Hark, the glad sound - the Saviour comes!

Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost (Ezekiel 37: 11b) The roof is ribs of stone with no lungs to loose them, no hammer to prize fossilised saints from the cliffs, no spark to make the stone-carved stars shine. If there were angels in the architecture they too are petrified. Visitors pause admiring the arches, commending the craft yet not seeing (not saying?) there is no life here. No. Life is buried here. Fossils are not extinct, but frozen captive in cold stone. There is a hammer to set the saints free, to make the stars shine. I cannot wield it. I do not grieve for death, I grieve that I cannot stir life. I wait for resurrection. As it is written: Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. These bones shall live. These ribs shall rise. This place shall breathe and carry me on its breath.

When my dear (and much-missed) colleague Zack got a new job and proposed to leave England forever for his native Illinois, becoming rector of Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church in the delightfully named Champaign, Illinois, I wanted to write him a hymn in celebration/ mourning. Emmanuel celebrates its patronal at Candlemas, so the theme was obvious - and Zack loves the tune Picardy, so that too was obvious! Go to love the Lord of Light a Candlemas hymn, for the Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano and for his new ministry at Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church in Champaign, IL Come into the Lord’s own Temple, come to see the Son of grace dedicated to his Father, Child who set the earth in place. Here where faithful prayer has sounded see the hope for every race. Come to hear the words of Anna to the fearful and forlorn; to those waiting for redemption Anna speaks of coming morn; broken, waiting, lost and hopeless hear her news and look for dawn. Come to see the hope of ages hidden long and now reve...