As I was working on this Sunday’s worship service, I realized I wanted to include a hymn that I didn’t think existed.
I’m preaching about the omnipotence of God (Presbyterians tend to prefer “providence” language) in response to a question from a member of my church.
Omnipotence is a challenge, and I’ve written about it before, but I couldn’t think of a single song that said what I wanted to about God’s vulnerability. I’ve even written a poem with the same title as this song.
I set it to “Ellecombe,” which is the same tune as “I Sing the Mighty Power of God,” because this song feels like the other side of the coin for that song.
- We called you the Omnipotent
Great Father, Strong to Save,1
But when you became one of us
We put you in a grave.
Our ancient boasts accused you of
What love would never do.2
But your great love is strong enough
For us to question you. - God, your great hands were made so small
to circle Mary’s thumb,
And you feel every bullet wound
Are hurt by every bomb.
We see you in the refugee,
And all hurt by our sins,
And you were crucified by Rome
And every empire since.3 - The greatness of the smallness of
our God who put on skin,4
You came to the worst neighborhood
And then you moved right in.5
Our stories of your mighty pow’r
Had left us wondering,
But you showed your love on the day
You joined our suffering.6
You can find sheet music here. If you’re the only ordained pastor at your church, or your church only has one ordained pastor, you have my permission to use it at no cost.
- Inspired by the PC(USA)’s Confession of 1967, §B, para. 1 ↩︎
- Some of the things the Bible says God did – and the authors are proud of, I don’t think a loving God would ever do. ↩︎
- Matthew 25:31-45 ↩︎
- “The Greatness of the Smallness of God” is from another poem I wrote. ↩︎
- A paraphrase of Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood” ↩︎
- I borrowed this line from a Psalm project I wrote. ↩︎
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