When Silence Filled the Formless Night
A NEW SATB anthem based on the original hymn tune (Huttons Ambo) by Richard Shephard. Traditional, yet fresh and compelling with a wonderful middle section. If you'd like the hymn as well, it's available in the EXTRAS (ZIP) file.
Text by Mary Holtby
When silence filled the formless night
And worlds unmade in darkness waited,
God spoke the word and gave us light,
And loved what he created.
Beyond the ancient writer's art
The word affirms our primal story:
How love illuminates the heart
As heav'n declares his glory.
His voice still speaks through clouded years,
Past prisons of our own devising,
And still to shadowed lives appears
The brightness of his rising.
He comes in Pentecostal flame,
In tongues unloosed, in bondage broken;
to all united by his name
The word of life is spoken.
Let there be light and hearts be stirred
to know in Christ their sun ascending;
In our beginning is the word,
and in the word our ending.