"When I Survey the Wondrous Cross"
- cjoywarner
- Feb 17
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 23
This three-hundred-year-old hymn written by Isaac Watts in 1707 was a staple in Sunday morning worship when I was growing up in the Free Methodist Church. It never ceases to move me with conviction and holy awe. Not a hymn you can sing unless you really mean it, it makes you feel small at the foot of the Cross in exactly the way any human being should feel in the presence of Almighty God.
When I survey the wondrous Cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ, my God.
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.
See, from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down
Did e'er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
To say I miss the historic hymns in our worship services today would be a major understatement. To say I grieve their loss like the absence of a loved one would be the truth. I suspect I will never see them again in corporate worship this side of heaven, short of a radical revolution or revival of true worship in our times.
It isn't because there was anything wrong with these wondrous hymns that they suddenly were packed away in mothballs and lugged to the basement after surviving for centuries. I could go on and on about all the reasons why they got marginalized to the point of near extinction, perhaps to the annoyance of most people who could be my grandchildren. But, I believe they, like my deceased parents, are as alive now as they ever were, and all I have to do is open a hymnbook in my collection at home--many culled over time by my parents' frequent haunts to local antique stores--and some others that I actually held in my hands as a child first learning to read. It would be a digression--but a relevant one--to point out that it was the weekly singing of hymns that not only helped me learn to read music but that helped me to read, period, and that helped me to understand grammar and poetry, all of which I love to this day.
I look back on those days wishing I could lift the scrim of time and reappear in those hard wooden pews holding the hymnbook in my hands, or sharing it with the person next to me. I loved just thumbing through all the pages we never sang, while the old hymnbook-smell of nutmeg and fallen leaves wafted up into my face. I wish I could tell my adolescent self to cherish every single one of those moments as if it was my last--and not to take for granted the holy, homespun poignancy of the piano and organ playing in synchrony without any other deafening instrumentation. I wish I could tell myself to record the fullness of sound as the walls rang out with the entire congregation singing at the top of their lungs in four-part harmony. I wish I could tell myself to remember for the rest of my life that no human being ever created an instrument as good as the one God created in the human voice.
I wish I could tell myself never to lose the almost palpable, rugged consciousness of God in His House in a way I seldom feel in public anymore. I wasn't constantly distracted by a worldly, celebrity spirit as "important" people checked their "professional-image" pulse or looked over their shoulders to see who was impressed with the way they oohed into the microphone. No one had a microphone except the song leader. There wasn't a praise band. And I think that's the way it should still be.
People who think today that the old hymns were boring either didn't know God or didn't know the hymns like I heard them. When I was in high school, every month that had a fifth Sunday had a Sunday-night hymn sing. We would run out of time in an hour as people like popcorn chose their favorite hymns, and we could only sing the first and third verses and chorus even to get through them all. In between were scores of testimonies. Dear old Dan Burtch, who cleaned the sanctuary, praying up and down the pews every week, always had something fresh to say. Somehow in those days before everyone was "plugged in" and plugged up--and tuned out--we had a sense of community that made true worship so real, if you weren't right with God when you came through those doors, you would be by the time you left. It was everybody's favorite service. It wasn't boring; it was one of the most exciting rituals of my young life. And all I can do now is dream of what it will sound like one day in heaven, singing, "When We All Get to Heaven"--except that we will already be there.
If I were to name even just a few of my other favorite hymns about the Cross and the blood of Christ, I would have to include these: "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood" (which I would want to have sung at my funeral--even though I hope to be raptured first), "Blessed Redeemer," "At the Cross," "Lead Me to Calvary," "Near the Cross," "The Old Rugged Cross," and "The Cross, It Standeth Fast--Hallelujah!." I can't even finish this list without my eyes filling with tears. And this one, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" is perhaps the most glorious of all. I am still in shock to think that a hymn that has stood the test of time for over three hundred years has all but disappeared from corporate worship in my lifetime. Not only has this hymn disappeared, the entire hymnal has disappeared. Most churches do not have them on the backs of the pews anymore, and, even if they do, no one ever opens them.
To think that even the Titanic went down in 1912 with people singing a hymn, "Nearer, My God to Thee," (which, despite some who dispute the truth of this, remains the testimony of those witnesses who reported hearing it), how far have we drifted across the icy seas of faith to have settled for so little that has nothing to do with worshiping God and everything to do with worshiping self? Every generation should add its voice to the historic hymns of our faith, but when all we have is our own voice, we soon grow tone deaf, and I believe that's where we are today. And when that voice knows more of our decadent culture than it does of Scripture, it has no power. For all its noise, it may not rise above the ceiling.
We might almost say that our heritage of hymns, as massive and memorable as the Titanic, has gone down as senselessly and as tragically, to rest uneasily upon an ocean floor two and a half miles below the surface of every day life. Weeping silently for its drowned world, this maiden ship has offered up a few treasures, to be sure. Here and there we sing an occasional hymn with a guilty awkwardness for not knowing the words even to "Amazing Grace." The failure is so deep, cutting to the very core of who we even are as a church universal, that we have to speak out before even the memory of this mighty Ship of Grace is lost to Christendom forever.
Not only have so many churches today cut themselves off from the roots of their faith; they have distanced themselves from the truths of Scripture, especially the blood of Christ and the Cross. Rarely does modern Christianity sing songs with any true doctrinal content about the Cross. We may sing jazzed up ditties, but we have all but lost the ability to worship the Lord in reverence and in awe. No distraction of loud bombast can mask the need for old-fashioned conviction at the foot of the Cross. All too often, modern worship seems like a pep rally where we mistake noise for the Presence of the Holy Spirit. Can we ever find our way back to innocent, simple, sincere, and homespun worship? If we ever do, it will all start with surveying the Wondrous Cross. This hymn not only reminds us of our lost and lowly estate, our utter depravity in needing to be saved; it presents an indictment against the Prosperity Gospel running rampant across the globe.
When we truly survey the Wondrous Cross, we will cease from a performance-driven mindset and will sacrifice our overweening pride and unholy narcissism to our Wonderful Lord. It will take us time to detox from all the additives that have been injected into our worship palate to form our addictions, but we will no longer walk away hungry from week to week, vaguely sensing that we are malnourished even when we feel “full.” We will find a new and insatiable hunger for God such as that which swept the Asbury campus and many parts of the world in February of 2023. The crisis of healing when we unplug from media-driven worship and rediscover the power of the “still, small voice” of Elijah’s God will restore to us the sanctuary that God's House is meant to be--that House of Prayer that our culture has turned into a den of thieves.
Do you have an old hymnal lying around the house? If not, can you browse your local antique stores to find one? Just opening one and reading the fire of devotion of these pilgrims of faith in days of yore will stir your soul to new depths and lift your spirit to new heights. Your mind will be filled with the beauty of symmetry and poetry as the great truths of our historic faith rise up alive and well as if written with your own personal troubles in mind. Will you take this journey together with me, even reading one hymn a day as part of your devotions? You will not be disappointed!
We still use hymns at Lafolette’s Chapel.
I remember with great fondness those Sunday night hymn sings, too! We are strengthened as believers when we share in the Christian heritage of hymns written by those who have gone before us, helping us to recognize we are one small part of God’s story told in a long line of faith.
I wish we sang hymns too, and I have loved finding ones I didn't know existed while I'm playing piano. I know you probably think it's sad that I didn't know certain ones existed, but I look at it and am thankful that I live in a family who appreciates the hymns and cares about singing them.
Thank you for sharing how important hymns are. :)