The first face I want to see

Frances Jane (Fanny) Crosby, (1820-1915) has been referred to as the “Mother of modern congregational singing in America.” Some of Crosby’s best-known songs include “Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior,” “Blessed Assurance,” “Jesus is Tenderly Calling You Home,” “Praise Him, Praise Him,” “Rescue the Perishing,” and “To God Be the Glory.”

Fanny Crosby wrote around 8,000 hymns. In fact, some publishers were hesitant to have so many hymns by one person in their hymnals, so Crosby used nearly 200 different pseudonyms during her career.

When Crosby was only six weeks old, she went completely blind due to maltreatment of her eyes during an illness. (When she was 15, she became a teacher in a mission for the blind in New York.) This fact is doubly inspiring as one learns of when she walked forward in church to receive Christ. It was on Nov. 20, 1850, at 30th Street Methodist Church in New York. The congregation was singing Isaac Watts’ great hymn: “At the cross, at the cross where I first saw the light and the burden of my heart rolled away; it was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day.”

Ma ny of her song s focused on the theme of the Cross, such as “At the Cross, There’s Room,” “Blessed Cross,” “Room at the Cross,” “Save Me at the Cross,” and this one, “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,” of which I now write.

“ Jesus keep me near the cross, there a precious fountain, “Free to all, a healing stream flows from Calvary’s mountain.”

I o ften s hared h er fi rst stanza as a communion meditation at the Lord’s Table, just before speaking the words of institution, stressing three of the stanza’s descriptors, “precious,” “free” and “healing.”

PRECIOUS. The famous evangelist Dwight L. Moody asked Crosby toward the end of her life: “If you could have just one wish, what would it be?” Moody expected her to ask for sight.

Sensing this, she replied, “If I could have one wish, I’d wish that I might continue blind the rest of my life.”

Moody was taken back and asked, “How can you say that?”

Crosby said, “Because, after being blind for all these years, the first face I want to see now is the face of Jesus.” Jesus is that preciousness that proclaims, “I have come into this world so that those who do not see may gain their sight (John 9:39).

FREE. When you come to a fountain or a well, a stream or a spring, no payment or obligation is required. Water just cascades freely down a fountain. A well only echoes when you ask how much the water costs? You can’t insert a dollar into a spring; it just bubbles up, eternally, out of the ground—almost in joy! The precious fountain of God’s love has been, and always will be, free to all.

HEALING. What flows from God’s love through Jesus will always be healing. An acceptable translation of 1 Peter 1:9 is this, “You have now realized and received that for which faith was always intended: the healing of your souls.”

God is concerned about the health and healing of your soul: your worries, your fears, your shames, your sorrow and doubts. In the Bible, Mark refers to Jesus as the “Great Physician” because he came to heal the sick in spirit, mend relationships with God, and restore souls to flourish as God intended. That, my beloved, is why keep near the Cross, near to Christ, and near to the love and power of God.

Now, let us all stand and sing together…