Abide with Me
It is said to have been Alfred North Whitehead’s favorite hymn (which, given his heterodox theology, might not be much of a commendation). Whitehead was interested in the old philosophical problem of change and continuity: How can things have identity across time while they are changing? It’s a great question—are you really the same person as the 10-year-old child you used to be? Whitehead’s instinct, perhaps, was that the answer to that old question lay somehow in the hands of God; one could say we have our identity over time only when God abides with us.
We are indeed stuck in fragmented and meaningless lives if God does not abide with us.
“Abide with me” is #662 in The Hymnal 1982. The first line juxtaposes steady abidingness and the reality of change. “Abide with me; fast falls the eventide.” It’s a prayer asking God to stick with us even though (quickly!) the day comes to an end. The image, which is natural to Christian thought, is of a human life as a single day. The poet will shortly spell out that he needs God “every passing hour.” We need God because there are many kinds of change that threaten our life. The darkness deepens. Other helpers fail and comforts flee. We are helpless, but God is precisely the “help of the helpless.”
All that from only the first stanza. The second introduces temptation, indeed, the tempter himself. Only God’s grace “can foil the tempter’s power.” Only God can be our guide through all these changes in life. Only God can be our “stay,” the still point, our secure hold while everything changes. We need God not only in trouble but also when things seem calm. We need God to abide “through” good things and bad: “Through cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.”
The third stanza expresses the confidence that comes when God is with us. Fear of the foe is gone; our “ills” have no heaviness, our tears no bitterness. Then St. Paul is quoted: “Where is death’s sting? where, grave, thy victory?” This, from 1 Corinthians 15, reveals that our concern from the beginning has been death—and that death is a vanquished enemy. “I triumph still,” the poet says, “if thou abide with me.”
What is triumph at death? It is the passage from death to life. How does it happen? In the final stanza the poet asks God to keep the cross in front of his eyes as they close, that the last thing he sees in life be the sign of Jesus’ death as his promise of resurrection. After death comes sunshine: “heaven’s morning breaks”! And what, pray tell, is that morning except Easter morning! So the whole prayer can be wrapped up as a request for God to “abide with me” in life, in death, always.
The author was a clergyman who, despite fragile health, was known for cheerfulness. He preached his last sermon against his family’s urging that he stay in bed; he was known to say “better to wear out than to rust out.” Henry Francis Lyte, 1793–1847: he wrote the hymn and it was first sung at his funeral, though not to the perfect tune that we know, “Eventide,” which William Henry Monk wrote 14 years later.
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A few years ago, as part of my campaign for memorizing prayers, I wrote about “Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past. . . .” That prayer, like “Abide with me,” is based on the story in Luke 24 of the two disciples inviting Jesus to turn in to their home. “Abide with me” is a fitting pair to that collect, and I am going to try to memorize it for the Camino. I invite you to join me in the memorization. (If you don’t know the tune, there are many performances on YouTube; one could do worse than start with the choir of King’s College in Cambridge.)
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Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
the darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide:
when other helpers fail and comforts flee,
help of the helpless, O abide with me.
I need thy presence every passing hour;
what but thy grace can foil the tempter’s power?
Who, like thyself, my guide and stay can be?
Though cloud and sunshine, Lord, abide with me.
I fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.
Where is death’s sting? where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if thou abide with me.
Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;
heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
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Out & About. This Sunday, March 22, I will be preaching at the 9:30am Eucharist at St. John’s Church in Corsicana, Texas. Then on Wednesday, March 25, I am to speak at their Lenten program. My talk is titled, “Walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain: A pilgrim's reflections.” The program starts at 6pm with a light supper.
Palm Sunday, March 29, I will be preaching at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas at 9 and 11:15am.