Hymns: King of My Life I Crown Thee Now

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 old hymns.

Today’s song is King of My Life I Crown Thee Now from 1894.

1 King of my life I crown Thee now,
Thine shall the glory be;
lest I forget Thy thorn-crowned brow,
lead me to Calvary.

Refrain:
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
lest I forget Thine agony,
lest I forget Thy love for me,
lead me to Calvary.

2 Show me the tomb where Thou wast laid,
Tenderly mourned and wept;
angels in robes of light arrayed
guarded Thee whilst Thou slept. [Refrain]

3 Let me like Mary, through the gloom,
come with a gift to Thee;
show to me now the empty tomb,
lead me to Calvary. [Refrain]

4 May I be willing, Lord, to bear
daily my cross for Thee;
even Thy cup of grief to share,
Thou hast borne all for me. [Refrain]

It’s a long time since I sang this one, but it was very popular in my circles for most of my life. It’s a lovely hymn. It is a little odd to speak of crowning Jesus – isn’t He already King? – but we need to acknowledge His kingship over us as individuals. And Calvary and the resurrection should be central to our thinking – as it is to history.

The last verse speaks of bearing your cross for Jesus. I often wonder how the disciples understood the call of Jesus to take up their cross and follow Him. He said this before He was crucified. And though Jesus spoke of His death and resurrection on several occassions, I sometimes get the impression that the disciples didn’t understand or believe it until it actually happened.

But what does it mean today to take up our cross? Carrying a cross in the first century meant being seen as condemned. Jesus calls His followers to open allegiance even when it brings ridicule or rejection. I don’t suffer for Christ in the way that people do in some other countries today or did in Europe in past centuries. But I can remember having to put up with some ridicule or rejection from time to time – but maybe people do that because I’m an annoying person rather than because I’m a Christian 😀.

Here are some other versions of the hymn: