Risen For You (Come Ye That Seek the Lord)

Charles Wesley wrote a great hymn about the resurrection in the 1769 "Hymns for Our Lord's Resurrection" hymnal. What a great song to sing at Easter time!

Welcome to another episode of Wesley's Hidden Gems. I'm taking Wesley hymns that are largely forgotten - that nobody really wrote any music to and have just been left in the past - but which I think are still beautiful, and I'm putting my own tunes to them. I've already done three, and I hope you'll enjoy this whole series as I work through them.

Today I found a hymn of his from the Hymns for Our Lord's Resurrection hymnal, published in 1769. Number 11 in this book is just beautiful. I've called it "Risen for You" - it doesn't have a title in the hymnal. We've just come out of Easter, and I'm still thinking about the risen Lord a lot. I thought: let me pull one of these resurrection hymns back to life, so to speak. It's lovely to sing songs about the risen Christ. Wesley's great song about the risen Christ, of course, is "Christ the Lord Is Risen Today," which we sang this Easter. But I thought it would be nice to put some music to this one - because look at these words. These are beautiful. Let me take you through them.

What Do the Lyrics of "Risen for You" Mean?

Verse 1

Come ye that seek the Lord, Him that was crucified.

There's an invitation to come. People are seeking the Lord - on that Easter morning they came to look for Him in the grave. They were seeking Him because they thought He was going to be lying dead there. Wesley brings the crucifixion back to mind immediately: this was our God who definitely died on the cross.

Come listen to the gospel word, and feel it now applied.

He's saying there's some good news here, and you can apply it to your life - and it will bring such change. This is just a wonderful call to worship, isn't it? Wouldn't this be a beautiful opening song on Easter morning? “Come and listen to the gospel word, because it's going to be applied to our lives and bless us!”.

To every soul of man the joyful news we shew.

"Shew" being the old English word for "show" or "declare." For everyone, everyone can come and hear the joyful news.

Jesus, for every sinner slain, is risen again for you.

You've come to the tomb to find the crucified Lord. The good news is that He has risen again - for you. I love that "for you." Everyone who comes seeking the Lord can find this good news: He is risen from the dead, and it's for our benefit that He is risen. What a lovely opening verse!

This is typically Wesleyan - every soul, every sinner, not just the elect, but for everybody. The elect are the ones who end up responding through God's grace to the good news. My Calvinist friends would see it the other way, but this is Wesley saying: this is good news for everybody.

Verse 2

The Lord is risen indeed, and did to us appear.

In our tradition we say "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" every Resurrection Sunday. It's true. You can trust it. He appeared to all the disciples, and they spoke about it for the rest of the New Testament. You and I can talk about how He has appeared to us too - maybe not in bodily form as He appeared to them, but through His Spirit He certainly has appeared to us.

He hath been seen, our living Head, by many - yea, by Peter.

"The living Head" is a description of Jesus from Colossians, where Jesus is described as the Head of the church. He is living, and He has been seen by many. Paul talks about this in 1 Corinthians - how many people saw Him - and he specifically mentions Peter. This is significant, I think, because Peter was the one who had denied Him. But Jesus appeared to him again. And just like us - we may deny Christ, and in fact we do deny Christ - but He still appears to us in grace to restore us. There are so many Peters around who have seen the risen Christ and been redeemed by Him.

Yea, we who so oft denied our master and our God.

There's Peter again - Peter denied Him. But brilliantly, Wesley now brings Thomas into the picture, because "my Master and my God" is very much what Thomas called Jesus when he saw Him: "My Lord and my God."

Have thrust our hand into His side and felt the streaming blood.

Jesus said to Thomas, "Come, feel my scars." Thomas physically felt that this was Jesus. We too have thrust our hand into His side; we feel the streaming blood. What Wesley is saying, I think, is that the blood is still warm. The blood of Jesus is still flowing. Even though He is risen, His blood is still what covers the sins of any sinner who comes to Him. The question is: have you thrust your hand into His side and said, "Lord, let your blood cover me - wash away my sins, wash away my stains"? And in doing so, like Thomas, have you found Jesus as your Master and your Lord? This is beautiful stuff. Very deep.

Verse 3

Raised from the dead, we are the members with the Lord.

He turns his attention now to us who believe. We too are raised from the dead. There's a sense here in which it's a present reality. One day when we die we will be in heaven and raised in that sense, but we are raised from the dead now. Our sin is a grave, in essence, and Jesus allows us to be raised from that grave to life. And we are the members with the Lord - the members of the church. We are the body; the church is like a body with Jesus as the Head, and we are the members.

And boldly in His name declare the soul-reviving word.

Now that we know the risen Christ, we boldly go into the world and declare the good news that He is risen from the dead and that there is life for all. I love that phrase - "the soul-reviving word."

Salvation we proclaim, which every soul may find.

Wesley again: every soul may find it, if they respond to the grace offered to them. It is salvation that is offered - salvation from that grave of sin which will ultimately take you to eternal death. But you are saved from that when you place your faith in Christ.

Pardon and peace in Jesus' name, and life for all mankind.

Pardon for your sin, peace for your soul, with your hope in Jesus and in His name. You and all mankind may find this hope. What a wonderful verse to sing.

Verse 4

Oh, might they all receive the bleeding Prince of Peace!

He's saying: even though it's offered to everyone, not everyone is going to receive it. "Oh, if only they would all receive it!" It's open to all, but many people are going to reject it. The elect are the ones who put their faith in Christ and receive the benefits of the bleeding Prince of Peace - that blood that covers their sins.

Sinners, the glad report believe of Jesus' witnesses.

This is addressing those who haven't yet received it. You sinners who haven't received it: believe this report that the witnesses of Christ are bringing. Evangelism is all about going and sharing the good news and our own testimony of what Jesus can do. We go and share it, and we pray that people will receive the message.

He loves you, spilled His blood - believe the record true.

He spent His blood and died, but He does live again. Believe it. Wesley says the record is true. In fact, in episode three of this series - the one about the crucifixion - he also spoke about believing that the record is true. Here he is singing it again: it is true. We've seen it, we believe it. The apostles saw it, declared it, and wrote it down in the New Testament so that we can believe.

To them the power, the Son of God shall be revealed in you.

I love this. Jesus is the One who with the mighty arm goes on to work the power. He is the living power of God, He is the Son of God, and He shall be revealed in you. This is the great hope of the gospel - that this Jesus who rose from the dead can live within you and give you victory in this life. This is what Easter is all about: He lives within us. He is revealed within us if we have welcomed Him into our hearts by faith.

Conclusion

I loved this when I read it! And I thought: I must write my own tune for it. What did you think? Are there any words that really spoke to you? I'd love for you to share those down in the comments below.

I'm actually thinking about putting all of these together into a hymnal. I'm doing one a month at the moment, so maybe after three years, when I've done 36, I can make a new hymnal called Wesley's Hidden Gems - and have the sheet music for my tunes available for you to play as well.

Sing it with me. I hope the tune will be easy enough - let's just celebrate the risen Christ together.

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