Fanny Crosby

So I was looking through hymn lyrics to write a post on an observation I made recently that a lot of hymns have a general theme of "O we have to deal with these sicknesses and pain now but soon we will go to heaven." The gist of the post would have been about how it's interesting that the theme of these hymns were on this one subject and medicine's role had not come as largely into play as it has now and whether this makes these hymns somewhat harder to be relevant now.....that would have been the post however in looking at hymns I kept hitting ones by Fanny Crosby and her lyrics really struck me.

As a senior Worship Arts major at SAU I did a paper on Fanny Crosby and really enjoyed learning more about her, however, now being a few years out of school with more experience under my belt, I have an even greater appreciate for Miss Crosby's lyrics. In the majority of her songs I feel like she really got worship. For example, in Praise Him, Praise Him, verse 2 says:

Praise Him! Praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!
For our sins He suffered, and bled, and died.
He our Rock, our hope of eternal salvation,
Hail Him! hail Him! Jesus the Crucified.
Sound His praises! Jesus who bore our sorrows,
Love unbounded, wonderful, deep and strong.

She goes through basically the story of Christ in one verse ( say basically because Christ rising from the grave isn't in this verse). I had a professor who once said that we should at some point in every service be hitting the story of Christ to remind us of why we are worshiping and I totally agree. The lyrics in this song go back to giving God the praise. It all goes back to God, which a lot of our worship songs now a days tend to say "I this.." or "me." Miss Crosby also hits up this theme on, To God be the Glory, the chorus says:

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the earth hear his voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord,
let the people rejoice!
O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done!

Giving it all back to God. There are a lot of songs out there with great lyrics now a days that I love, but I was encouraged to see the lyrics written so long ago that really bring our focus back to where it should be.
-B