I’ve been exploring some of the very modern worship songs as an old guy 😀. But now, I’ve decided to alternate between very modern hymns, old hymns, and in-between hymns, namely the worship songs from the 60s to the 90s that feature in hymnbooks such as Mission Praise. Today it’s the turn of the very modern hymns.
Today’s song is Happy Day from 2007.
I don’t ever remember singing this one or even knowing it, but I knew two Happy Day songs in my earlier life, one in childhood and one that we used to sing back in the early 1980s, when I first became an evangelical Christian:
Oh Happy Day entered the charts in May 1969, when I had my first holy communion as a 7-year-old Roman Catholic (RC). I no longer believe in the RC doctrine of transubstantiation, but it was a very precious thing to remember the death of Jesus and to take bread to symbolize availing of the salvation that Jesus won for us by dying on the cross. I do that in evangelical churches nowadays. We don’t believe that anything happens to the bread, but I always feel the presence of Jesus in a special way during communion.
When was the happy day? Was it when Jesus died on the cross for me or was it when I committed my life to Christ and received the gift of eternal life? What does it matter? The key thing is that it’s done. He has washed my sins away. And it’s not just my past sins. It’s all sins. So is it all done and dusted?
Well, we are encouraged to go on confessing our sins, but because of what happened on Calvary, we can be assured that if we repent and trust in Jesus, all our sins will be forgiven. Nothing will stand in the way of us being in heaven. I like the fact that Jesus assured his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them on the night before he died. He said this, knowing that most would desert him the next day and Peter would deny him three times. And the Apostle Paul, who described himself as the chief of sinners, looked forward to dying and being with Christ. I’m sure that he was always aware of his faults, even after conversion, but he knew that he was forgiven.
Repenting and believing in Jesus isn’t a little trick to getting into heaven. Though we are assured of heaven, God still wants us to learn from him and to obey him. Like any learner, we won’t be perfect, but if we have a perfect teacher, we can be sure that we will be safe and saved:
1 John 1:6-7
6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
I don’t think that walking in the light means being perfect. It’s more a matter of policy. No human was ever perfect throughout their whole life, apart from Jesus Himself.
Philippians 1:6
being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
And any day when we remember what Jesus has done for us is a happy day. So every day can be a happy day.
Here are some other versions of today’s hymn:
Hibernia Gospel 