In the Public Domain

Scores of works entered the public domain on January 1 of this year. Today’s text on the last Sunday of the year reminds us that the Cross has never been private, but, rather, has always been in the public domain.

It’s one of the most popular gospel hymns ever written, appearing in well over 200 hymnals since its first publication in 1912. As anyone who’s ever fielded requests at a hymn sing can tell you, it’s the particular favorite of older women — likely because it reflects the passionate faith of a biblical woman, Mary Magdalene, as she encounters the risen Jesus for the first time.

It is, of course, “I Come to the Garden Alone” — also known as “In the Garden.”

Unlike many hymns whose words speak broadly of the love of God for all people, this one is relentlessly personal. The first-person pronouns “I” and “me” occur more than a dozen times in its brief text of three stanzas plus refrain. Only twice does the plural pronoun “we” occur, but in both cases it refers to the tight couple of the hymn’s narrator and her beloved Lord: “And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever...