Beneath the cross of Jesus

with
BENEATH THE CROSS
ST. CHRISTOPHER
[Keith Getty]

I. Text: Origins

This crucifixion hymn by Elizabeth Clephane (1830–1869) was first published posthumously in The Family Treasury (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1872), edited by Rev. William Arnot. In this collection, “Beneath the cross of Jesus” was given as the first of two hymns, both in five stanzas of eight lines, without music, unattributed. The second text, beginning “Dim eyes for ever closed” is best regarded as a separate hymn, not a continuation of the first, because it has a different subject matter and a slightly different meter. Although Arnot did not name the author of these, he described the texts as written by “a young Christian lately released . . . one whom the Good Shepherd led through the wilderness into rest.” In later editions of this series, starting in 1873, the poems were more clearly credited to Clephane. According to J.R. Watson, the title “Breathings on the Border” likely refers to “the fact that Clephane had lived at Melrose, Roxburghshire, in the Scottish Border country.”[1]

II. Text: Analysis

In the opening stanza, the writer pictures the cross as a shelter from desolation, and she calls upon a series of metaphors to paint the image: standing beneath the cross is like standing in the shadow of a mighty rock; it is a home in the wilderness and a resting place from the sweat of labor. A strong biblical association can be found in Isaiah 32:2 (“Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land,” ESV; see also Is. 4:6, 28:12). This metaphor continues into the second stanza, where the worshiper finds the unusual description of the cross as a “trysting place where heaven’s love / and heaven’s justice meet.” Hymnologist Esther Crookshank viewed this as a literary nod to the Psalms:

The Psalms evoke the expanse between earth and heaven as a synonym for the vastest space imaginable (Ps. 103:11) and as a way to visualize the chasm between God's justice and his hesed, his unfailing covenant kindness. Psalm 85:10 foretells the ultimate uniting of God’s justice with his mercy in the picture of His righteousness and peace kissing each other. Clephane’s phrase “trysting-place where heaven’s love and heaven’s justice meet,” echoing the Psalmic reference to the kiss, paraphrases the Psalm in exalted language that seems closer to Watts or Wesley than to that of her own gospel tradition.[2]

Crookshank saw the connection between the cross and Jacob’s ladder (Genesis 28) as a solution to the perceived separation of heaven and earth, “the fulfillment of a dream that to the patriarch was theophany but to future generations could be understood as prophecy—as the path, stair, or bridge leading to heaven.” Albert Edward Bailey likewise made this connection:

The cross is God’s solution of an insoluble problem: how can justice that demands punishment be reconciled with love that demands forgiveness? That reconciliation makes possible a pathway to heaven—as in Jacob’s dream.[3]

The third stanza changes focus to describe a large open grave near the cross, but between the writer and the grave, the cross (and presumably its divine martyr) stands guard to prevent entry into the eternal grave. Bailey saw not just one shadow in the hymn, but two: “one cast by the cross to protect the pilgrim from heat, the other lying beyond the cross, the shadow of death—not alone the death of the body but the ‘awful’ death of the soul. The cross is both warning and rescue.”

The fourth stanza shifts its gaze back to that divine martyr and to an act of substitutionary atonement (“Who suffered there for me”). This elicits a deeply personal response from the writer, much like the venerable hymn by Isaac Watts, “Alas! and did my Saviour bleed”:

Thus might I hide my blushing face
While his dear cross appears,
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt mine eyes to tears.

Clephane’s “worthlessness” is typically altered to read “unworthiness.” This change dates as early as 1904 in The Pilgrim Hymnal (NY: Pilgrim Press, 1904).

Finally, the writer declares the cross to be her abiding place, to find contentment there in spite of what the world gives or takes. The last two lines echo the sentiments expressed by Paul in Galatians 6:14, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (ESV).

III. Tunes

1. BENEATH THE CROSS OF JESUS

Clephane’s text was both first published in a hymnal and first set to music by singing evangelist Ira Sankey, in Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs (Chicago: Biglow & Main, 1875 | Fig. 2). In the British version of the songbook series, “Beneath the cross of Jesus” first appeared in Later Songs and Solos (London: Marshall, n.d.). Sankey’s setting was headed by Proverbs 14:26, “In the fear of the Lord one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge” (ESV). The melody has a few ascending leaps to the upper tonic, and descending leaps of a tritone down to the leading tone, with some chromatic alterations along the way. Sankey’s tune is usually known simply as BENEATH THE CROSS OF JESUS.

2. ST. CHRISTOPHER

The tune most commonly associated with this text is ST. CHRISTOPHER by Frederick C. Maker (1844–1927), first published in the 1881 Supplement to The Bristol Tune Book (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., 1881 | Fig. 3). Maker’s tune was written for this text. At the time, he was organist of Clifton Down Congregational Church in Bristol, England.[4] It has some interesting similarities to Sankey’s tune, including the same chromatic alteration of the fourth note, and a similar rhythmic layout, and yet Maker’s tune is distinctly his own. It moves mostly by step with only a few notable leaps. In the second phrase, a leap to the upper tonic descends nearly an octave in contrary movement with a rising bass line, settling on the secondary dominant chord (III) from where it started (vi). Two phrases later, we find a leap upward to the leading tone (at “burning”), this time eventually settling down and resting on the lower tonic, a note previously only glimpsed in passing throughout the movement of the melody, therefore finding rest on its long journey.

