Brilliant.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWlqpowKkBY

HT: Joseph Bottum at First Things

The following is an article I wrote for our parish’s newsletter, Tidings, published in March 2010.

A favorite Lenten hymn of many is “My Song Is Love Unknown.” It’s one of my wife’s favorites, too, and I remember fondly one year while we lived in Illinois Kassie suggesting we work at memorizing it during Lent. We would sing it at home, and then see how much we could recite while taking our early-morning walk (another thing we should probably revive!). It has a haunting melody, although I must confess the opening notes always makes me think of Tom Petty’s “You Got Lucky,” which is not exactly appropriate Lenten material.

One line from the hymn has increasingly bothered me, however. In the fifth stanza the hymn sings of Christ, “Yet cheerful He To suffering goes That He His foes From thence might free.” My understanding of the Passion narratives is that Jesus was anything but cheerful as He went to the cross for us. “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Mt. 26:38), Jesus told His disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, shortly before He was arrested. When He prayed there, He said, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (Mt. 26:39). Hardly the words of someone going cheerfully! Luke’s Gospel is explicit about the demeanor of our Lord at the beginning of His Passion: “And being in agony [Jesus] prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Lk. 22:44). Thus I have never been able to reconcile the cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” with the idea of a cheerful Jesus going to suffering.

Long had I assumed this was just an error in translation, but the original text is in fact English. It was written by Samuel Crossman, an English clergyman who lived c. 1624-1683. He served for awhile simultaneously as pastor of both a Church of England congregation and a Puritan congregation. This caused him to be expelled from the Church of England in 1662, although he was later restored in 1665.

Perhaps the word cheerful had different nuances in the seventeenth century. I don’t have the resources at my disposal to research that. But a glance at the American Heritage Dictionary may provide some aid and comfort. The first meaning of cheerful, “Being in good spirits, merry” is how I have been thinking of the term in this context, as is the second: “Promoting a feeling of cheer; pleasant.” It’s the third definition that intrigues: “Reflecting willingness or good humor.” The cross was no Monty Python event (“Always look on the bright side of life, do doot, do doot, do doot do doot do doot!”). But Jesus was most definitely willing, or rather, submissive to the will of the Father: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Lk. 22:42). “For this reason the Father loves me,” Jesus said, “because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (Jn. 10:17-18). So, when Peter takes up arms to defend Jesus, the Lord rebuked him, citing his complete acceptance of the Father’s will: “Put your sword into its sheath; shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (Jn. 18:11).

Rest assured (Greg H., I’m talking to you), we will certainly continue to sing this hymn. Lutheran Service Book appoints it for the hymn of the day on Judica (Lent V), and I like to sing it on Palm Sunday as well. But when you sing, “Cheerful He to suffering goes,” remember that the whipping, nails, spitting and thorns were not cheerful business. Jesus was not in good spirits or merry. But He was most definitely willing, because it was the only way we could be redeemed, forgiven, saved from death and everlasting hell. Another Lenten hymn expresses that so beautifully: “Yes, Father, yes, most willingly I’ll bear what You command Me. My will conforms to Your decree, I’ll do what You have asked Me” (LSB 438, “A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth”). And that should make us Christians cheerful indeed!

Your unworthy undershepherd,

+Pastor Esget

I was looking for this Luther quote the other day and couldn’t find it. Entirely unrelated, I was just reading in The Lutheran Study Bible on Job 36 and Serendipity!

When sadness comes to you and threatens to gain the upper hand, then say: Come, I must play our Lord Christ a song on the organ (be it the Te Deum laudamus or the Benedictus); for Scripture teaches me that He loves to hear joyful song and stringed instruments. and strike the keys with a will, and sing out until the thoughts disappear, as David and Elisha did. If the devil returns and suggests cares or sad thoughts, then defend yourself with a will and say: Get out, devil, I must now sing and play to my Lord Christ.

