Lenten Devotion: Holy Saturday, April 7

by Katherine Turpin

Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown
United Methodist Hymnal #386 & 387
Words: Charles Wesley, 1742 (Gen. 34:24-32)
Music: Trad, Scottish melody, harm. By Carlton R. Young, 1963

1
Come, O thou Traveler unknown,
whom still I hold, but cannot see!
My company before is gone,
and I am left alone with thee;
with thee all night I mean to stay
and wrestle till the break of day.
2
I need not tell thee who I am,
my misery and sin declare;
thyself hast called me by my name,
look on thy hands and read it there.
But who, I ask thee, who art thou?
Tell me thy name, and tell me now.
3
Yield to me now—for I am weak
but confident in self-despair!
Speak to my heart, in blessing speak,
be conquered by my instant prayer;
speak, or thou never hence shalt move,
and tell me if thy name is Love.
4
’Tis Love! ’tis Love! Thou diedst for me,
I hear thy whisper in my heart.
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
pure Universal Love thou art:
to me, to all, thy mercies move—
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

This hymn includes part of a fourteen-stanza poem based on the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel at the ford of the Jabbok (see Genesis 32:24-32). I choose it for the day after Good Friday because of the story found at 387 in the hymnal: “A little over two weeks after his brother's death, John Wesley tried to teach the hymn at Bolton, but broke down when he came to the lines ‘my company before is gone, and I am left alone with thee.’” This vignette speaks to the loving bond between the two brothers, and John’s deep grief at the loss of his brother. On this day when we think of Jesus’ followers grieving the death of their friend and leader, this hymn seems most appropriate.

In the hymn, Charles Wesley uses the story of Jacob’s wrestling as a metaphor for our common human struggle to know the nature of God. The hymn invites us into the perspective of Jacob by using the first person pronoun throughout. As in the Genesis account, left alone in the terrible struggle throughout the night, Jacob will not let go until he knows the name and the nature of the One with whom he struggles. Though wounded and despairing, Jacob refuses to let go. In Wesley’s poetic rendering of the story, the nature and name is disclosed in the ninth verse (verse four in the musical setting of the hymn):

’Tis Love! ’tis Love! thou diedst for me,
I hear thy whisper in my heart.
The morning breaks, the shadows flee,
pure Universal Love thou art:
to me, to all, thy mercies move—
thy nature, and thy name is Love.

The last line, “thy nature, and thy name is Love,” serves as the refrain for the final six verses. It is, for the Wesley brothers, the central and most important theological conviction: the nature of God, revealed in Christ, is “pure Universal Love.”

Moments of deep grief and despair, particularly at the loss of a loved one, can be the impetus for serious wrestling. Like Jacob, we may walk away from the experience of grief and loss forever marked. Hopefully, like Wesley, we may also come away with a profound experience of the loving nature of God.