HYMN: O Great Physician, Dear Lord Jesus

I’d like to say that I’ve been working ahead of the need this time, getting a hymn out early for once. But if I’m being honest, I’ve been working on this text, based on the readings for the Twelfth Sunday After Trinity, since October, not long after Michael went back into the hospital. All I had was one snippet to start me off with—“Ears to hear and tongues to sing/The praises of my King”—and that didn’t even make it in its full form into this draft. And then, yesterday evening, I was sitting near the back of a church as a visitor at the Divine Service, thinking on an unrelated text, when an idea came to me for a direction to take this text. 

It still needs some work, I think, especially in the second verse, but it’s a start. Anyway, here it is. As always, feedback is love.

O Great Physician, Dear Lord Jesus

1. O Great Physician, dear Lord Jesus,

You heal the body and the soul. 

From all sin’s wages You release us

And by Your grace You make us whole.

I pray You, lay Your hand on me

And set Your servant free.

2. I stand before You, humbled, lowly,

With knotted tongue and deafened ears.

I call on You to cure me wholly.

You only are the God who hears.

You only have the gift divine

To make full healing mine.

3. Open my ears, that I may listen

And hear Your Gospel’s joyful sound.

My flesh with holy water christen

And let You Word of grace abound.

Your Word will teach me to repeat

A creed both pure and sweet.

4. Then loose my tongue to sing your praises,

Confessing You as Lord and God,

Guiding my voice to festive phrases

In anthems, psalms, and hymns unflawed.

Open my lips, that I may sing

Glad songs to You, my King.

98 98 86

ICH WILL DICH LIEBEN (LSB 694)

Occasion: Trinity 12–Mark 7:31-37