Thought for the Week

ONE OF the joys of leading worship is seeing people enjoying the hymns. Music has a powerful place in our lives. As a youngster I was weaned on the music and words of Rogers and Hammerstein.

My parents were ardent fans and had a recording of every one of their musicals.

We know that today many are not familiar with the old hymns and often aren’t sure what to have at the funeral of a loved one.

Well evidently now one of the top 10 ‘hymns’ for a funeral is from the musical Carousel.

More than any other song from a show

You’ll never walk alone has crossed over from the theatre to the sanctuary, from the secular to the sacred.

It is found in several hymn books and regularly heard on Songs of Praise.

It has attained the status of a communal anthem sung across the western world at times both of great tragedy and of great celebration.

It is a secular song but with a very spiritual dimension.

Its initial call to: ‘Keep your chin up high and don’t be afraid of the dark’ is the very stuff of robust Christianity.

The incitement calls us to: ‘Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown’ with the assurance that: ‘At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of the lark’.

Then the last phrase is surely one which speaks to our souls: ‘Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart, And you’ll never walk alone.’ Know that whatever path you are on, God is beside you.