Thursday Hymn Reflection: "Let the Lower Lights be Burning"

[Note: If you would like to add your favorite songs (up to 3) to the list of those to be done in our Thursday reflections, add a comment. As of this writing, there are about 35 on the list, but we are doing them in random order.]

“Let the Lower Lights be Burning” was written by Philip Bliss in 1871 and uses much imagery that, sadly, most do not fully understand anymore. D.L. Moody wrote this brief description of where the idea for the lyrics came from:

On a dark, stormy, night, when the waves rolled like mount­ains, and not a star was to be seen, a boat, rock­ing and plung­ing, neared the Cleve­land har­bor. “Are you sure this is Cleve­land?” asked the cap­tain, see­ing only one light from the light-house.
“Quite sure, sir,” re­plied the pi­lot.
“Where are the low­er lights?”
“Gone out, sir.”
“Can you make the har­bor?”
“We must, or per­ish, sir!”
And with a strong hand and a brave heart, the old pi­lot turned the wheel. But alas, in the dark­ness he missed the channel, and with a crash upon the rocks the boat was shiv­ered, and ma­ny a life lost in a wat­ery grave. Breth­ren, the Mas­ter will take care of the great light-house: let us keep the low­er lights burn­ing!

Christ is the lighthouse in the song, and we like that picture. It is one we can understand. He is light. He shines His light. We preach that often. However, He uses human agents to shine His light before others (cf. Matthew 5:16).

The “lower lights” were lights below the lighthouse that were used to draw ships into the harbor. As a vessel approaches the shore, the terrain is often treacherous, with rocks and shoals that are difficult for these large ships to work around. Lower lights, then, were used to help guide the ships in among the difficult final stages of coming ashore.

Now the song should start to make more sense. People need Jesus, but they often need us to shine the light to Him. As the frightened little boy said, “Sometimes I need Jesus with skin on!” We may be the one to guide a lost person through the difficult steps from sin to salvation. The greatest line in the song, in my mind, is this: “Eager eyes are watching, longing, for the lights along the shore” (emphasis added). Souls are seeking salvation. Will we do anything about it?

One more observation. The lower lights always brought the ships closer to the lighthouse. In the same way, when we are those lower lights, we should always (always, always!) be bringing people closer to the safety of Jesus, the Christ.

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One quick note. I may or may not add videos to each of these posts. Finding quality a capella videos of this songs is a challenge.