Salvation Songs

Long, long ago, feels like yesterday,
A little child watched as dad sat down to play.
They pulled the old piano to the middle of the room,
Friends and neighbours calling for their favourite tune
So long ago.

Stretching out our bedtime being good as we could be,
With my sister and my brother, I’d try to sing the harmony.
Cross-legged on the carpet where the old piano boomed
I watched him flex his fingers lift his head and fill the room

With a voice so clear a voice so strong,
O how we’d sing those old salvation songs.
It was the old, old story of Calvary,
And we’re still singing, singing the harmony.

Then he was a young man now I, his child, am grey.
The old piano’s long been silent but I hear his song today,
A sure and certain hope the cleansing blood, the empty grave.
When he wakes to flex new fingers lift his head and start to play.

With a voice so clear a voice so strong,
With heaven and earth in one salvation song.
Of the old, old story of Calvary,
And we’re still singing, singing the harmony.

I heard this Graham Kendrick song recently and it brought tears to my eyes. I immediately identified with his story. I remembered my Dad sitting at our family piano playing hymns. It’s a happy memory I haven’t dwelt on for many years…

At the church that we attended as children we sung hymns unaccompanied by instruments. It was Dad who would start the singing. He’d pitch the note and lead ‘with a voice so clear, a voice so strong…’

Like Graham Kendrick this all happened when I was a young boy, Dad must have been a young man. Now I’m an old man with children and grandchildren. Dad’s piano and voice are silent… It’s me that’s playing the piano and singing.

Today at church we shall still sing that ‘one salvation song’, that same old story of Calvary and forgiveness, the empty grave and hope that Dad sang.

In my memory Dad’s still singing. I can hear him. In heaven Dad’s still singing. I’ll try to sing the harmony.