By Jane M. Gardner
Formation Ministries team

On January 6, we entered the season of Epiphany, which will last until Ash Wednesday. Our scriptures and worship services center on the idea that the Light comes among us. Epiphany also can be translated as “the appearance” or “the manifestation.” It is a season when the beginning of Jesus’s earthly life is celebrated in scripture and song.

Brian Wren wrote a hymn text for the 1978 New Year’s Day service in Blackbird Leys, Oxford, England. “This Is a Day of New Beginnings” expresses hope for God’s creation, including human beings, who have the blessed possibility for “starting over” every moment.

Sometimes the celebration of this “newness” can become just another day on the calendar, but Wren points us toward a foundation for hope that God constantly is “making all things new.” His text affirms that with faith we can become really changed by interaction with the Divine, a springboard to transformation.

Wren originally began the text with a question: Is this a day of new beginnings? At the suggestion of the United Methodist hymnal editors in 1984, he changed it to a declarative statement. Stanza 1 suggests that it is “time to remember and move on.” Stanza 2 reminds us that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ made it possible for all to experience new beginnings.

Stanza 3 draws upon 2 Corinthians 5:17 NRSVue:

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!

In the spirit of this passage, Wren asks us to…“step from the past and leave behind our disappointment, guilt, and grieving, seeking new paths...”

He offers two options for the closing stanza: a general affirmation of hope for new beginnings or an affirmation for use during the celebration of Communion. In Community of Christ Sings, this hymn has been placed in the Baptism topic—another symbolic new beginning—but a much wider use was anticipated. The text is quite appropriate any time the church, congregation, or individuals discern the call to make a faithful fresh start.

As a leading hymnwriter of our time, Wren has contributed seventeen hymns to Community of Christ Sings, including “Christ Leads!” CCS 28, which the church commissioned Wren to write in 2001 for the Worship ’01 Conference at the Temple in Independence, Missouri, USA. In his introduction for Wren’s Temple plenary address, Jack Ergo, former Community of Christ music director, said:

I have often said that music goes into those realms of intellectual and spiritual awareness where words leave off, where words fail. There are, of course, exceptions: the writings and musings of Brian Wren are among them. He has a great gift for poetic creativity and an understanding of the tremendous difficulties of how hymn texts are crafted.

In 1983, I heard Wren explain the critical need for hymns that:

• push us to thoughtfully challenge our God-language.
• are not apologetic for the difficult cost of the gospel.
• help shape our culture.
• reflect the whole range of scriptural experience.

I immediately recognized a level of daring, a provocative use of language that propels us to re-evaluate the directions of our ministry.

Over the years, we have been shaped by singing many Brian Wren texts. His insight into prophetic witness continues to ring true for our church in today’s world. May we testify to our hope in new possibilities in this Epiphany season as we sing with Wren: “This Is a Day of New Beginnings.”