Via Bethlehem We Journey

Via Bethlehem We Journey is a hymn written by Margaret E. Barber and set to the hymn tune Converse, named for its composer, Charles C. Converse. Converse is best known as the tune for What a Friend We Have In Jesus. It is unknown when Barber wrote the words to this hymn, but it was during her time serving in China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This hymn is one of my favorites. It captures so many different moments of the walk with Christ. There is a central message to the eight verses: We must live as Christ lived, even enduring the pain and suffering of his life, dying with him to this world on His Cross so that we may be raised with Him in His resurrection, but it is all worth it because there's coming a day when when we will be enthroned in the City of God with Christ forever.

Via Bethlehem we journey,

We whose hearts on God are set;

Babe-like souls of Jesus learning,

While our cheeks with tears are wet;

For the manger and the stable

Are not pleasing to our eyes,

But our feet must follow Jesus,

If our hands would grasp the prize.

Via Nazareth! The pathway

Narrows still as on we go,

Years of toil none understanding,

Yet God teaches us to know

That the servant is not greater

Than the Lord who through long years

Hid Himself from this world's glory,

Follow Him! Count not the tears.

Via Galilee, we see Him!

Stones are hurled, and curses hissed

By the men who gather round Him,

Has He not the pathway missed?

No! Unharmed, the Savior passes,

And this rough bit of the way

We must travel, since like Jesus,

Nothing can our purpose stay.

Via too, the awful anguish

Of the hours beneath the trees,

Where the hosts of Satan linger,

Awful hours of anguish these!

Yet we fail not, for God's angels

Minister to us, and say,

"Look, beloved, at the glory,

Conflict is but for a day!"

Then the Cross! for via Calvary

Every royal soul must go;

Here we draw the veil, for Jesus

Only can the pathway show;

"If we suffer with Him," listen,

Just a little, little while,

And the mem'ry will have faded

In the glory of His smile!

Then the grave, with dear ones weeping,

Knowing that all life has fled;

Fellow-pilgrims, art thou numbered

With the men the world calls dead?

Thence we rise, and live with Jesus,

Throned above the world's mad strife,

Gladly forfeiting forever,

All that worldlings count as life.

On we press! and yonder gleaming,

nearing every day, we see

The great walls of that fair city,

God has built for such as we;

And we catch the tender music

Of the choirs that sing of One

Who once died to have us with Him

In His kingdom, on the throne.

Just a few more miles, beloved!

And our feet shall ache no more;

No more sin, and no more sorrow,

Hush thee, Jesus went before;

And I hear Him sweetly whispering,

"Faint not, fear not, still press on,

For it may be ere tomorrow,

The long journey will be done."

(Public Domain)