Text · full lyrics
Light of Lights, we lift our praises
To the One who bore the cross.
So Your love might shine before us;
Reaching souls who once were lost.
Give us then Your life to offer;
Free us from our prideful hearts
So that men might see the splendor
Of the radiance You impart.
Star of Stars, You light the evening
As we journey on our way.
We shall fear no earthly evil,
For You know us all by name.
Shine through us in radiant beauty;
Live in us throughout our days
So that peace might be our offering
To the world for which we pray.
Sun of Suns, You rise victorious
O'er the darkness of the night.
O'er the sin that once enslaved us;
Mercifully You shed Your light.
So that we might bow before Thee;
Pleasing You with songs of praise;
Echoing the radiant beauty
Of Your Kingdom's brilliant rays.
The lyricist
Blayne Chastain
Blayne Chastain is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who has served as music director at Saint Patrick Presbyterian Church since 2001. He came up through the hymn-renewal movement that formed around Kevin Twit's Indelible Grace project in Nashville in the late 1990s — he played guitar on the first record in that series — and nearly all his hymn work since has been a composer's: finding old, half-forgotten texts and setting them to new music. "Light of Lights" is the exception, and his only original hymn lyric to date. He wrote both words and music for it to pair with a sermon Rev. Shane Sunn, who planted Saint Pat's, was preparing.