When Christ was lifted from the earth

When Christ was lifted from the earth. Brian Arthur Wren* (1936- ). Written in October 1970, and published in Mainly Hymns (Leeds, 1980) and in Faith Looking Forward (1983). In these books the title is ‘Living together. Romans 15: 7 NEB’. The 1983 note records that ‘the impulse to write this came from some now entirely forgotten controversy and tension in the congregation I ministered to [Hockley and Hawkwell Congregational Church], probably connected with the generation gap. Since hymns are for unified praise rather than polemic, I refrained from using it at the time, and cut down the original six stanzas to four which seemed more lasting.’ A three-stanza text (omitting stanza 3) was...