Abide with me
“I fear no foe with thee at hand to bless,
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.”
–verse four from “Abide with Me” by Henry Francis Lyte
A Scottish clergyman named Henry Francis Lyte once served an Anglican congregation in County Wexford, Ireland before moving to England. During his ministry, he encountered all the joys ministry—baptisms, festivals, Christmas, and Easter, and also the difficulties—humanity’s mortality, death, and grief. In 1820, he returned to County Wexford to visit a dear friend on his deathbed, William Le Hunte. At William’s side, Lyte heard him mumble, “abide with me.” It was from those words that Lyte composed the first version of the now well-known hymn, “Abide with me.” After William died, Lyte provided a copy of the hymn to his family. According to the story, when Lyte was slowly dying of tuberculosis, he recited the same hymn he composed all those years ago at William’s bedside. The hymn, “Abide with me,” was first sung at Lyte’s funeral in 1847.
“Abide with Me” has found its’ way into hymnals throughout the world. It was our sending hymn for yesterday’s Ash Wednesday services at St. Paul. This hymn, often sung at funerals, reminds us of humanity’s mortality that is deeply entwined with the promise of a resurrection that overcomes over all death and sorrow.
Abide is a profound word. It can also mean to stay and/or to remain, and through the lens of our faith, it means to remain with God. The word serves as both a plea, hoping that death is not the final word, and a reminder that in God, death will be defeated by resurrection. Lyte clung to the comfort of God’s abiding presence as he was dying and trusted the promise of God’s triumph over all death.
“Abide with Me” has become an anthem of Ash Wednesday and Lent. Ash Wednesday begins the 40-day season of self-reflection with the startling reminder that we all will return to dust someday. It maybe is uncomfortable to think of our loved ones’ mortality and our own. However, there is one line in the hymn that always seems to lessen my discomfort, almost to the point of tears. In verse four, we sing “where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still if you abide with me.” Singing, as a human experience, helps us grapple with the realities of our lives, that sin and death does exist among us. Yet, singing also opposes the permanence of death. Where is the victory of the grave when it is Jesus who abides with us?
The ashes many of us received on our foreheads remind us that death is certain for us. Death was certain for Jesus. Yet, in Jesus, resurrection triumphs over death on that Easter morning that we’re inching toward. Yet, for now, when we do sing this hymn, remember that, yes, we are pulled into the same truth of mortality that William Le Hunte and Henry Lyte experienced in their lives, but we are also drawn into the same promise of God, who abided with them, and who abides with us—in life and in death. And even though we’ll feel the sting of loss and death, victory over death is coming. And his name is Jesus.
