HOW SWEET THE SOUND (Part 2) • "How Great Thou Art" • Barry Bandara

• This Series: In many ways, hymns are the oral history of our faith. Like the Psalms in the Bible, they are passed from generation to generation and sung in cathedrals, chapels, churches and sometimes around a family piano. This How Sweet the Sound series delves into some of those classic hymns and explore the story behind these songs. We hope it will also breathe new life into their melodies to illuminate the hope they have for us today.

 

• This Week: A Swedish editor and future politician, Carl Boberg, encountered a tremendous storm while walking home one day. As Carl ran for shelter, he was awed as the lightning flashed, thunderclaps shook the air. When the storm relented, he rushed home and wrote a simple poem about this event. This poem was called O Store Gud which means, O Mighty God. This poem became a song that was then translated into German and Russian before finally translated into English. It lived in rather obscurity until a singing cowboy evangelist in India heard it and brought it back to the United States. In 1949 it received a new title. In 1954, George Beverly Shea introduced it to Billy Graham who loved it so much he brought to his New York City Crusade where 93 million people heard it. Elvis Pressley sang it and won a Grammy and Carrie Underwood topped the chart with her rendition of it in 2011. It is now regarded as the #2 all-time favorite hymn in the world - How Great Thou Art.

 

Key Phrase: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars, which you have set in place…” Psalm 8:3