Although hymns are certainly becoming rare these days, it’s a fairly well known fact that if you sing the 1st and 2nd verses back to back, an angel loses its wings. Or you run the risk of getting struck by lightning or sweet baby Jesus cries a little He is so upset.
OK, I made up all of those things, but they have to be true given our refusal to sing anything but the 1st and 3rd or 2nd and 4th verses of hymns. Am I the only one that has experienced this before? I swear, growing up we never, ever, ever sang a hymn all the way through. We tried to once but a group of men in suits in a black van came and took our worship leader away when he tried to lead us through a complete song.
As with most things on this site, I have a few theories why this happens:
1. A joke.
Maybe years ago, some practical joke loving worship leader professor told his students that God hates when we sing verses in a row. Maybe He said that if you did, a man with a hook would hide in the back seat of your car. A trucker would try to convince you to pull over because he could see the man with the hook but it would be too late. You would think the trucker was the bad guy and would get killed for ignoring his warnings.
2. Bad Verses
Maybe hymn writers don’t try that hard on the second and fourth verses. Maybe they mail those verses in. So worship leaders, realizing the sucktacularness of those verses just skip them automatically.
3. Time
Is it possible that singing two verses back to back would rip a whole in the very fabric of time itself? I didn’t say “probable” but it could be possible. Maybe for years there has been a secret society of worship leaders called “the singsters” and they have been sworn to protect us from this horrible fate. They have secret rings and wear robes when they get together. Something to think about.
I guess this issue doesn’t matter much these days since lots of churches are singing worship songs instead of hymns. But if your church still sings hymns, see how often you go straight through. Rarely, I would guess.
