Hymns of Heidelberg for Young Hearts
Here’s a great hymn to teach the kids in your life: “Christ our Hope in Life and Death” (Does anybody know how to beatbox like that? Let’s talk.)
Verse 1:
What is our hope in life and death?
Christ alone, Christ alone.
What is our only confidence?
That our souls to Him belong.
What makes this great to teach to children is its call-and-response, question-and-answer structure. The whole first verse is a musical expression of the Heidelberg Catechism, which begins:
Q: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A: That I, with body and soul, both in life and in death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ…
Catechism (literally - “oral instruction”) uses a question and an answer format to learn and remember things. Today, we think that sort of deep learning is too slow and cumbersome, trusting our search engines to dig up information for us. Children excel at this sort of deep learning - they’re sponges, after all! Look at verse two; let’s make it practical:
What truth can calm the troubled soul?
God is good, God is good.
Ever met a preschooler who cannot regulate their emotional response to a disappointing turn of events? No? Next time the forecast calls for thunderstorms, tell the next four-year-old you see that you will go to the park with them unless it rains.
Humor aside, real disappointments do happen for kids. Responding to a tantrum, you could say, “This isn’t a big deal,” or you could ask: “Sweetheart, what truth can calm the troubled soul?” Then from the lips of babes come praises ever-true. “God is good, God is good.” Listen again, and let your imagination carry you the rest of the way through the hymn: Songwriter’s Edition.
And finally, lest you grown-ups forget childhood lessons - it would do us all good to repeat the catechism of the third verse, “Unto the grave, what shall we sing?” on our way into the pew for a funeral or the hospital for serious surgeries. Then when our minds wander to streets of gold, glorified bodies, and visions of rapture, ask, “What reward will heaven bring?” For all the gifts, greater is the Giver - Christ, our hope in life and death.
“As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:20, ESV)