Church Family,
This has been a pretty busy April! We started with DNOW, then we had our Widow and Widowers Banquet. Now, at the time of my writing, we are gearing up for both Easter and our Family Connection Sunday! I can’t wait to see how God moves and works in our church through the remainder of this month!
It is great to use this space to write about events that are happening in the life of our church (which I often do). However, I wanted this article to be more devotional in nature. In fact, at the time of me writing this, today is the 250th anniversary of one of my favorite hymns, “There is a Fountain.”
This hymn was written as part of the Olney Hymnbook by William Cowper (pronounced “Cooper”). Cowper was a trained lawyer and poet who dealt with tragedy throughout his life. He was only the second of seven children who made it to adulthood. His mother passed when he was six. He spent time away at boarding school and was bullied by peers. He dealt with bouts of depression and had a nervous breakdown when he was interviewing for a parliamentary position and attempted suicide on three different occasions and spent time in a mental asylum. However, it was there, in that asylum, that he came to faith in Christ.
While we wish his story was all wonderful from there, he still struggled with mental health for the rest of his life. He ended up moving out to Olney and was befriended and discipled by John Newton, the slave-trader turned priest who penned “Amazing Grace.” Newton encouraged Cowper to write hymns with him for their church.
In a time when he was close to the Lord, he wrote the lyrics to the “There is a Fountain.” This hymn references Zechariah 13:1 and it’s first verse proclaims, “There is a fountain filled with blood/drawn from Immanuel’s veins/And sinners plunged beneath that flood/lose all their guilt and stains.”
Reflecting on the cross, this hymn powerfully communicates the hope that we have because of Christ’s substitutionary atonement. He bled on that cross so that we could be saved! Though Cowper had a difficult life, he clung to Christ as his Savior!
Getting very personal in the fifth verse, Cowper writes of a longing when he won’t have to battle his issues anymore. He writes, “When this poor lisping, stamm’ring tongue/lies silent in the grave/then in a nobler, sweeter song/I’ll sing the power to save.”
That “lisp” that Cowper endured was never fully healed on this side of heaven. However, because he was plunged beneath that flood from Immanuel’s veins, he is now made perfect and whole with his Savior.
Church, in the midst of difficult circumstances in our lives, let us, like Cowper, cling to the promise that we all lose our guilty stains when we are trust in Jesus as our Savior!
In Him,
Pastor Zach Crook