Daily Reading for March 4 • David, Bishop of Menevia, Wales, c. 544 (transferred from March 1)

Pilgrim, faint and tempest-beaten,
Lift thy gaze, behold and know
Christ the Lamb, our Mediator,
Robed in vestments trailing low;
Faithfulness his golden girdle;
Bells upon his garments ring
Free salvation for the sinner
Through his priceless offering.

Think on this when to your ankles
Scarce the healing waters rise—
Numberless shall be the cubits
Measured to you in the skies.
Children of the resurrection,
They alone can venture here;
Yet they find no shore, no bottom
To Bethesda’s waters clear.

O the deeps of our salvation!
Mystery of godliness!
He, the God of gods, appearing
In our fleshly human dress;
He it is who bore God’s anger,
In our place atonement made,
Until Justice cried ‘Release him,
Now the debt if fully paid’.

Blessed hour of rest eternal,
Home at last, all labours o’er;
Sea of wonders never sounded,
Sea where none can find a shore;
Access free to dwell for ever
Yonder with the One in Three;
Deeps no foot of man can traverse—
God and Man in unity.

A hymn by Ann Griffiths, eighteenth-century Welsh Methodist mystic and poet, quoted in Songs to Her God: Spirituality of Ann Griffiths by A. M. Allchin (Cowley Publications, 1987).