Posted on: 30th July 2026

Hilary and I are now walking through Diamond Wedding Land -
'pilgrims on a journey, and companions on the road’.
Mostly, we stroll joyfully, gratefully under a gentle warm sun of love, but the road is rocky, we trip and stumble. A song comes alongside inviting us to sing ourselves into its spirit, its way, its discipline:

Brother, sister let me serve you. 
Let me be as Christ to you; 
pray that I may have the grace to 
let you be my servant too. 

So one promises the other: ‘I will hold the Christ-light for you in the night-time of your fear’.  The ‘I will’ in a wedding sixty years ago is reiterated:

I will weep when you are weeping; 
when you laugh I'll laugh with you; 
I will share your joy and sorrow
till we've seen this journey through. 

Walking together we ‘learn Christ’, live realistically even in this world where Christ suffered, and, living, walking on the hard earth with Christ, find treasure in heaven:

When we sing to God in heaven 
we shall find such harmony, 
born of all we've known together 
of Christ's love and agony. 

(Note: this does not say we will get adequate compensation for all we suffer in this life, but rather, we share the love God has in living on earth, the Master serving others.)

This ‘brother-sister’ song is not just for siblings, or married couples or close friends. God is Father, so we all are brothers and sisters, whatever our creed or colour. Some see that, some don’t. Some hug God’s grace for themselves (like the old woman in Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamzov who insisted, ‘It’s my onion’ unsharable). It is better to go with Charles Wesley, believing that ‘the arms of love that compass me would all the world embrace’. What would the world be like if we could sing, with truthful hope, ‘Brother Donald, let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you….’ or ‘Brother Vladimir….’?
If only we could pray safely for ‘grace to let them be our servant too’ …. The prayer, Your kingdom come…’ would then be finding some real fulfilment.

Read and sing the whole hymn for yourselves at
https://christianwebresources.co.uk/hymns/hymn/511/. 

 
'We are pilgrims on a journey, 
and companions on the road; 
we are here to help each other 
walk the mile and bear the load. 
 
I will hold the Christ-light for you 
in the night-time of your fear; 
I will hold my hand out to you, 
speak the peace you long to hear. 
 
I will weep when you are weeping; 
when you laugh I'll laugh with you; 
I will share your joy and sorrow
till we've seen this journey through. 
 
When we sing to God in heaven 
we shall find such harmony, 
born of all we've known together 
of Christ's love and agony. 
 
Brother, sister let me serve you. 
Let me be as Christ to you; 
pray that I may have the grace to 
let you be my servant too.'