Lord, I delight to recall your commandments

The theme of delight continues in this next extract, which Michael Saward wrote at home (Ellesmere Avenue, Beckenham, Kent) on Christmas Eve in 1971 between 4.30pm and midnight, following the ‘Nine Lessons and Carols’ broadcast from King’s College Cambridge. With several others written rapidly that day, it was part of an assignment for Psalm Praise and published there in 1973. He was at that time the CofE’s Radio and TV Officer. Except for two words changed in 1998, its characteristically robust language remains unchanged and introduces an element often missing from looser versions of the Psalm—that of the opposition. R C (Dick) Lucas has suggested this as a vital element to our understanding; so far from being a somewhat artificial collection of unrelated and/or traditional phrases, is it the spiritual diary of a man under constant pressure and persecution, who knows where to turn for help? It may then have been tidied up in its alphabetical plan as an aid to memory, particularly if that was all that the writer had left for his meditation. An earlier form of LIEBSTER IMMANUEL (‘Dearest Immanuel’) first appeared in Himmels-Lust and Welt-Unlust (Jena, 1679), named from the first words of the German hymn. It has been traced to an earlier folk-melody or dance tune, but is found in many variant forms. EH popularised it as a tune for Heber’s Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, with mainly J S Bach’s harmonisation. Here it replaces David Wilson’s tune to which the words are set in PsP; G W Briggs called it ‘a very great tune’, if sung once, or twice – ‘or even 3 times!’.

b Blackheath, SE London 1932; d Switzerland 2015. Eltham Coll; Bristol Univ and Tyndale Hall Bristol (BA); ordained 1956. He ministered in Croydon, Edgware and Liverpool before becoming the C of E’s Radio and TV Officer 1967–72. From 1972 to 1991 he served W London incumbencies in Fulham and Ealing; during the latter he barely survived a vicious attack on himself and his family at the vicarage, by intruders high on drugs. He then became Canon Treasurer of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1991, providing one of the two evangelical voices heard throughout the decade from the cathedral pulpit; some sermons were published in 1997 as These are the Facts (a title from hymn 629). He retired to Wapping, E London, in 2000. He was a Church Commissioner and General Synod member; a prolific writer, speaker and broadcaster on the local and national church, doctrine, mission, liturgy, sexual ethics, baptism and hymnody. His book Signed, Sealed, Delivered: finding the key to the Bible (2004) explores the concept of ‘covenant’ as that key.

From early 1962 onwards he wrote over 100 hymn texts, his first ones including ‘Christ triumphant’ were published in Youth Praise (1966, 1969), followed by several in Psalm Praise (1973) and Hymns for Today’s Church (1982) of which he was words editor. He was a founding Director and later Chairman of Jubilate Hymns, with a leading role in other Jubilate collections including Sing Glory (1999) which features 23 of his hymns. 75 of them were published in 2006, with an introduction and brief notes, in Christ Triumphant and other hymns. In 2009 he initiated and edited Come Celebrate, a unique collection of 291 lesser-known hymn-texts by 20 living authors, 14 of whom are represented in Praise! He said of himself, ‘My style is deliberately punchy and I love to use strong, graphic illustration’. Nos.119D, 162, 166, 249, 291, 446, 525, 592, 629, 635, 656, 849, 865*.