07/06/2017

Good morning. One of my most thrilling experiences is being among the crowd at a rugby international in Wales when the refrain ’Bread of heaven – feed me now and evermore’ echoes round the stands. It’s an instantly recognizable sound, but not everyone singing will know that the words come from a hymn written by the great Welsh poet and preacher William Williams, the 300th anniversary of whose birth we celebrate this year. Williams is one of the great figures of the eighteenth century revival in Wales, renowned not just as a preacher, but like his contemporary in England, Charles Wesley, as a great poet and composer of hymns. In this regard, he was to have a lasting influence not just on the history of Wales but upon its language, as so many of his works found their way into the new hymnbooks of the emerging non-Conformist traditions.

William Williams’ great gift was to take stories and images from the Bible and make them come alive in the experience of his contemporaries. As they sang ‘When I tread the verge of Jordan, bid my anxious fears subside’, those who knew what it was like to travel the rugged drovers ways across west Wales could not only recognise the challenges they faced, but also make a connection between their own experience and that of the Israelites journeying to the Promised land. Williams’ hymns helped to make that link between the worship of God in heaven and the life of faith on earth, and in so doing helped shape the religious landscape of Wales. And maybe that’s not a bad reminder for us as we start this day; to reflect on how our faith in God may be made real in our life on earth.

Heavenly Father, You spoke to the people of Wales and the world through the hymns of William Williams Pantycelyn; help us to learn afresh today how we may earth our faith in the reality of our everyday experience, Amen.