40 Favorite Hymns for the Christian Year: A Closer Look at their Spiritual and Poetic Meaning

Book Description:

For generations, Christians have celebrated holidays and seasons with special songs. We all have favorite Christmas carols or Easter hymns, and some of us associate certain hymns with events like Thanksgiving or the New Year. But often we overlook the fact that these familiar songs are also powerful works of devotional poetry.

This anthology of great hymns associated with the calendar year invites us to experience these works as poems-to slow down and savor their well-turned phrases, their surprising metaphors, and their evocative language. English professor Leland Ryken provides historical background and literary analysis for each hymn, finishing each with a Scripture reading to accompany it. The result is a wonderfully devotional and poetic study for the Christian's year, drawing on hymns for the New Year, Good Friday, Easter, Christmas, and more.

New Year
  O God, Our Help in Ages Past by Isaac Watts
  Standing at the Portal by Frances Ridley Havergal
  Great God, We Sing That Mighty Hand by Philip Doddridge 
  God of Our Life by Hugh Thomson Kerr
  Another Year Is Dawning by Frances Ridley Havergal

Good Friday
  When I Survey the Wondrous Cross by Isaac Watts
  O Sacred Head, Now Wounded by Paul Gerhardt
  Beneath the Cross of Jesus by Elizabeth Clephane
  Alas! and Did My Savior Bleed by Isaac Watts
  My Song Is Love Unknown by Samuel Crossman
  Lead Me to Calvary by Jennie Evelyn Hussey
  Jesus, Keep Me near the Cross by Fanny Crosby

Easter
  Christ the Lord Is Risen Today by Charles Wesley
  Christ Jesus Lay in Death's Strong Bands by Martin Luther
  The Day of Resurrection! by John of Damascus
  The Strife Is O'er, the Battle Done by Author Unknown
  Look, Ye Saints, the Sight Is Glorious by Thomas Kelly
  Come, Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain by John of Damascus

Reformation Day
  A Mighty Fortress Is Our God by Martin Luther
  I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord by Timothy Dwight
  O Word of God Incarnate by William Walsham How
  Not What My Hands Have Done by Horatius Bonar
  How Vast the Benefits Divine by Augustus Toplady

Thanksgiving
  Now Thank We All Our God by Martin Rinkart
  Come, Ye Thankful People, Come by Henry Alford
  We Plow the Fields by Matthias Claudius
  We Gather Together by Author Unknown
  For the Beauty of the Earth by Folliott S. Pierpoint

Christmas
  Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus by Charles Wesley
  O Come, O Come, Emmanuel by Author Unknown
  Joy to the World by Isaac Watts
  Hark! the Herald Angels Sing by Charles Wesley
  As with Gladness, Men of Old by William Chatterton Dix
  O Little Town of Bethlehem by Phillips Brooks
  Once in Royal David's City by Cecil Frances Alexander
  Angels, from the Realms of Glory by James Montgomery
  Brightest and Best of the Sons of the Morning by Reginald Heber
  O Come, All Ye Faithful by John Francis Wade
  It Came upon the Midnight Clear by Edmund Sears
  Silent Night by Joseph Mohr

Author:

Leland Ryken, author of more than fifty books on biblical and literary topics, is the literary editor of the ESV Bible and emeritus professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois.

Endorsement:

"The reader will be doubly enriched-by the delightful poetry of the songs and by the instructive prose of a great literary scholar."
--Karen Swallow Prior, Author, On Reading Well and Fierce Convictions

Additional Information: