O Sacred Head Now Wounded

Brian Doerksen takes up the old Passion hymn and stays with the wounded head of Christ, "with grief and shame weighed down" and crowned with thorns. The first stanza lingers on the cost: a face pale with anguish, once "bright as morn," now marked by scorn and abuse.

The turn comes in the second stanza, where the singer stops observing and confesses: "Mine, mine was the transgression, but thine the cruel pain." From there the hymn becomes a prayer, asking not to be turned away, to receive grace, and to find words to thank a "dearest friend" for dying sorrow and pity "without end."

The last two stanzas look toward the singer's own life and death, asking never to "outlive my love for thee" and for the cross to be shown near the end. Isaiah's portrait of the servant wounded for our transgressions and Paul's note that Christ died for us while we were still sinners give the hymn its footing. It suits Lent and Good Friday, though its honest, personal prayer fits any season.