Awake, O sleeper, rise from death

Awake, O sleeper, rise from death. F. Bland Tucker* (1895-1984). Written originally as an anthem text for David N. Johnson, published by Augsburg Fortress Press (Minneapolis, 1980), this was revised and made metrically stable for H82. It is based on phrases from Ephesians chapters 3,4, and 5, beginning with Ephesians 5: 14 (‘Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light’), itself ‘a very ancient Christian hymn, probably’ (Tucker, quoted in Young, 1993, p. 222). It has since appeared in UMH: Young has noted its antiphonal structure, and the way in which ‘light’ in Ephesians becomes ‘life’; while the final stanza changes ‘rise from death’ (stanza 1) to...