We pray, “Thy will be done”, not “Thy will be understood and agreed with.”

And Dan, I guess I need to work on incorporating “Baba O’Reilly” into a hymn introduction…it sounds kind of classical anyway, just on a different instrument…hmmm…

It’s a great hymn all around, one that leaves its melody with another of other hymns.

Secondly, this would make a great communion song even if it is not Epiphany. There is a ton of sacramental imagery in this hymn.

At my home church back in the day, we alternated communion hymns between TLH 305 and TLH 315. This would be a nice hymn to add to the communion hymnody of a congregation.

Too many people try to cram all the words into the chant line, and end up rushing, or running out of breath. My Dh says that the thing to remember is that you’re “speaking” to the sound of the music (well, not actually speaking, of course)- opposite of “singing”, really, where the words are fit to the music. Therefore, the cadence, speed and breathing in chant are much more like speech, and not as much like singing. In chant, the text reigns. Cantor Beethe has demonstrated that very well!

Gotta get my hands on the Brotherhood Prayer Book! I even a have a place for it on the piano – right next to my Anglican Cathedral Psalter.

One of the organists at our current church plays Lift Up Your Heads about 30% faster than Cantor Beethe is playing it here (which seems perfect to me.) It’s an aerobic workout at our church. *wince*

Without Christ, we are Stanza 3.
Because of Christ, we are Stanza 4!

Theology aside, I really like the intro. I feel like I am in a canoe floating down a river, and I can hear John the Baptizer in the distance.

As for Comfort, Comfort, I was quite conscious of the tempo because I tend to rush that hymn, as well as many hymns that have a dance-like quality. So I may have held back a bit. But I still think that is a appropriate tempo for the hymn, albeit on the slower end of the range.

I give a nod to LW for providing the best tune for Hark a Thrilling Voice, though! I think the LSB committee went with the more ecumenical tune.

I want to spend a little time talking about tempo for Comfort, Comfort. If you’re congregation is thumping along at a much slower pace than this recording, ask the organist to pick up the pace a little! After all, Jerusalem’s warfare now is over. This is triumph, not sadness.

This is one of those situations where, we could try to update the language and blow the whole poetry of it, or we could find out what each of the words meant back then and appreciate the beauty of the text for what it is.

Indeed, “with what rapture” doesn’t mean some people will be disappearing from their cars!

Between all of that is the phrase, “Those dear tokens of His passion.” It seems the word “token” is lost on me. I think of bus tokens, tokens of appreciation, and how a dollar used to get you four tokens at the arcade. These are hardly ways to describe the wounds of our Lord. After all, He was pierced for our transgressions; bruised for our iniquity.

The first entries over at dictionary.com are nothing at all like the token in my head. The second definition seems most appropriate.

2. a characteristic indication or mark of something; evidence or proof: Malnutrition is a token of poverty.

Evidence or proof. Those tokens, those wounds, are evidence that Christ was crucified and will be evidence of His return. Among all the other signs (descending with clouds, every eye beholding Him, etc.) Jesus will still have wounds. We will see them with our own eyes, believers and unbelievers alike. Some will be wail deeply; some will gaze with rapture.

Rapture is a particularly unusual word. Charles Wesley did not teach of the “rapture” and the thousand year reign. This rapture is about amazing awe and reverence at the sight of the Messiah’s return. For the Christian, the second coming is not to be feared; we wait with anticipation for this moment. Our tears will be joyful tears and not sorrowful ones.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia! Thou shalt reign and Thou alone!

Secondly, you’d think the “king of chorales” would be fairly standardized in tune and translation by now, but the opposite is true. I copy-and-pasted the words onto my blog from the internet, then had to change them out to reflect LSB. The same issue happens with the rhythm to this hymn.

Thirdly, thanks for tackling this great work of the church! This one took some extra preparation and I am sure it will be AWESOME in the end.

