Timothy Dudley-Smith (1926-  😉 is the Anglican bishop of Thetford, Norwich, England. One of several British hymn writers producing the “explosion” of hymns in contemporary language in the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote this hymn while a pastor at Bramerton, in February 1975. Poets and hymnwriters through the ages have done their best to help us understand, by the use of imagery and analogy, what Jesus to the devout Christian. In this remarkable poem, Christ means Dudley-Smith gives us 19 images of what Christ is like. In his book Lift Every Heart, Hope Publishing Company, 1984, he lists 16 Scripture references to show how nearly every line is Bible-based. Some are: “water” (John 4:14); “strength” (Ps. 19:14); “truth” (John 14:6); “peace” (Eph. 2:14); “sun” (Ps. 84:11); “freedom” (John 8:36); and “sunrise” (Mal. 4:2).

OASIS is a sprightly unison melody that, in spite of the upward leap of an octave, is enjoyable to sing. While written in a fresh, contemporary idiom, it flows logically and will present no difficulty to an alert, receptive congregation. It was composed in 1979 by Thomas Brian Coleman and first appeared in Partners in Praise, a collection of hymns for All-age Family Worship, of which he was the music coeditor. It is named for the opening lines of this hymn, for which it was especially composed, as the term Oasis conjures up the image of the thirsty traveler and the relief that is his when he arrives at a desert spring and assuages his thirst. The name also suitably describes the many other similes of our Lord in the hymn, all of which speak of refreshment, relief, and joy. It will be noticed that the change of rhythm in the words of the second half of the hymn is exactly matched by the appropriate change of accent in the melody.

Coleman was born in Wallsend-on-Tyne (now Tyne and Wear), Northumberland, England, on April 25, 1920. He was educated at Whit- cliffe Mount Grammar School, Yorkshire. He trained for the Methodist ministry at Wesley College, Headingley, northwest Leeds, Yorkshire, and was ordained in 1949. He served in Hebden Bridge, Bath, Reading, and then from 1964 to 1973 as chaplain at the Methodist boarding school at Truro in Cornwall. From 1973 to 1979 he was the minister at the Punshon Memorial church in Bournemouth. For the next five years he was chaplain at the Methodist boarding school in Woodhouse Grove, near Bradford in York- shire; at this writing he is serving in the Truro circuit. He has written several other hymn tunes, seven of which appear in Partners in Praise and one in Hymns for Today’s Church, 1982.

📖 Reference: Companion to the Seventh-day Adventist Hymnal by Wayne Hooper and Edward E. White. Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1988.