Beautiful Savior

Beautiful Savior,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Truly I’d love thee,
truly I’d serve thee,
Light of my soul, my joy, my crown. 

Fair are the meadows,
fair are the woodlands,
robed in flowers of blooming spring;
Jesus is fairer,
Jesus is purer,
He makes our sorrowing spirit sing. 

Fair is the sunshine,
fair is the moonlight,
Bright are the sparkling stars on high;
Jesus shines brighter,
Jesus shines purer
than all the angels in the sky. 

Beautiful Savior,
Lord of the nations,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor,
praise, adoration,
Now and forevermore be thine.

• We often think of this hymn the way we think of a beautiful image of a landscape. Yet this hymn is much more than word painting. What four titles remind us of the sovereignty of God expressed in the person of Christ?
• Can you think of a psalm or another text in the Old Testament that describes the beauty of the earth and the beauty of the sky as this hymn does?
• Why does the hymnwriter spend so much effort trying to describe Jesus as light? Look at the transfiguration story and compare the description with this hymn. See Luke 9:28-36
• The hymnwriter calls Jesus “light of my soul, my joy, my crown.” Can you think of three ways to describe what Jesus means to you?
• What image of the risen Christ does this hymn evoke? Look in the book of Revelation, chapters 4, 5, and 19
• For many years, this hymn was popularly called The Crusader Hymn. It was sung by knights who went on Crusades from Europe to the Holy Land. Today, those Crusades are viewed as the ultimate wickedness of western aggression. What does this hymn tell you about the state of mind of the knights who were singing it? What does this history teach us about the interpretation of biblical teaching by fallible human beings?