What do you do when the people in your church sing poorly? Reginald Heber (1783-1826) was called to pastor a small church along the coast of England. Reginald, also a competent musician, found the singing rather dreadful. So, he started writing hymns to accompany his sermons. It was traditional to sing the Psalms in a line-by-line fashion, so any hymns that didn’t originate in the Psalter were viewed with suspicion and resistance. (Note to self: worship wars over music are nothing new in the church!) Reginald wasn’t dissuaded–he kept writing new hymns with melodic tunes and the singing improved. He composed the hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy” to accompany his sermon for Trinity Sunday. He intended it to be sung after the sermon and before the recitation of the Apostles Creed.
We need here to give a word of commendation to Amelia, Reginald’s wife. If she hadn’t recovered this hymn from his papers following his death, this treasured hymn would surely have been lost to us.
“Holy” is a word we commonly attribute to God meaning “separate” or “unique.” It’s the Bible’s way of saying that God is one of a kind and in a class all by himself. Its triplicate repetition adds emphasis to the word. God is three times holy or holy to the third degree. There are two places in Scripture where “holy, holy, holy” is attributed to God: Isaiah 6.3 and Revelation 4.8. In both instances, the words are sung by cherubic angels and heavenly seraphim. The tune was called Nicaea to connect the tune with the church council in 325 that gave full expression to the Trinity through the Nicene Creed. Unitarians and Mormons reject belief in the Triune God and have altered the words that open and close this hymn. I realized the change when I heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing, “God in his glory, blessed Deity” in place of “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”
Reginald served at the church sixteen years before he was called to mission work in India until his death at forty-two. I suggest we use his hymn to frame our morning prayer and close the day with his evening prayer: