This is the day that the Lord has made;

God made the bright, warm sunshine and the freezing-cold snow.

God made the little tiny flowers and the great big pine trees.

God made the peaceful ponds and the crashing waves.

God made the cornfields and the rocky mountains.

God made the creeping caterpillars and kicking kangaroos.

God made you, and God made me.

Come, let us praise God for making all things good!

At the beginning of time and space,

God gave us a world.

with granite, with gravity, with grapes.

At the beginning of time and space,

God gave us a world.

with marble, with molds, with marigolds.

At the beginning of time and space,

God gave us a world.

with croaking bullfrogs, with the buoyancy of water,

with duck-billed platypuses.

At the beginning of time and space,

God gave us a world.

with living cells and dying stars,

with black holes and the speed of light,

with human beings.

At the beginning of time,

God gave us a world.

 

Mighty God, we have no words adequate to measure your greatness.
So let the horns flare and the violins sing to praise you.

We stammer in trying to speak of your majesty.
So let the cymbals ring and the drums beat to praise you.

At last we fall silent before you.
So let dancers stretch and leap and bow to praise you. Amen.

This celebrative text and tune dance; the refrain soars!

 

Performance Suggestions:

Swee Hong Lim originally wrote this tune to go with the Wesley text “Ye Servants of God, Your Master Proclaim.” (See Celebrating Grace Hymnal #420). Lim’s music was first paired with Martin Leckebusch’s metrical setting of Psalm 150, “Sing Praise to the Lord, You People of Grace,” in Psalms for All Seasons (#150a), and was so well-loved that it was carried over into the current collection.

The tempo should be quick, with the 3/4 measures felt as one beat; it moves so quickly, so play lightly, simply, and with forward motion. The song lends itself well to praise band accompaniment. All instruments can feel the song’s cross-rhythm, a 2 against 3 feel that runs throughout the song.

This setting can be accompanied by just about any combination of instruments. If possible, add a “jazzy” drum set, one that does not overpower the singing but brings out the intricate cross rhythms with brush strokes. (See, for instance, the rhythm in the piano accompaniment at the refrain.) In obedience to the text, make room for brass, strings, and dancers to join too!

Composer Swee Hong Lim writes:

 

This tune created in 1999 was originally set to Charles Wesley’s “Ye Servants of God” as a tribute to my father-in-law, Alex Ling, who passed away suddenly. He lived a life of ministry that impacted many. During the wakes and the funeral service, I witnessed a multitude of people from all walks of life making the effort to pay their respects to him. From politicians to ex-convicts, they attested to his life lived as a messenger of the Gospel. Through this hymn, I sought to introduce Charles Wesley into the contemporary worship song soundscape by setting his lyrical theology into that musical idiom. Hence, the moderately fast tune includes a climatic chorus. In 2000, the work was published in Global Praise 2, a publication of the Global Praise program of the General Board of Global Ministries, United Methodist Church. Since then it has found its way into various publications including Mille voix pour Te chanter/A Thousand Tongues to Sing to You (2006), Celebrating Grace Hymnal (2010), Global Songs for Worship (2010), Von der Gnade singen/Singing Grace (2010). The text by Martin Leckebusch was matched to this tune when my tune was included in the Psalms for All Seasons hymnal (2012).

Martin Leckebusch (b. Leicester, England, 1962) was educated at Oriel College before going on to study Mathematics at Oxford and Numerical Analysis at Brunel University. He and his wife, Jane, have four daughters; their second child, a son, died in 1995. The family live in Gloucester and belong to a Baptist church.

 

Martin’s work in hymnody over the past twenty-five years has resulted in almost 400 hymn texts, of which around half have so far been published by Kevin Mayhew. These include the ever-popular More than Words and Songs of God’s People – books which have cemented his status as a talented and accomplished hymn writer.

 

Martin is keen to see the church equipped for Christian living, and believes that well-crafted and wisely-used contemporary hymns and songs have a vital role to play in that process.

Swee Hong Lim (b. 1963) is the Deer Park Assistant Professor of Sacred Music at Emmanuel College of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, Canada, and directs the Master of Sacred Music program. Prior to this, he taught at Baylor University, Waco, TX and Trinity Theological College in Singapore. He earned degrees from Asian Institute for Liturgy and Music, Manila; Southern Methodist University, Texas; and Drew University, New Jersey. He has contributed essays to Oxford Handbook on Christianity in Asia (Oxford, 2013), Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology (Canterbury, 2013), and New Songs of Celebration Render (GIA Publications, Inc., 2013). His hymn tunes are found in many North American hymnals.