This Sunday is Trinity Sunday—a day set aside to reflect on the three persons of God who live together in perfect community. This Sunday, as you know, also falls in the middle of Memorial Day weekend.
To capture both the themes of Trinity Sunday and Memorial Day, we will be singing “Eternal Father, Strong to Save” as our opening hymn at church.
Or as many know it, “The Navy Hymn.”
The original words of “The Navy Hymn” were written by a school teacher and clergy person in the Church of England, the Rev. William Whiting. Rev. Whiting (1825-1878) resided on the English coast near the ocean and once survived a furious storm in the Mediterranean Sea. His experiences inspired him to pen the poem that begins with this verse:
Eternal Father, Strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bid’st the mighty Ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee,
for those in peril on the sea.
In the following year, 1861, the words were adapted to music by another English clergyman, the Rev. John B. Dykes (1823-1876). Rev. Dykes’ was the composer of music for other well-known hymns, including “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Nearer, My God to Thee.”
“Eternal Father, Strong to Save” grew in popularity. In 1879, Rear Admiral Charles Jackson Train, an 1865 graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, was stationed at the Academy in charge of the Midshipman Choir. Train inaugurated the practice (which persists to this day) of concluding each Sunday’s worship service at the Academy with the singing of the first verse of this hymn. And so, it became known as “The Navy Hymn.”
My own father was an Army man. My father-in-law is a Navy man. When it comes time for that important football game between the academies each fall, I am torn. On this issue, I am not. I love the hymn, and the sentiments it expresses so well in its final verse—a verse about the Trinity.
O Trinity of love and power!
Our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them wheresoe’er they go;
Thus evermore shall rise to Thee,
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.
Amen.
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