Mary A. Thomson
Isaiah 40:9-11
Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, Here is your God!’ See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep.
O Zion, Haste: LBW 397
1 O Zion, haste, your mission high fulfilling, to tell to all the world that God is light;
that he who made all nations is not willing one soul should perish, lost in shades of night.
Refrain Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace, tidings of Jesus, redemption, and release.
2 Publish to ev’ry people, tongue, and nation that God, in whom they live and move, is love;
tell how he stooped to save his lost creation and died on earth that we might live above. Refrain
3 Give of your own to bear the message glorious, give of your wealth to speed them on their way,
pour out your soul for them in prayer victorious, and haste the coming of the glorious day. Refrain
4 He comes again! O Zion, ere you meet him, make known to ev’ry heart his saving grace;
let none whom he has ransomed fail to greet him, through your neglect, unfit to see his face. Refrain
Text: Mary A. Thomson, 1834-1923
One night in 1868, a mother worried over the state of her critically ill child, prayed for healing. In that moment she realized how quickly she had been jolted out of a comfortable middle-class existence by a trying circumstance. Knowing evangelization of the word was God’s first priority, she felt a little guilty praying for her child to be made well, nevertheless, like many a worried parent she prayed that if he were to survive, she would enter the mission field.
This is how 34 year old Mary Thomson ended up joining David Livingston in Africa as a missionary. Before she left, she wrote this hymn as her legacy. “Publish to ev’ry people, tongue, and nation that God, in whom they live and move, is love; tell how he stooped to save his lost creation and died on earth that we might live above. Publish glad tidings, tidings of peace, tidings of Jesus, redemption, and release.”
Prayer: Father in heaven, we are so often apt to pray for special favors, or to bargain with you as if you might be persuaded to bend to our will if we make the right offer. But it is your will that matters, and like Luther in a thunderstorm or Mary Thomson sitting at the side of her sick child’s bed, our prayer is always this: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. Amen.