Jesus, Alpha and Omega

Keith Landis wrote this hymn, based on Revelation 1, in California in 1992. It is published in his collection Songs for the People of God (Whittier, California, 1994), and like 506 uses the Gk equivalent of ‘A&Z’ as titles in the same way as Revelation 1:8, 21:6 and 22:13. As in the present book, it is a close neighbour there of Lo, he comes and The King shall come, in the final subsection under ‘God the Son’ entitled ‘Coming in Glory’.

At the same time the author also composed the tune LATIMER, named after the 16th-c Protestant reformer and martyr Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester. The music was published, as here, with the words; Linda Mawson provides the arrangement for Praise! The present book may be the first in Britain to feature the words and music.

b 1922. Ordained in the Episcopal Church in N America, he served for some years from 1959 as rector of Anglican parishes in S California; St Bartholomew’s Pico Rivera, St Luke’s Fontana, and Whittier. He has been a prolific writer of texts and tunes since the 1970s. His work is represented in hymnals from the Christian Reformed Ch, the Evangelical Covenant Ch, and collections for students, Anglicans, RCs and others, but is not yet well-known outside N America. In 1994 he almost singlehandedly compiled a full-scale hymn-book, Songs for the People of God, Jeffrey Rickard being the Consulting Music Editor. (Rickard, b 1942, contributed nearly 140 tunes and arrangements.) Of its 675 items, KL provided more than 50 texts and versions and nearly 200 tunes; current British writers are also well-represented. His work with hymns has suffered two major setbacks; one crate of books was somehow lost half-way across the Atlantic; and a fire in his own California rectory in 1987 destroyed many of his possessions. Three rooms of the bungalow were gutted, but having been alerted by a neighbour’s shouts, he was just able to rescue some valued books, files and papers from his study before the flames took over. No.510.