O God, your mercy, moved by love

Authors:
Themes:
Scriptures:
  • Deuteronomy 7:6-7
  • John 1:36
  • John 21:22
  • John 6:51-55
  • 1 Corinthians 10:17
  • 2 Corinthians 1:20-22
  • Ephesians 1:3-14
  • Ephesians 2:5-8
  • Ephesians 3:17
  • Colossians 3:1-2
  • 1 Peter 1:19
  • 1 Peter 1:8
  • Revelation 1:18
  • Revelation 2:8
  • Revelation 5:12
Book Number:
  • 655

O God, your mercy, moved by love,
has raised us to a heavenly place
to share a fellowship above,
to sit with Christ, through saving grace.

2. Here, too, on earth your feast is spread
and guests may come who know their need,
to feed on Christ, the living bread,
and find his flesh is food indeed.

3. Inviting grace has made us free
to drink the wine and eat the bread;
to hold him in our memory,
the Lamb who lives, who once was dead.

4. The promises of God are sealed
in broken bread and outpoured wine,
and all the grace in Christ revealed
with wonderment I learn is mine.

5. We share one cup, one loaf we break;
we preach his death until he come;
our risen Lord by faith we take
and Jesus makes our hearts his home.

6. One loaf, one cup, one body shared,
one faith, one mutual accord,
one precious blood, one death declared,
one Jesus loved, one coming Lord.

© Mrs C Motyer-Lowndes
J Alec Motyer

The Church - The Lord's Supper

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Tunes

  • Bishopsteignton
    Bishopsteignton
    Metre:
    • LM (Long Metre: 88 88)
    Composer:
    • Mawson, Linda
  • Poynton
    Poynton
    Metre:
    • LM (Long Metre: 88 88)
    Composer:
    • Lowndes, C M M

The story behind the hymn

J Alec Motyer wrote this hymn in 1988 at Christ Church, Westbourne (nr Bournemouth, Dorset), where it was first sung, and where he ministered from 1981 until his formal retirement a year later. It arose, he says, ‘from the need to provide a specific hymn for use at a service of Holy Communion.’ This one clearly draws on the relevant parts of 1 Corinthians 10 and 11; it was one of the first hymn texts he wrote, and is published here for the first time after minor adjustments agreed with the author.

He then moved to retirement in BISHOPSTEIGNTON (Devon), and Linda Mawson gave her tune this name. She composed it at Bromley in 1999, and explains: ‘Alec Motyer’s words express beautifully the “wonderment

A look at the author

Motyer, John Alexander (Alec)

b Dublin 1924. d 2016. The High School, Dublin and Trinity Coll, Univ of Dublin; MA, BD, with several prizes, and Lambeth DD (1997). Ordained (CofE) in 1947, he served curacies in Penn Fields (Wolverhampton) and at Holy Trinity Ch, Bristol; he was Tutor, then Vice-principal of Clifton Theol Coll Bristol 1950–65. After a period back in parish life as Vicar of St Luke W Hampstead he returned to Bristol as Deputy Principal of Tyndale Hall 1970–71, and Principal of the new (amalgamated) Trinity Coll 1971–81. He was also a visiting Prof in OT at the Reformed Theological Seminary at Jackson, Mississippi, USA. He then became the Minister at Westbourne (Bournemouth, 1981–89) until retirement at Bishopsteignton, Teignmouth, Devon in 1990, moving later to Poynton, Ches. Few men of his generation have taught so many Anglican ordinands while also having parish experience and academic distinction; of a clearly Reformed stamp, for more than 40 years he has also been an occasional speaker at the Keswick Convention and some of its overseas equivalents. The author of an early ‘Tyndale monograph’ on Exod 6, The Revelation of the Divine Name (1959), a ‘Hodder Christian paperback’ After Death (1965), and a major commentary on Isaiah (1993), he has also contributed to Bible and Theological Dictionaries and written on Amos, James, Philippians, Zephaniah and Haggai, Psalms, Exodus, (‘A scenic route through the OT’ and ‘The days of our pilgrimage’), on the OT in general (Discovering the Old Testament) and (with his son Stephen) on Thessalonians. Nos.404, 655, 1021, 1022.