The pop-Christian song might only include the middle line:

Dear Lord, we all adore You,
We sing for joy before You.

In context of the storms of life and the grace of Jesus, though, we see there is much more to this hymn.

In God, my faithful God,
I trust when dark the road;
Great woes may overtake me,
Yet he will not forsake me.
My troubles He can alter;
His hand lets nothing falter.

“So be it,” then, I say
With all my heart each day.
Dear Lord, we all adore You,
We sing for joy before You.
Guide us while here we wander
Until we praise You yonder.

I enjoyed this Timeout…thank you. Of course a lot of my students are bringing up the 2012 movie…and I have used the passage you just read to refute it. Keep it up!

“Ein Wörtlein kann ihn fehlen.”
“Das Wort, sie sollen lassen stahn…”

Note, however, that the German word “das” can translate either as the definite article (“The Word”) or the demonstrative pronoun (“That Word”). I tend to think that Luther meant the latter in this case, referring at the beginning of verse 4 to the word at the end of verse 3. In that case, the Wörtlein in verse 3 that fells Satan is the the Word/Christ in the John 1 sense.

First of all, Dan spoke about this week’s 32′ pipes in last week’s comments. Chilling. Absolutely chilling.

Kantor Beethe, is that a zimbelstern in the latter half of verse two?

FYI: I am on my fourth or fifth listening tonight. I lost count!

On another note, the comment in this post about the persecuted Church was touched on in Episode 30, Built on the Rock.

Around the world, every day Christians are persecuted for their faith. In Vietnam, you can be a Christian, but you can be arrested for sharing your faith. In China, the house church movement came about because of government interference with the Church.

Here in the US, Satan takes more subtle approaches. Unscriptural teaching and practice creeps in the back door a little at a time until it becomes normal. Pop culture embraces eastern philosophy over God’s Word and wraps it in slick, almost benign packaging as though it is compatible with Christianity. Atheists mock the Church with humor and flaunt the sins of Christians to lure the weak away. On the home front, Christians publish books that reduce the Gospel to a bunch of how-to’s which strip the Gospel of its real “purpose.”

Yet – thanks be to God! – His Word remains sure, stable and unmoving! When we fall sway to trendy, post-modern movements, God calls us back to His Word, chiding us for our error, and offering full forgiveness to the repentant heart.

Bernard of Clairvoix writes,

When once You visit darkened hearts,
Then truth begins to shine,
Then earthly vanity departs,
Then kindles love divine.

No problem on the bass…may do it again for next week.

This looks like a big Law hymn, since it is telling you what to do. With such law hymns we not only confess our Third Use of the Law (and attempt to do these) but also our Second Use. Do I trust in God, or do I try to get my way outside of what’s prescribed in his Word? Am I patient? Do I await his time of leisure? No, I don’t. We don’t. Thus we confess our sin and receive forgiveness. May God grant us this trust in Him that we need.

The first verse seems to imply something along the lines of, “If you just trust in God 100%, if you just surrender to His will, if you just [insert your favorite catchphrase here], Then God will give you strength and see you though.”

The last verse exhorts us to “Sing, pray and keep His ways unswerving, perform thy duties faithfully, and trust His Word…”

It is a heavy hymn with heavy lyrics. It is in the 4th verse where the Gospel message comes through all these exhortations.

God knows full well when times of gladness
Shall be the needful thing for thee.
When he has tried thy soul with sadness
And from all guile has found thee free,
He comes to thee all unaware
And makes thee own His loving care.

To spin this into a confessional manner, it is God who brings us our faith and places it in our hearts. Our trust rests in His gifts to us and not in our own abilities. He comes to us when we are “unaware,” when we think there is no one who can help, when we are in utter despair, when we feel like we have no trust left.

Yet in our utter despair, God brings us His grace and peace, His love and absolution, His body and blood. They come from outside of us, through His Word (read, spoken, or preached), through Absolution and through the Eucharist.