O God, You Made the Sabbath Day

Representative Text

O God, you made the Sabbath day,
Your gift, your law, your healing way.
You also made, within each heart
A longing for this day apart.

You gave your children, long-oppressed,
Your freeing gift of Sabbath rest.
You give us Sabbath freedom, too:
Our lives are more than work we do!

Life’s sacred rhythm seems long gone;
The world, unblinking, carries on.
Your Spirit calls us! Slow our pace
That we may hear your word of grace.

Christ Jesus lives! He makes us new!
On Sundays now, we worship you.
With hearts uplifted, joy restored,
Your church goes out to serve you, Lord.


Source: Songs of Grace: new hymns for God and neighbor #36a

Author: Carolyn Winfrey Gillette

Carolyn Winfrey Gillette has been a pastor in rural, small town, suburban, and city churches; she has also served as a hospice chaplain, a hospital chaplain, and a school bus aide helping children with special needs. She and her husband Bruce are pastors of the First Presbyterian Union Church in Owego, NY. Carolyn is a gifted hymn writer who has written over 400 hymns. These hymns have been sung by congregations throughout the United States and around the world — from the Washington National Cathedral to St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland to St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa to small town churches and small household congregations; they have also been sung at national church and international ecumenical meetin… Go to person page >

Text Information

First Line: O God, you made the Sabbath day
Title: O God, You Made the Sabbath Day
Original Language: English
Author: Carolyn Winfrey Gillette (2000)
Meter: 8.8.8.8
Language: English
Publication Date: 2000
Copyright: Copyright © 2000 by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. All rights reserved

Tune

TRURO (Williams)

TRURO is an anonymous tune, first published in Thomas Williams's Psalmodia Evangelica, (second vol., 1789) as a setting for Isaac Watts' "Now to the Lord a noble song." Virtually nothing is known about this eighteenth-century British editor of the two-volume Psalmodia Evangelica, a collection of thr…

Go to tune page >


TALLIS' CANON

TALLIS CANON is one of nine tunes Thomas Tallis (PHH 62) contributed to Matthew Parker's Psalter (around 1561). There it was used as a setting for Psalm 67. In the original tune the melody began in the tenor, followed by the soprano, and featured repeated phrases. Thomas Ravenscroft (PHH 59) publish…

Go to tune page >


Instances

Instances (1 - 2 of 2)
Text

Songs of Grace #36a

Text

Songs of Grace #36b

Suggestions or corrections? Contact us