’s got the whole world, and marked off the heavens by the span and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure and the weight of the mountains in a balance and the hills in a pair of scales. Psalm 94, four and five. In those hands are the depths of the earth. The peaks of the mountains, he’s got the whole world in his hands, are his also. The sea is his for it was he who made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
So that’s where this song originated. And isn’t it interesting? I’ll bet that there are people out there that don’t have a shred of idea of what Christianity is, but they’re going to sing He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands because it became popular. So isn’t that, I think it’s just awesome that a song like this has penetrated the secular world, and they don’t even know what they’re singing about. I love it.
The next one, the third one and last one. 150 years ago, a prominent lawyer, Chicago’s Horatio Spafford, put his entire fortune into real estate. You might know this story. Not long after that, the great Chicago fires happened. Everything he worked so hard for his entire life was gone in an instant. So he put his wife and his four sweet daughters on a boat to Europe to get them out of the city so he could help rebuild. On that fateful voyage, a freighter hits them. All four of his daughters drowned in the crash. Only his wife survived.
Stop and think about that for a moment, about how we’d respond to having nearly everything in our life taken from us in an instant. I don’t know about you, but I would be devastated along with several other emotions, some of which would probably not be good. But this man doesn’t think twice and jumps on another boat to go to be with his grieving wife. As the captain of the vessel tells them that they’re over the exact spot where his daughters died, what do you think he did? Did he wave his fist in the air, cursing God? We wouldn’t blame him if he did it, right? It wouldn’t surprise him if he just laid down and given up. Worse yet, God.
That would have been understandable, right? But no. Instead he takes pen and paper and proceeds to write one of the most beautiful songs in the history of the world. It Is Well With My Soul. The song and its words reminds me of the words from the book of Daniel. In all terror, fear, just like Horatio, these three men, not understanding why this is happening to them, just like Horatio, all they could say when they were in this fiery furnace to that twisted king’s face was, our God is able to provide for us. But even if he doesn’t, our hope is in God alone. Just like Horatio, nothing you can do to us will ever take that away.
