Today’s Word from Minister of Music Karl Olsen…
Sometimes, like now, it’s helpful to be reminded that we have a shelter in God when times are challenging and we’re weary. Here’s a possibility! Jesus Is a Rock in a Weary Land (ELW 333) is listed as an African American Spiritual. There is a bit more history behind it, though, and for those of you who love a journey, there are several links to follow, should you have the time and musical research interest! But first, the basics.
A Shelter in the Time of Storm was written circa 1880, by Vernon J. Charlesworth. Charlesworth (1839-1915) was a London pastor who served as headmaster of Charles Spurgeon’s Stockwell Orphanage. In 1884, the song appeared in a small London newspaper called The Postman, and was soon a favorite of north-shore fisherman. The original hymn was set to a minor tune, and sailors were often heard singing it as they approached safe harbor in the time of storm.
Around 1885, Ira D. Sankey (a Pennsylvanian who served in the Civil War and ended up being a gospel singer who composed over 1000 songs, many of them hymns and revival songs) discovered the words written by Charlesworth and decided to compose a more practical melody to it for church use. “Practical” could, in my mind, be replaced with “traditional or “pedantic” or “usual revival song.”
While writing the Little House on the Prairie series, Laura Ingalls Wilder must have been familiar with Sankey’s version of the hymn, as she included it in the book The Long Winter, even though the song was written after the hard winter of 1880-81 she references. “After dinner Pa played hymn tunes on his fiddle, and all the afternoon they sang. They sang ‘There’s a land that is fairer than day…’ And ‘Jesus is a rock in a weary land…’” – The Long Winter, Chapter 13, “We’ll Weather the Blast.” http://www.pioneergirl.com/blog/archives/4782
The original tune is the one that seems to have survived the test of time, certainly in the Black church tradition. In 1935, the Works Progress Administration organized interviews of former slaves and their descendants in the Georgia Sea Islands (where many spoke the Gullah language I mentioned in yesterday’s missive), and made a scratchy recording of Wallace Quarterman singing a version of this hymn. Click HERE to listen.
Many different variations of the lyrics have come down the decades, and he uses these for the refrain:
My god is a rock in a weary land. Shelter in a time of storm.
He is the lily of the valley. And he is the prince of peace.
Many lyric variations are in use today, but the main scripture reference to the rock and the weary land are from Psalm 94:22; Isaiah 25:4; 32:2.
Here’s the ELW choice:
Refrain:
Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a weary land, a weary land;
My Jesus is a rock in a weary land, a shelter in the time of storm.
1 No one can do like Jesus, not a mumbling word he said;
He went walking down to Lazarus’ grave, and he raised him from the dead. Refrain
2 When Jesus was on earth, the flesh was very weak;
He took a towel and girded himself, and he washed his disciples’ feet. Refrain
3 Yonder comes my Savior, him whom I love so well;
He has the palm of victory, and the keys of death and hell. Refrain
For your listening pleasure, here are two versions of the hymn.
First, a recording of the song with Frank Sinatra and The Charioteers in 1945, click HERE
And, finally, with a current version of the church lyrics, and some explanation of its power in the Black church tradition, here is the Young Adult Choir from the first Baptist Church in Glenarden, Maryland in 2017. If you want to skip the intro, the song starts at 2:38. Hang on to your seats! Click HERE to listen.
It may not be the first song the choir sings after we return from this shutdown, but we’re one day closer, and when we gather again, we just might need to work a bit on our choreography!
See you in church!
Karl
