Sacred Music Sunday: Come, Come, Ye Saints

I was never a big fan of the hymn Come, Come, Ye Saints. As a matter of musicality, I found it trite and sappy. However, when I was looking for a seasonally appropriate hymn for today’s installment, it came up as the logical choice.

The music still doesn’t do much for me, but I like the message. As the pioneers were walking across the plains fleeing persecution, they were suffering great hardship. They lost their homes, their belongings, their loved ones. Some of them even lost their lives. But they sang the refrain “all is well”.

I’m a relentless optimist, but the past year and a half it has been difficult to maintain that optimism. So often, when we’re in the midst of trials and challenges, it’s easy to say that things will be better in some indeterminate future – after the trial is over, or even in the afterlife. But things can be better now. God is with us in the thick of things while our challenges are ongoing.

[I]n all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:37-39

And if nothing can separate us from the love of God, then come what may, all is well.