Once referred to as “the only truly authentic Easter hymn,” the Christian song “Now The Green Blade Riseth” reflects on the resurrection of Jesus and his love that can be found throughout the beauty of nature in springtime.
Honoring Faith With Musical Gifts
Born in 1872 in Mere, a rural English village within the county of Cheshire, Crum dedicated his life to his faith and the creative arts. His father, William Crum, worked in the textiles industry and his Scottish grandfather, who he was named after, was the beloved minister and theologian John Macleod Campbell.Crum studied at Eton College and New College, Oxford, earning both a bachelor’s degree in 1895 and master’s degree in 1901. During his studies, he became an ordained deacon, then a priest in 1900.
While he served many roles for the Church of England, the one that had the most personal impact was the time he spent as chaplain to Francis Paget, the Bishop of Oxford. While serving with the bishop, he met Paget’s daughter Edith and fell in love. They married in 1908 and had one child together: a son named after both of their fathers, William Francis Crum.
Shortly after giving birth, Edith passed away. Though John’s marriage to Edith was brief, he remained close with Bishop Paget and the Paget family.
A few years after Edith passed, Crum remarried Emily Clare Bale. While they had several children together, one child in particular, Margaret Crumb, followed in her father’s artistic footsteps. She became an award-winning scholar of English music and poetry.
A Key Artistic Influence
Over the course of Crum’s lifetime, he published a wide array of works. He wrote children’s books focused on faith-based themes. He also released books on architecture, history, and theology.
Though he was a prolific writer, he was well-known for his work as a hymn writer—with one work, in particular, embodying the essence of his personal and professional life.
For the Christmas holiday, worshippers have plenty of songs to celebrate Christ’s birth. However, for Easter, musical options written with the holy day’s theme are limited. Among this collection, Crum’s reflective “Now the Green Blade Riseth” is a top choice.
Crum often included the theme of nature in his writings. For him, nature and faith were interconnected. He found divinity in freshly tilled wheat fields with seeds meticulously tucked away for harvest. He even found divinity in the most seemingly common things, like the green blades of a budding crop.
To Crum, the new growth of springtime represented Christ’s resurrection.
Lyrics in the hymn such as, “Love is come again like wheat that springeth green,” contain a powerful meaning, with love acting as a metaphor for Jesus, and the colorful imagery of newly sprouted wheat representing the everlasting growth of God’s kingdom.
Nature-driven lyrics in the song echo passages from the Bible. Ministers use a passage from the book of Mark, among other biblical books, to add context to the song for their Easter services. In the excerpt from Mark, the bountiful wheat harvest represents the virtue of man that can grow from the power of the word of God, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground ... and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. ... But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26-29)
To God who makes all lovely things How happy must our praises be; Each day a new surprise He brings To make us glad His world to see.
A Spiritually Renewing Message
Vatican, Rome. Public Domain
When Crum wrote the lyrics to “Now the Green Blade Riseth,” he already had a melody in mind. He borrowed it from the traditional French carol, “Noël Nouvelet.” The holiday tune’s enchanting, comforting notes pair perfectly with Crum’s reflective lyrics.
Ministers sometimes ask musicians to play the melody softly during church services to allow congregations to contemplate the lyrics as they follow along with the music.
The last stanza of “Now the Green Blade Riseth” brings the beautiful tune full circle. After poignantly addressing the resurrection of Christ in the first few verses, the last verse focuses on individual worshippers who may be going through hardships, perhaps similar to ones Crum went through when he was a young man.
With an overall focus on the renewing power of Jesus evidenced by the beauty of springtime that grows fresh each year, one of Crum’s final lyrics reminds Christians that no matter the day, “Jesus’ touch can call us back to life again.”
First published in 1928 in the “Oxford Book of Carols,” “Now the Green Blade Riseth” made its debut in America in 1966 when it was published for the first time in “The Methodist Hymnal.” Since its publication in the late 1920s, the song has become a musical centerpiece for many Easter church services, as well as Crum’s most popular hymn.
