Father we thank Thee who has planted

Father we thank Thee who has planted
Thy holy name within our hearts. 
Knowledge and faith and life immortal 
Jesus The Son to us imparts.


Thou, Lord, didst make all for Thy pleasure,
Didst give man food for all his days,
Giving in Christ the bread eternal;
Thine is the power, be Thine the praise.


Watch o'er Thy Church, O Lord, in mercy,
Save it from evil, guard it still,
Perfect it in Thy love, unite it,
Cleansed and conformed unto Thy will.



As grain, once scattered on the hillsides,
Was in the broken bread made one,
So from all lands Thy Church be gathered
Into Thy kingdom by Thy Son.

This ancient hymn is taken from the Didache and is one of the earliest we know of.  I love the manifold play of the image in the final verse - from the many comes one bread: so too in a scattered and diverse Church comes to Christ as His people, One Body, united to do and be according to His great pleasure and praise.

I love the parallelism of the last verse to the first - God has planted and in us is reaping a harvest of righteousness.  How amazing to have the privilege to live for Him in this way?  How striking an honour to be counted among God's harvest? How sobering, how inspiring, how humbling, how terrible and how great is it to belong to God in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit?  And yet it is all in answer to the plea of the Son before the Father:

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me." John's Gospel, Chapter 20, verses 20-23