O Cross that Liftest Up My Head

I first heard “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go” during my seminary days. The version to which I was introduced was the Indelible Grace “rehymned” tune, and it quickly became a favorite. It was the one song I requested be sung at my ordination service, and it swiftly entered into the hymn rotation of both my church and its youth group.

When I moved to Langhorne Presbyterian the hymnals in use included “O Love”, but used its older St. Margaret tune. When I initially heard the classic version I immediately understood why Indelible Grace had rehymned it. St. Margaret is much slower and more contemplative. In many ways the tune captures the essence of the lyrics better than the energetic force of Indelible Grace, but importantly for me as a pastor it is not easy for a congregation to sing well. A wonderful rendition using St. Margaret by the Gettys can be heard here, with a great choral recording here. I want our church to use the hymnal as much as possible, and so the Indelible Grace version was not introduced, while the version of “O Love” in the hymnal is also not in the song rotation due to the difficulty in singing the St. Margaret tune. The result of this is that I haven’t sung “O Love” in years nor given it much thought.

Josh Garrels’ new album Peace to All Who Enter Here, vol. 2 includes a version of “O Love” that is just beautiful; it’s a cover of Ascend the Hill’s version, which until this week I did not know. While this version is also not a good for for congregational singing, its modernized retuning captures the pain and hope of the lyrics best. And really all three tunes do that to different degrees in their emphasis: pain and hope orient the Christian life, and sometimes one note is the dominant strain. Sometimes the pain is all that seems real and hope is just words; hope is something we’re hoping for. Other times, like in the Indelible Grace version, love is celebrated because we have seen that the hope and joy have met us in our pain. The gospel is that the pain of the crucified Christ seeks us out in our pain, and his pain-turned-to-life turns our pain to life. That’s the hope, and the promise of the hope will not be in vain. It’s a sign of a good song when its lyrics allow for a variety of tunes to capture its message; “O Love” is a song for the hurting and the healing.