Adeste Fideles
Laeti triumphantes
Venite, venite in Bethlehem
Natum videte
Regem angelorum
Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus, Dominum

Cantet nunc io
Chorus angelorum
Cantet nunc aula caelestium
Gloria, gloria
In excelsis Deo
Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus, Dominum

Ergo qui natus
Die hodierna
Jesu, tibi sit gloria
Patris aeterni
Verbum caro factus
Venite adoremus, Venite adoremus,
Venite adoremus, Dominum

“He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good, for goodness’ sake!” I’m not sure how Santa determines goodness, but when God reviews our year, our life, and the collective life of all humanity, He says, “None has been good, no, not one” (cf. Rom. 3.10). Technology is improving; our collective knowledge in science and medicine continues to grow; but mankind is not improving. We are deteriorating.

We slaughter children in the womb and starve to death brain-damaged patients. Any true health care reform would have to begin with those great evils. Mankind has deteriorated to the point that we cannot determine what is marriage, what is the purpose of human sexuality, and our most prominent scholars proclaim that there is no God. The renowned scientist Richard Dawkins said it’s possible that space aliens planted life on earth, but not possible that a god created us. In the last century, the atheist tyrants Stalin and Mao slaughtered their own populations by the millions. Our race is not improving, we are declining, and the decline cannot be reversed by politicians and legislation.

As for you and me, do we have anything of which to boast? No. We are sinful from birth, sinful from the time our mothers conceived us. And we have added to that countless, horrible sins, perverse things done in the dark; contempt for others; pride; gossip; and on and on. We are what the hymn calls us: a fallen race, fallen from the original goodness and righteousness in which God created us. The whole of human existence is what that ancient hymn calls sin’s deep night.

And so the Gospel reading for Christmas Eve says literally that the shepherds were “guarding their sheep against the night.” Bad things happen in the night. But these are tough men. Soldiers after a fashion, prepared to fight against man or beast who would steal or harm their flock.

But the shepherds were not prepared, could not have been prepared for what they were about to see: a giant warrior, a spirit who took shape out of thin air, standing before them, with a brilliant powerful light not made by anything in nature surrounding him. “And they feared a great fear,” Luke says.

But as unexpected as the angel’s appearance was, even more were his words: “Do not be afraid! I bring the gospel – good news! – to you! There has been born to you a Savior for your fallen race. He is for every people” – for there really is no Jewish race or Greek or Italian or German or Spanish or Chinese. There is one race, the race of man, the children of Adam. They fell, into sin and death. This One, this Child Jesus, is their Savior.

And in the circumstances of His birth, we see that the Father has sent His Son – the One who shared His might – into the depths of human misery. Into rude, dark, unsanitary conditions – where no woman would wish to have her baby – comes the Savior, so that we might be assured that this Jesus is for rude, unkempt, un-beautiful people, for the poor, the lonely, the suffering, the addicted, the confused, the lost. He came for you, to assume your nature, your sin, your suffering. Therefore rejoice and be glad this blessed night!

“Remember, Lord!” I have potent memories of Christmasses as a child. The biting Minnesota cold, the trip to church late at night, singing carols in English, German, and Swedish, the wax from the candle burning my thumb.

Perhaps you have favorite memories of Christmasses past. The thing about memories is that they exist only in our minds. We cannot recreate the experiences we had, and so memories are happy but also painful, for it is the experience of loss – people, places, and times that we can never recover.

But tonight we cry out to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, “Remember!” As we gather on another Christmas Eve to hear the account of Jesus’ birth, we are keeping alive the memory of what happened in a backwater province of the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago. But in our hymns and prayers, we are doing something more: we are calling on Jesus to remember what He did, the sacrifice He made, how He condescended to us.

What does that – what should that – mean to you? A few years ago, one of our members loaned me a CD by a folk songwriter and brilliant guitarist named Richard Shindell. One of his songs is called “You Stay Here,” about a series of progressively horrific reassurances a husband gives to his wife in an apocalyptic time: “You stay here, I’ll go look for wood; You stay here, I’ll go look for bread; You stay here, I’ll go look for coats” – coats that he’ll find in the road, presumably from corpses: we’ll wash them clean with snow, the kids will never have to know. “You stay here, I’ll go look for guns”; and then the finale: “You stay here, I’ll go look for God; Not so hard, cause I know where he’s not. I’ll bring him back with me, make him listen, make him see.”

