There is a green hill far away

Originally appeared in the Walthamstow Parish Magazine (March 2013 edition).

There are many seasons in the Christian calendar. These include Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent and Easter. One hymn-writer has many well-known hymns including All Things Bright and Beautiful, and as we move from the Lent season into the Easter season, there is another of this hymn-writer's works which will hold great significance for the church.

Cecil Frances Alexander was born in 1818 in Dublin, and she became both a poet and a hymn writer. Married to a minister, the story goes that she took up writing hymns when one of her godchildren admitted that they were having difficulty learning the catechism. In the same way that in recent times many have put Bible verses to song so as to make them easier to memorise (see Chris Tomlin's Everlasting God which is a musical version of Isaiah 40:31), Alexander began to write hymns to make tasks such as learning the catechism easier. She went on to compose the Christmas classic Once in Royal David's City, as well as a hymn perfect for the transition between the ending Lent season and the coming Easter season: There Is A Green Hill Far Away.

According to a reconstruction in 2008 by archaeological architect Leen Ritmeyer, Calvary was probably not green at all, but sandy much like the land surrounding it. However, Alexander never saw Jerusalem's Calvary, upon which Jesus was crucified over 2000 years ago; instead, it is rumoured that the song is based on a "grassy hill on the edge of Londonderry", which in her mind came to symbolise the hill outside Jerusalem.

Traditionally a Good Friday song because of its imagery of the Crucifixion; There Is A Green Hill Far Away has become a classic, like many of Alexander's hymns, and its lyrics flow smoothly across the organ music.

The hymn captures the emotions that it seems appropriate to feel towards the Crucifixion: wonder, sorrow, gratefulness, hope. It reminds us of the love that Jesus had - and still has - for all of us, that He would die to save us, "that we might go at last to Heav'n", and encapsulates the entire notion of Good Friday in six verses. It reminds us of the true reason that Christ was crucified, reminds us of His love for us and that it was for our sins that He came down to earth to die, and that over all there was "no other good enough to pay the price of sin"; that Jesus truly is Lord.

People often speak of hymns that make their hair stand on end, and if there was ever a hymn that made my hair stand on end, I would have to say that There Is A Green Hill Far Away is it.