Hymns | Fifth Sunday before Advent | 25 October 2026

Lord beyond the hills of time

Lord beyond the hills of time,
Past the mists where eagles climb,
Moses saw the promised land,
Shown to him by God’s own hand.

2.
By the Shannon’s winding grace,
Through the bog and mountain place,
Generations bloom and fade,
Yet your love is unafraid.

3.
Ancient Oak of wisdom’s height,
Rooted deep in earth and light,
Teach us how to grow and give,
Showing others how to live.

4.
Like a mother bird at rest,
Drawing young beneath her breast,
So your servants gently share
Truth made strong through tender care.

5.
Christ, O Deer of hill and glen,
Calling wanderers home again,
David’s Son and David’s Lord,
Living Wisdom, living Word.

6.
Where the rowan guards the way,
Where the silver salmon play,
Guide us through the twilight sea
To the land we cannot see.

7.
May your favour on us stay,
Bless the labour of each day;
Till we join the saints above,
In your everlasting love.

8.
Praise the Father, Lord of light,
Praise the Son, our heart’s delight;
Praise the Spirit, sacred Flame,
Three in One, we praise your name.

Beyond the Hills of Time

There is something deeply moving about the image of Moses standing on Mount Nebo, looking across towards the Promised Land. He has spent his life leading a people through wilderness and uncertainty, through moments of faithfulness and failure, towards a promise that he himself will not enter.

In Deuteronomy 34, God allows Moses to see the land, but not to cross into it. His journey is complete, although the journey of his people continues. There is sadness in this moment, certainly, but there is also fulfilment. Moses has done what was entrusted to him. The promise of God does not end with the life of one servant.

The opening verse of this hymn takes us to that mountainside:

Lord beyond the hills of time,
Past the mists where eagles climb,
Moses saw the promised land,
Shown to him by God’s own hand.

The hills of time are those boundaries beyond which we cannot see. We know something of the past, and we inhabit the present, but the future remains largely hidden. Moses was given a glimpse of what lay ahead, not because he would possess it, but because he had been faithful in helping others reach it.

This is a reminder that the work of faith is seldom completed within a single lifetime. We plant trees beneath whose branches we may never sit. We build communities whose future members we will never meet. We offer prayers whose answers may unfold long after our voices have fallen silent.

Yet God remains.

Psalm 90 gives us the language for this enduring presence. Before the mountains were brought forth, before the earth itself was formed, God was already God. Human generations pass like grass that flourishes in the morning and fades by evening, but the divine faithfulness stretches beyond our understanding of time.

The second verse brings that ancient truth into the Irish landscape:

By the Shannon’s winding grace,
Through the bog and mountain place,
Generations bloom and fade,
Yet your love is unafraid.

The Shannon has flowed past generations of human lives, carrying their stories through a landscape shaped by time. The bog preserves traces of those who came before us. Mountains stand as witnesses to centuries of change. Yet even these seemingly permanent features of creation belong to the passing world.

The love of God is not frightened by that passing. It does not diminish as generations change, nor does it depend upon our ability to preserve everything we have known.

Psalm 90 concludes with a prayer that God will establish the work of our hands. It is a particularly fitting prayer for those who serve in the Church, in their communities, and in the ordinary responsibilities of daily life. We cannot guarantee the lasting success of our efforts, but we can offer them faithfully.

The image of the ancient oak develops this thought. A tree does not grow to maturity in a season. Its roots deepen gradually, its branches extend, and its shelter becomes a gift to others. Wisdom, too, grows through patience, experience and a willingness to remain rooted while continuing to grow.

In the second reading, Paul describes a ministry shaped not by ambition or the desire for praise, but by tenderness. Writing to the Thessalonians, he compares his care for them to that of a nursing mother caring for her children. He and his companions were willing to share not only the gospel but their own lives.

It is a remarkable description of Christian ministry.

Like a mother bird at rest,
Drawing young beneath her breast,
So your servants gently share
Truth made strong through tender care.

The mother bird offers shelter, warmth and protection. She does not demand that her young earn their place beneath her wings. Her care is freely given because they belong to her.

Paul presents Christian service in much the same way. The gospel is not merely a collection of propositions to be delivered. It is something lived, shared and embodied in relationships of genuine affection.

