Good news is here: Let lameness turn to leaping

Authors:
Themes:
Scriptures:
  • Isaiah 25:8
  • Isaiah 29:18
  • Isaiah 35:5-6
  • Isaiah 61:1
  • Jeremiah 31:7-14
  • Habakkuk 2:4
  • Matthew 11:4-5
  • Matthew 13:33
  • Matthew 15:30-31
  • Matthew 5:14-16
  • Mark 1:14-15
  • Luke 1:53
  • Luke 13:20-21
  • Luke 4:18
  • Luke 7:21-22
  • Romans 1:17
  • Romans 10:14-15
  • 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
  • 2 Corinthians 5:17
  • 2 Corinthians 5:7
  • Galatians 3:11
  • Ephesians 2:1-7
  • Ephesians 5:8
  • Philippians 2:15-16
  • Hebrews 10:38
  • Revelation 21:4
  • Revelation 7:17
Book Number:
  • 689

Good news is here: let lameness turn to leaping,
blind eyes will see and all the deaf will hear;
prisoners will leave their cells and laugh with freedom,
the hungry eat their fill, now God is near,
Jesus speaks the word;
let it now be heard;
God’s recreating power and love is here.

2. Good news is here: but who is there to tell it?
Who will convince the world that it is true?
Where are the lives transformed by God’s new purpose,
the living signs of what Christ’s love can do?
We, as yeast and light,
share both life and sight;
the world must see in us how Christ makes new.

3. Good news is here, if we can but believe it,
live by the hope that answers all our fears,
no power of arms, disease, pain, loss or evil
defies the God who wipes away our tears.
We who live by faith,
in the face of death,
reveal his hidden kingdom through the years.

© Author
Stephen Orchard

The Gospel - New Birth and New Life

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Tune

The story behind the hymn

It is surprisingly rare to find a hymn, even a song, starting with ‘Good News’ (cf 623). Although Stephen Orchard’s second contribution to Praise!, unlike 582 and 888, is not a translation, its starting-point is clearly the prophecies in Isaiah 35 and 61 which are fulfilled in Jesus (Matthew 11:1–6). It was written ‘some time in the 1980s, for the [Vaughan Williams] tune GUILDFORD, to replace the words in Songs of Praise’—which were England, arise! the long, long night is over. Here the Good News is taken well beyond paraphrase into a searching application. It was used in a supplementary hymn-book at Palmers Green URC in the 1980s, but this is the first main hymnal to include it.

Christopher Norton wrote the tune CHAPEL ALLERTON in 1999 for this text. One Chapel Allerton is in W Yorks and another in Somerset.

A look at the author

Orchard, Stephen Charles

b Derby 1942. Trinity Coll Cambridge (MA, PhD). Ordained in 1968 as a Congregational (later, URC) minister, he pastored churches at Abercarn (Caerphilly, nr Cwmbran), Sutton (Surrey, cf notes for Fred Pratt Green) and Welwyn Garden City; he is a gifted linguist, and after Welwyn he worked in ecumenical posts until becoming Principal of Westminster Coll Cambridge. He is a leading opponent of the extending of alcohol licensing—‘for the sake of the victims’—and has chaired the UK Alliance against alcohol abuse. Nos.582, 689, 888.