Te Deum – Part 7
Te Deum – Part 7.
“… Come then, Lord, and help your people,
Bought with the price of your own blood,
And bring us with all your saints to glory everlasting.”
After an extended time of adoration and statements of faith in the Te Deum, we close this historic prayer-hymn with our first and only petition. Those who have been praying the Te Deum remain on their knees with humble and simple requests of God.
… help your people. Sometimes the Christian walk is not that complicated. There are times when a one word request is sufficient: HELP. God doesn’t require flowery language or complex petitions. Sometimes, Help is all we can manage, it’s all we can bring ourselves to utter, and that’s good enough for God. That’s because God has the heart of a helper. God the Father was described by Moses as a God who was willing to “ride the heavens to help you” (Deut. 33:26). And it’s true, the Father raced to the rescue time and again, sometimes on a daily basis, whether in Egypt, in the wilderness, or in the Promised Land. The Psalms are full of statements like this… “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (Ps. 46:1). Or “The Lord is my helper, I will not fear; what can man do to me?”(Ps. 27:1). Of course the heart of the Father is fused in oneness with the heart of the Son, and if there’s anything we know about Jesus’ public ministry, it’s that He loved to help people, whether it was healing, comforting, casting out demons, or raising people from the dead. The Holy Spirit, too, comes to help us, and is even called the Helper by Jesus (“paraclete”) in John 14:16 and 15:26 (NKJV). So when we ask for the Lord to come to us and help us, we have hit God’s sweet spot.
… bought with the price of your own blood. To redeem someone is to buy back someone’s freedom, to free someone from slavery by payment of a ransom price. The redeemer is the person who pays the ransom in order that a condemned person may go free. The ransom price is the price of release, the payment made to free someone from bondage. Because of the first Adam, the human race was in bondage to sin, the sting of death. We were in a hopeless situation, condemned to a life of slavery to our fallen human impulses. The second Adam, Jesus Christ, offered His life as a ransom to free us from sin’s bondage and set us free to become children of God. Christ the Redeemer bought our freedom with His death, His life blood. Our Redeemer paid the ransom price for our release into freedom. “For even the Son of Man did not come expecting to be served by everyone, but to serve everyone, and to give His life as the ransom price in exchange for the salvation of many.” (Mark 10:45). “For you know that your lives were ransomed once and for all from the empty and futile way of life handed down from generation to generation. It was not a ransom payment of silver and gold, which eventually perishes, but the precious blood of Christ – who like a spotless, unblemished lamb was sacrificed for us.” (1 Peter 1:18-19). “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
… glory everlasting. “Christ in you, hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). In many ways we are holding our breath. We are groaning for the fulfillment of God’s promise to restore all of creation. We realize we are but living in the first instalment of salvation. The final salvation comes when Jesus returns in all His glory. The complete redemption will occur and Jesus will reconcile everything to Himself. Our hope is that we will join all the others being saved and set apart as we approach the pearly gates as full participants in heaven’s glory. We are holding God to His promise of glorification, of eternal life, of fully sharing in His divine nature. Our expectation is to be lifted up into the glory of God’s presence. Our hope is that we will finally be admitted into the country of our true citizenship. We anticipate the joy of having reserved seats at the Wedding Supper of the Lamb. Our glorious hope is echoed in the classic children’s chorus, “I’ve got a home in glory land that outshines the sun… Way beyond the blue.” “Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ. And as Christ Himself is seen for who He really is, who you really are will also be revealed, for you are now one with Him in His glory!” (Col 3:3-4). “Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.” (Phil. 3:20-21).
Franz Joseph Haydn, Te Deum n.2 in C – YouTube