Church music scholar Paul Westermeyer observed the tune’s craftsmanship:

In it harmony is completely in control, not only by way of chromaticism, but with an augmented fourth that has found its way into the tune itself at the beginning of the last line. An augmented fourth, even in a nineteenth-century harmonic context, is no easy matter for congregations. It works here because Maker has driven the melody up to [B-flat] near the end of the third line in such a way that the longing for the [C] above it forms a completion that runs through the augmented fourth.[5]

IV. Adaptation

Clephane’s hymn was adapted by Irish songwriters Keith & Kristyn Getty in 2005 while they were living in Switzerland. “Beneath the cross” was first recorded on the album New Irish Hymns 4 (Kingsway Music, 2005), sung by Kristyn. In the liner notes for that album, Keith Getty offered this explanation for how their version of the hymn came to be written:

While it is true that through the cross we have been given unbelievable promises for the future, its implications for how we live our lives here and now are equally radical. One such implication is how we live together as a community. We are not saved for ourselves; disassociating ourselves from the rest of the body (regardless of how difficult they can be) is simply not an option.

Our church studied the book of James over the past two months and we were looking for a hymn on the context of the body of Christ and how we relate to each other. Kristyn and I wrote this hymn based on the title of Elizabeth Clephane’s old classic hymn “Beneath the cross of Jesus.”

Initially, the score was distributed through the Getty Music website, the Kingsway Music website (now defunct), and via concerts of their music. The song was also recorded on the album In Christ Alone (Getty Music, 2006), and published in the associated songbook (UK: ThankYou Music, 2007), using a score notated and arranged by Paul Campbell. A four-part congregational harmonization was made available through their website (Fig. 4). Its first appearance in a hymnal or denominational songbook followed shortly thereafter, in Contemporary Songs for Worship (Grand Rapids: Faith Alive, 2008). In the subsequent Reformed hymnal, Lift Up Your Hearts (2013), the tune was designated BENEATH THE CROSS.

The Gettys started with a modernized version of Clephane’s first two lines, “Beneath the cross of Jesus / I find a place to stand,” but from there crafted their own interpretation of the original idea. In the first stanza, they included the senses of wonder and unworthiness (as in Clephane’s fourth stanza) and added a contrasting image related to Christ’s hands—capable of discarding his lowly creatures, yet beckoning “come.” The second stanza explores the nature of family, especially the followers of Christ, a disparate people united by adoption into a holy unity. This calls to mind Scriptures such as John 1:12-13 (“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” ESV), or Matthew 12:50 (“For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother,” also Mk. 3:35, Lk. 8:21), or Ephesians 1:5 (“He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will”). Finally, the third stanza is one of application and anticipation, of living as followers while looking ahead to an eternal marriage with Christ as the bridegroom.

In a concert in 2007, Kristyn Getty summarized the message of the hymn in this way:

The first verse considers the individual coming to the cross and realizing that though they are so desperately unworthy, yet Christ has forgiven them. Then in verse 2, it’s as if the camera pans back and we see not just ourselves standing there before the cross, but thousands and thousands of other people there in need of the same gospel, the same Saviour, the same grace, and so it asks the question, “How can I then dishonour the ones that you have loved when I consider what Christ has done for me.” And then verse 3 pushes us all out together, out the front door if you like, onto this path, beneath the cross, to follow the footsteps of our Lord, where one day it will lead us to be his perfect bride, praising him at his throne.[6]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
20 February 2020
rev. 15 Nov. 2021

Footnotes:

1. J.R. Watson, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: http://www.hymnology.co.uk/b/beneath-the-cross-of-jesus

2. Esther Rothenbusch [Crookshank], “Old Testament images of the cross in ‘Beneath the cross of Jesus,’” The Hymn, vol. 51, no. 2 (April 2000), p. 44.

3. Albert Edward Bailey, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” The Gospel in Hymns (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), pp. 456–457.

4. William Cowen & James Love, “Frederick Charles Maker,” The Music of the Church Hymnary (Edinburgh: H. Frowde, 1901), p. 230; for an image of the interior of Clifton Down Congregational Church, 1882, see J.F. Nicholls & John Taylor, Bristol Past and Present, vol. 3 (Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1882), p. 352: Archive.org

5. Paul Westermeyer, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), p. 134.

6. Kristyn Getty, An Evening with Keith & Kristyn Getty, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY: 22 Feb. 2007), MSL CD 10268.

Related Resources:

Albert Edward Bailey, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” The Gospel in Hymns (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950), pp. 456–457.

Donald P. Hustad, “An interpretation: Beneath the cross of Jesus,” The Hymn, vol. 37, no. 3 (July 1986), pp. 36–37: HathiTrust

Richard Watson & Kenneth Trickett, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Companion to Hymns and Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House, 1988), p. 124.

Madeleine Forell Marshall, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Common Hymnsense (Chicago: GIA, 1995), pp. 126–129.

Esther Rothenbusch [Crookshank], “Old Testament images of the cross in ‘Beneath the cross of Jesus,’” The Hymn, vol. 51, no. 2 (April 2000), pp. 44–45: HathiTrust

J.R. Watson, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), pp. 325–326.

Margaret Becker, Kristyn Getty, and Joanne Hogg, New Irish Hymns #4 (Kingsway Music, 2005): Amazon

Paul Westermeyer, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), pp. 133–134.

David Hamrick, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” David’s Hymn Blog (17 May 2011):
http://drhamrick.blogspot.com/2011/05/beneath-cross-of-jesus.html

Robert Cottrill, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Wordwise Hymns (23 May 2018):
https://wordwisehymns.com/2018/05/23/beneath-the-cross-of-jesus-2/

Leland Ryken, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” 40 Favorite Hymns for the Christian Year (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2020), pp. 43–45.

J.R. Watson, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: http://www.hymnology.co.uk/b/beneath-the-cross-of-jesus

“Beneath the cross of Jesus” (Clephane), Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/beneath_the_cross_of_jesus_i_fain_would

Keith & Kristyn Getty, “Beneath the cross of Jesus,” Getty Music: https://store.gettymusic.com/us/song/beneath-the-cross/