My Lord, you wore no royal crown

John R W Stott’s The Incomparable Christ was published only in 2001 but its title would make an appropriate one for this hymn, which was prompted by another book, Hans Küng’s On Being a Christian. Christopher Idle bought this in 1978 from a station bookstall and read it on the London-Edinburgh train. One chapter sketched 4 models of human leadership: put simply, these are the king/tyrant, the rebel/revolutionary, the hermit/guru, the politician/pragmatist. There are, claimed Küng, no others—with the extraordinary and unique exception of our Lord Jesus Christ, who carries elements of each but whose person and work transcends them all. The hymn text uses this fourfold pattern negatively in its opening 4 stzs before concluding with a positive stz and a final prayer. It was completed at home in Limehouse, E London, in Nov ’78, and published in HTC four years later when it was sung at the book’s London launch. In 1987 stz 5 was revised to improve the rhythm and bring it closer to Mark 10:45. The words have since appeared in hymnals in Australia, Canada and the USA as well as others in Britain; they were sung at the Thanksgiving and Burial service for the author’s wife Marjorie at Oakley, Suffolk, 27 Feb 2003, as it was her favourite among her husband’s texts. The text was set to Michael Praetorius’ SPLENDOUR (=PUER NOBIS [NASCITUR]) in HTC, as here, and has usually been sung to that tune. This German carol melody has proved remarkably adaptable to varied texts and arrangements, in duple or triple time; a different form is widely used with G R Woodward’s Unto us a boy is born (and its modern variants), a paraphrase of the 15th-c Lat text which gave the tune one of its names. The tune first appears recognisably in a Trier ms of that period, and in later works. In 1582 it came in the Finnish collection Piae Cantones, and a version by Praetorius featured in his 16-volume collection Musae Sionae (1609). The 20th c has seen further variety in the musical treatment. Other options include BRESLAU (15) or the folk-style O WALY WALY, used by Sue Gilmurray for her 1999 recording in ‘Finest Hour: Songs for Peacemakers’.

b Bromley, Kent 1938. Eltham Coll, St Peter’s Coll Oxford (BA, English), Clifton Theol Coll Bristol; ordained in 1965 to a Barrow-in-Furness curacy. He spent 30 years in CofE parish ministry, some in rural Suffolk, mainly in inner London (Peckham, Poplar and Limehouse). Author of over 300 hymn texts, mainly Scripture based, collected in Light upon the River (1998) and Walking by the River (2008), Trees along the River (2018), and now appearing in some 300 books and other publications; see also the dedication of EP1 (p3) to his late wife Marjorie. He served on 5 editorial groups from Psalm Praise (1973) to Praise!; his writing includes ‘Grove’ booklets Hymns in Today’s Language (1982) and Real Hymns, Real Hymn Books (2000), and The Word we preach, the words we sing (Reform, 1998). He edited the quarterly News of Hymnody for 10 years, and briefly the Bulletin of the Hymn Society, on whose committee he served at various times between 1984 and 2006; and addressed British and American Hymn Socs. Until 1996 he often exchanged draft texts with Michael Perry (qv) for mutual criticism and encouragement. From 1995 he was engaged in educational work and writing from home in Peckham, SE London, until retirement in 2003; following his return to Bromley after a gap of 40 years, he has attended Holy Trinity Ch Bromley Common and Hayes Lane Baptist Ch. Owing much to the Proclamation Trust, he also belongs to the Anglican societies Crosslinks and Reform, together with CND and the Christian pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation. A former governor of 4 primary schools, he has also written songs for school assemblies set to familiar tunes, and (in 2004) Grandpa’s Amazing Poems and Awful Pictures. His bungalow is smoke-free, alcohol-free, car-free, gun-free and TV-free. Nos.13, 18, 21, 23A, 24B, 27B, 28, 31, 35, 36, 37, 48, 50, 68, 78, 79, 80, 81, 83, 85, 89, 92, 95, 102, 108, 109, 114, 118, 119A, 121A, 125, 128, 131, 145B, 157, 176, 177, 193*, 313*, 333, 339, 388, 392, 420, 428, 450, 451, 463, 478, 506, 514, 537, 548, 551, 572, 594, 597, 620, 621, 622, 636, 668, 669, 693, 747, 763, 819, 914, 917, 920, 945, 954, 956, 968, 976, 1003, 1012, 1084, 1098, 1138, 1151, 1158, 1159, 1178, 1179, 1181, 1201, 1203, 1204, 1205, 1209, 1210, 1211, 1212, 1221, 1227, 1236, 1237, 1244, 1247, 5017, 5018, 5019, 5020.