"At the Name of Jesus"
The name of Jesus, Yeshua, means God saves. That denotes more than what God does: It shows who God is and who Jesus is. “At the name of Jesus,” says Paul, “every knee shall bow,” in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. A stunning thing to say! Thence comes the venerable tradition of meditating on the name of Jesus, in prayer and song, which brings us to our Hymn of the Week, Caroline Noel’s At the Name of Jesus.
Noel’s short lines of six and five syllables allowed Ralph Vaughan Williams, who composed the melody King’s Weston specifically for this hymn, to linger on the final stress of every other line, for six beats. Fill your lungs for those! The effect is stately, mighty, royal. We can well imagine it as a coronation:
At the name of Jesus Every knee shall bow, Every tongue confess Him King of glory now; ’Tis the Father’s pleasure We should call Him Lord, Who from the beginning Was the mighty Word.
“Who is this King of glory?” asks the Psalmist. “The Lord strong and mighty, the …
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