All is ready for the Feast!

Representative Text

1 All is ready for the Feast!
Every Jew is wondering how
God will liberate them now.

2 Pilate, fearful of revolt
he, at all costs, must avert,
puts the Legion on alert.

3 Listen! Galilean crowds
hail the Man from Nazareth,
Jesus, riding to his death.

4 What authority he wields!
With a whip of cords he clears
temple courts of profiteers!

5 Watched by priests and pharisees,
all he says and all he does
fans the hatred of his foes.

6 Now he gathers those he loves
in a room where bread and wine
turn to sacrament and sign.

7 In that dark betrayal night,
moved by hope, or fear or greed,
Judas sets about his deed.

8 Jesus in the olive grove,
waiting for a traitor's kiss,
rises free from bitterness.

9 As he wakes his comrades up,
torches flicker in the glen:
shadows turn to marching men.

10 In that dawn of blows and lies
Church and State conspire to kill,
hang three rebels on a hill.

11 Innocent and guilty drown
in a flood of blood and sweat,
how much darker can it get?

12 How much darker must it be
for a God to see and care
that men perish in despair?

13 It is God himself who dies!
God in man shall set us free:
God as Man - and only he.

14 Let him claim us as his own,
we will serve as best we can
such a God and such a Man!

Final verse:

15 What does our salvation cost?
Jesus, we shall never know
all you gave and all we owe.

Note: Verse 15 is provided as a proper ending when selected verses are sung.

Fred Pratt Green 1903-2000
© 1969, 1979 Stainer & Bell Ltd
7.7 7.

Used By Permission. CCL Licence No. Not entered
Copied from HymnQuest 2010: Standard Version
HymnQuest ID: 50279

(This is the only representative text available.)^ top

Author: Frederick Pratt Green

The name of the Rev. F. Pratt Green is one of the best-known of the contemporary school of hymnwriters in the British Isles. His name and writings appear in practically every new hymnal and "hymn supplement" wherever English is spoken and sung. And now they are appearing in American hymnals, poetry magazines, and anthologies. Mr. Green was born in Liverpool, England, in 1903. Ordained in the British Methodist ministry, he has been pastor and district superintendent in Brighton and York, and now served in Norwich. There he continued to write new hymns "that fill the gap between the hymns of the first part of this century and the 'far-out' compositions that have crowded into some churches in the last decade or more." --Seven New Hymns o… Go to person page >

^ top

First Line:	All is ready for the Feast!
Author:	Frederick Pratt Green
Meter:	7.7.7
Publication Date:	2005
Copyright:	© 1969, 1979 Stainer & Bell, Ltd. (Admin. Hope Publishing Co.)