Hymns and Movies

Unless a movie is showing on American Airlines or in my hotel room, I might not even know it is in existence.  Needless to say I am not a motion picture fan – unless of course, the film is about baseball, football or golf.  So when I saw a review in my local newspaper of a movie entitled, “Redeeming Love” I was intrigued. I grew up Southern Baptist (actually I’m still growing up and still Southern Baptist) singing out of various editions of the Broadman/Baptist Hymnal, wherein exist a favorite hymn written in 1772 by William Cowper, considered by many the greatest English poet of the eighteenth century.  The hymn is entitled, “There is a Fountain Filled with Blood.”  The fourth verse of that hymn begins with “E’er since by faith I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply, Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.”  Redeeming love is that kind of love that brings about salvation or redemption from sin. Cowper actually wrote his hymns in the midst of acute depression and severe personal anguish, in fact there was hardly a day in his sixty-nine years that he did not suffer, yet this hymn reflects his complete dependence on the atoning work of Christ on Calvary. This hymn was based on Zechariah 13:1, “In that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness.” I read the movie review and concluded the PG-13 rated film had nothing to do with the hymn of my youth.  The next time you feel depressed or find yourself in anguish, don’t watch the movie, sing the hymn.