It’s easy to think nice thoughts of God as we sip egg nog or wine, visit with our families, fiddle with our new toys and wait for the game to come on. But this song asks the question everyone asks in times of crisis, times of suffering, times of death, when we are hopeless or on the brink of madness, wishing it would all end: Where is God? Doesn’t He care?

Christmas is the answer to that question. Where is God? He came to put our human vesture on. He came into our madness and despair, lived the life of a homeless man, suffered every indignity, starved, thirsted, was mocked. People tried to stone Him, throw Him off a cliff, and finally they hammered His bloodied body into a tree and ran Him through with a spear. Where is God? He’s been there. He’s been to your darkest place and conquered it for you.

If you want to look for God, the angel told the shepherds, you’ll find Him in the manger. If you want to look for God, the Gospel writers say, we saw Him on the cross. If you want to look for God, He is still where He promised to be: in the water of your Baptism, in the Bread and Wine in the Eucharist, in the Word of Absolution.

Remember, Lord, how You once came to us as Mary’s Son, we sing; and our Lord assures you today that He has not forgotten you, but will be with you in every dark time and place. He listens. He sees. He will bring you through the grave to the resurrection. Therefore rejoice and be glad this blessed night!

The flocks outside of Bethlehem were kept year round, for an unceasing supply of sacrifices for the Jerusalem temple. The shepherds to whom the angel of the Lord appeared were guarding animals destined for slaughter. To these men, guarding the sacrifices, first comes the news that the long-awaited Lamb had been born, the Sacrifice who would put an end to the entire sacrificial system. All those bloody sacrifices served to show the people that sin must be paid for, but also that God wished to remove their sins and transfer them to another. The sacrifices – so often viewed as barbaric – were signs of God’s love.

God is love – but not in an abstract, sentimental kind of way. It was the love of the Father that sent His Son into our flesh to reclaim us, His banished children. That reclaiming could only happen through a remedy for sin, a payment, an atoning sacrifice.

At long last, the angel announces to the shepherds guarding the sacrifices that the One who would take on all the guilt of our fallen race had come – God Himself, come into our flesh. In Jesus, all our guilt is washed away.

As the human race runs out its course, we cannot look to physicians, scientists, or politicians to save us. Approaching death, we can see nothing but black darkness, and yet that light, “To you is born this day the Savior,” pierces through the gloom of sin’s dark night. The Savior will help you when all have forsaken you. When everything has turned against you, think of nothing but this Child, your Savior. (This paragraph adapted from Luther.)

So we are jubilant today, for God has reclaimed you, His banished children. Therefore rejoice and be glad this blessed night! +INJ+

O Savior of our fallen race, O Brightness of the Father’s face, O Son who shared the Father’s might Before the world knew day or night,

O Jesus, very Light of Light, Our constant star in sin’s deep night: Now hear the prayers Your people pray Throughout the world this holy day.

Remember, Lord of life and grace, How once, to save our fallen race, You put our human vesture on And came to us as Mary’s son.

Today, as year by year its light Bathes all the world in radiance bright, One precious truth outshines the sun: Salvation comes from You alone.

For from the Father’s throne You came, His banished children to reclaim; And earth and sea and sky revere The love of Him who sent You here.

And we are jubilant today, For You have washed our guilt away. O hear the glad new song we sing On this, the birthday of our King!

O Christ, Redeemer virgin-born, Let songs of praise Your name adorn, Whom with the Father we adore And Holy Spirit evermore. Alleluia!

Rev. Charles McClean recently pointed out to me that the version of Soul, Adorn Yourself with Gladness which appears in Lutheran Service Book (#636) has some disconcerting anomalies. LSB’s stanzas 5 and 6 are simply two different translations of Johann Franck’s original stanza 7 – the first is from the paraphrase in Lutheran Book of Worship (#224, stanza 4), and the second is Catherine Winkworth’s translation. LSB has simply followed Lutheran Worship (#239, stanzas 4 and 5) in this regard. What this means is that something has been omitted, and in this case, some great treasures are being lost.*

Try this exercise: open up LW #239. See all that nice room at the bottom of the page, beneath stanzas 5-6? Why is that left blank? I have a hard time concluding it is for aesthetic purposes alone. What is missing was determined to be unnecessary, or worse. Now open LSB #636. There’s some room at the bottom of the page after stanzas 6 and 8, but probably not enough for the two missing stanzas. However, had they dropped stanza 5, they could have restored some of what’s missing. Now, open up The Lutheran Hymnal #305, and let’s connect the dots:

TLH stanzas 1-3 track with LSB stanzas 1-3. TLH stz. 6 is LSB stz. 4, although altered in some significant ways (see below). TLH stanza 7, as mentioned above, is both stanzas 5 and 6 in LSB. TLH stanzas 8-9 correspond to LSB stanzas 7-8.

