Hymns for the Quiet Hours

Sovereign Over the Dawn Before the sun knew where to rise You set its path through trackless skies No atom moves without Your nod No sparrow falls beneath Your rod The nations rage and plot in vain You laugh, and all their schemes are slain Yet in this thunderous majesty You bend to hear a beggar's plea So let my anxious spirit rest In hands that govern east and west What terror can the darkness hold When I am folded in Your fold Holiness at the Threshold The burning bush still blazes, Lord And I am barefoot on the sod The ground I tread is holy ground Where creature meets the uncreated Sound Your purity consumes like flame Yet does not kill, but speaks my name The seraphim veil eyes and feet Before the throne where saints may meet How can this sinner dare draw near Unless Your holiness draws clear And shows itself my refuge too For holy blood has made me new The Mercy Seat at Morning The mercy seat is sprinkled still With blood that speaks a better will Than all the blood of bulls and goats That ever stained the Levites' coats Your mercy runs beneath Your throne Like rivers feeding fields of stone And turns the desert into bread And raises Lazarus from the dead I do not come with offerings clean But with a heart that You have seen And broken, and restored, and healed By mercy that will not be sealed Justice in the Balance Your justice is no blind machine But eyes that see, and scales unseen That weigh the nations and the heart And tear the wicked worlds apart Yet here is wonder past belief The Judge Himself bore all the grief The sentence fell on Your own Son That justice and the sinner won So now I trust Your righteous law Not as a terror, but a draw To One who satisfied the claim And wears the honor of the Name Faithfulness by Covenant The morning stars sang out Your vow Before the earth received its plough And every promise made is kept Though heaven and earth have overslept You swore by Your own holy life To be our God, to end the strife And though we break the covenant chain Your faithfulness will break our pain The rainbow arcs above the flood The Son stands in the crimson mud Forever bound to those You chose And nothing severs what You rose