For Moses’ fiery vision (website only)

For Moses’ fiery vision,
Your breath, a dancing flame!
Elijah’s word of comfort:
He hears his whispered name.
We seek your touch again!
Caress us with your breezes
Come! Heal your people’s pain.

As Mary bore your love-child,
And raised him to a man,
So we would give our bodies:
Become the Christ child’s hands
We seek your touch again!
Caress us with your breezes
Come! Heal your people’s pain.

John saw your power descending
As tender as a dove.
We yearn to see your power,
Shown in your people’s love.
We seek your touch again!
Caress us with your breezes
Come! Heal your people’s pain.

You breathed across the garden,
Brought courage to the weak.
Gave pity through the Christ man:
Give us the word to speak!
We seek your touch again:
Caress us with your breezes
Come! Heal your people’s pain.

With gentle reassurance
You murmured Mary’s name.
To frightened, trembling cowards
You came with tongues of flame.
Surprise us with your joy!
With resurrection laughter
Come! Heal your people’s pain.

Words: Sue Spencer

Suggested tune: Ein ist Ein’Ros’ (Hymns & Psalms 90)

Metre: 76.766. 76.

Ideas for use

Though this is in some ways a ‘Holy Spirit’ hymn, suitable for use during the season of Pentecost, its range of reference makes it suitable for use year-round. The first four verses each end with the same prayer of petition, which may prove helpful in many contexts:

We seek your touch again!
Caress us with your breezes
Come! Heal your people’s pain.

If using the tune “Ein ist Ein’Ros’” and you are able, consider inviting a small group of singers to sing the first five lines of verses 1-4, with the whole congregation joining in the final two lines. (Melodically, lines 6&7 repeat lines 1&2 and 3&4 – which will help a congregation not otherwise familiar with this tune.) Everyone can then join in all of the final verse. 

More information

Sue Spencer writes that she is “keen that biblical teaching and Christianity is seen to be relevant to people in the place where they are today”. She says she did a creative writing course at Lancaster University in the 1990s “dabbled in poetry since then”. This and some other hymns were written at about that time.

For Moses’ fiery vision is a thoughtful and allusive text, drawing on a lot of ideas and imagery. It is especially suggestive of God’s presence through the Holy Spirit, though not in a way that excludes the other persons of the trinity. However, Sue’s words add to our thinking about the Holy Spirit in particular in two ways.

First, she includes the words quoted above as a kind of refrain to verses 1-4. Often, we sing the words “Come, Holy Spirit, come” – but for what purpose? Sue focuses on one particular task or characteristic of the Holy Spirit – the power to heal, both in our personal experience but also at a community or national level.

Second, Sue draws upon the biblical understanding of God’s spirit present long before the early Christian experience of Pentecost. She reminds us that God’s rûaḥ, present for example as a wind sweeping over the waters at Creation (Genesis 1:2) or life-giving breath in a valley of dried bones (Ezekiel 37), also manifests as a burning bush (for Moses), a whisper (for Elijah), as a dove (at Jesus’ baptism), and as the gift of courage in Gethsemane.

Startlingly, (v.2), the Spirit partners with Mary to bear and raise a “love-child” (pictured below, by Cincinnati-based artist Holly Schapker).

Importantly, the same Spirit who can respond to the “yes” of Mary, can be active in us also when we say “yes”. Words of St Teresa of Avila (“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours”) inspired the lines in verse 2: 

So we would give our bodies:
Become the Christ child’s hands

Through our belief and action, God’s Spirit can bring to life both “resurrection laughter” and a commitment to healing “your people’s pain”.