There is a lesson here for every form of Christian leadership. Truth without tenderness can become harsh and unwelcoming. Authority without care can become domination. But when truth is carried through gentleness, patience and love, it becomes a means of nurturing life.

This tenderness leads naturally into the Gospel reading from Matthew 22.

When Jesus is asked which commandment is greatest, he answers with the command to love God with the whole heart, soul and mind. He immediately joins to it the command to love our neighbour as ourselves. Upon these two commandments, he says, hang all the law and the prophets.

The Christian life is therefore not measured simply by the correctness of our words, the splendour of our worship, or the strength of our institutions. Its measure is love: love directed towards God and made visible in our treatment of one another.

The hymn’s image of Christ as the deer of hill and glen speaks of a presence moving through the landscape, calling those who wander towards home.

Christ, O Deer of hill and glen,
Calling wanderers home again,
David’s Son and David’s Lord,
Living Wisdom, living Word.

The deer has a particular resonance in Irish Christian imagination, recalling the traditions associated with St Patrick and the protection of Christ. Here, however, the image is also one of invitation. Christ calls rather than coerces. The wanderer is not abandoned, and the way home remains open.

The final two lines of the verse draw directly upon the second part of Matthew’s Gospel passage. Having answered the question about the greatest commandment, Jesus asks how the Messiah can be both David’s son and David’s Lord.

The question invites his hearers to look beyond a merely inherited understanding of the Messiah. Christ belongs within the human story, yet cannot be contained by it. He is David’s descendant and David’s Lord, the living Word through whom the love of God is revealed.

This is the Christ who accompanies us through the changing seasons of life.

The rowan and the silver salmon of the sixth verse draw us further into the language of Irish landscape and tradition. The rowan, often associated with protection, stands beside the path. The salmon, long associated with wisdom, moves through the waters. Both become signs through which we may contemplate the wisdom and care of God.

Yet the journey leads beyond the familiar landscape:

Guide us through the twilight sea
To the land we cannot see.

Moses could see the land he would not enter. We, by contrast, often travel without even that distant view. We do not know what lies beyond the next turning of the path, much less beyond the boundaries of our earthly lives.

Faith does not remove this uncertainty. It gives us someone to trust within it.

The twilight sea is not necessarily a place of fear. It is a place of transition, where familiar landmarks fade and the horizon becomes indistinct. There are many such crossings in a human life: changes of vocation, illness, bereavement, ageing, and the quiet recognition that some chapters have ended while others remain unwritten.

Through them all, the prayer remains that Christ will guide us.

The seventh verse returns us to Psalm 90 and its concern for the labour of human hands. We ask God’s favour upon the work of each day, knowing that even the smallest acts of faithfulness can participate in something greater than ourselves.

And then the hymn turns towards the communion of saints. The generations who have gone before us are not simply forgotten figures in a distant past. Within the Christian understanding of eternity, they belong to that great company whose life is held in God.

Moses dies before entering the Promised Land, but the promise continues. Paul gives himself in love to communities whose future he cannot control. Jesus reveals that the heart of all divine commandments is love.

These readings remind us that faithfulness matters more than possession, tenderness more than power, and love more than the appearance of religious achievement.

The hymn closes with praise of the Holy Trinity. This is not merely a conventional ending. It gathers the entire reflection into worship.

The Father is Lord of light, the source of the promise that endures beyond generations. The Son is our heart’s delight, the living Wisdom and Word who calls us home. The Spirit is the sacred Flame, sustaining the life of faith and kindling love within us.

We began on a mountainside with an old man looking towards a land he would never reach. We end in the praise of the eternal God, whose love is not confined by the boundaries of time.

Perhaps that is the deepest invitation of these readings: to live faithfully in the present without needing to possess the future; to care tenderly for those entrusted to us; and to trust that the God who accompanied Moses through the wilderness will accompany us through every landscape of our own lives.

For the promise is greater than the journey, and the love of God is greater than the passing of time.

Hymn information

First line: Lord beyond the hills of time
Text: Michael McFarland Campbell
Metre: 77 77
Tune: St Bees
Scripture: Deuteronomy 34:1-12; Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8; Matthew 22:34-46.
NDH-0358

© Michael McFarland Campbell. 2026.
Permission granted for local church or parish use with attribution. Not for commercial reproduction.

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