Result: stanzas 4 and 5 are missing. Here they are in Winkworth’s translation, appearing in altered form in TLH:

The net result is a gradual weakening of our sacramental piety as reflected in our hymn books. LSB is an improvement, but remains impoverished by comparison with TLH, at least in this hymn. But now, compare TLH stanza 6 with LSB stanza 4 (which still retains the version found in LBW):

My exceedingly brief review of the German indicates that, on the main, the Winkworth translation is more accurate than LBW. There’s certainly nothing I cannot sing in the LBW/LW/LSB version. However, the TLH version more strongly emphasizes that the Sacrament is beyond human reason. The conclusion of the stanza drives this home, that only God can make it known. The German has the Holy Spirit signifying this heavenly mystery: O der grossen Heimlichkeiten, Die nur Gottes Geist kann deuten!

I remain happy with Lutheran Service Book. It is a great gift to the church. But in certain areas, such as this great Lord’s Supper hymn, there is still room for improvement.

*Lutheran Worship: Hymnal Companion explains:

The first four stanzas [in LW 239] were prepared by the Inter-Lutheran Commission on Worship for inclusion in Lutheran Book of Worship (1978). Although stanza 4 in that hymnal, intended as the final stanza, included some thoughts from Franck’s subsequent German stanzas, the Commission on Worship decided to add stanzas 7 and 9 from The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). Hence it requested Jaroslav Vadja to revise and update them. This accounts for the repetition of the German stanza 4 as parallel to the English stanzas 4 and 5.

As a favor to a parishioner, we are singing Aquinas’ great Eucharist hymn, Adoro Te Devote, tomorrow at Divine Service. It actually fits nicely with the Gospel appointed for the day (Trinity 22), the Parable of the Unforgiving Slave (Matthew 18:21-35), especially in this line: “Blood whereof a single drop has power to win All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.”

Our wonderful choir director has taken to calling this hymn “The Pelican Song” from the reference in the sixth stanza. I fear it’s catching on!

I’ve published it before, but I will never tire of it. Here it is in full:

Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God’s Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth himself speaks truly or there’s nothing true.

On the cross thy godhead made no sign to men,
Here thy very manhood steals from human ken:
Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;
Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.

O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,
Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,
There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.

Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what thy bosom ran—
Blood whereof a single drop has power to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with thy glory’s sight. Amen.

I play the piano at our Wednesday evening services. When we have Holy Communion, the piano bench blocks the aisle for communicants returning from the altar. For years, I could never remember to push in the bench after the Hymn of the Day.

Kassie tried gentle reminders. I forgot.

She tried admonitions. I ignored them.

She tried a sticky note. I didn’t see it.

She tried several sticky notes. I still didn’t see them.

Then, she got serious.

I pushed in the bench.

This Sunday is the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Trinity 13), and I was thinking about having Immanuel sing “Jesus, Grant That Balm and Healing” (LSB 421). I was looking at it out of LSB and couldn’t find the lines that made it in the past a must-sing for this Sunday. Here’s the line from Lutheran Worship (#421): “Where the wound is and the hurting, Pour in oil and cleansing wine.” I’ve always loved how that interprets the Good Samaritan parable Christologically. So I was initially disappointed to learn that Lutheran Service Book alters the text: “Every wound that pains or grieves me By Your wounds, Lord, is made whole.” However, that is a better translation of Johann Heermann’s original: “Gib für alles, was mich kränket, Mir aus deinen Wunden Saft.” So, while I’ll miss the old text because it was a wonderful teaching tool, I cannot complain. It seems F. Samuel Janzow often took great liberties in his translations.