From the Archives: Singing the Church Year with Paul Gerhardt - Part II

The choir of the Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche (Nikolaikirche), where Paul Gerhardt served as archdeacon from 1669 until his death in 1676. The limestone altar dates from 1609, and the baptismal font and pulpit, both of limestone, date from 1610.

Photo credit: J.-H. Janßen, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The following essay is from Gottesdienst Volume XVI, No. 3, Michaelmas 2008. This is the second installment of a paper that the Rev. Dr. Stuckwisch delivered on October 13, 2007, at the Concordia Academy, hosted by Redeemer Lutheran Church in Bayside, New York. The first installment of the paper can be found here.

Singing the Church Year with Paul Gerhardt: Part II

Rev. Dr. D. Richard Stuckwisch

ADVENT

The Church Year begins with the Advent of our Lord, His threefold coming:in the flesh, conceived and born of the Blessed Virgin Mary; in the preaching and administration of the Gospel in His name and stead; and in the Final Judgment at the last. It is a season of repentance, marked especially by the preaching of St. John the Baptist, who goes before the Lord to prepare His way. Gerhardt does not mention St. John by name in either of his two hymns for Advent, but he serves the great forerunner’s task; not so much by a proclamation of repentance, as by the prayer of repentance that he gives the people to sing.

“O Lord, How Shall I Meet Thee” (TLH 58; LSB 334) is one of Gerhardt's best-known hymns, and certainly the more familiar of the two he wrote for Advent. It knows and anticipates that Christ the Lord is coming, and so it begins with a question and a prayer for the right and worthy reception of Him. It is expressed very personally, so that each individual singer is given to face the One who comes.

The Sundays and seasons of the Church are defined and constituted by the Word that is proclaimed on each occasion, especially the Holy Gospel of the day. Good seasonal hymns, like Gerhardt’s, will in some way or another interact with and respond to those particular readings of Holy Scripture, in order to serve and support the Word of God. “O Lord, How Shall I Meet Thee” is a great example of this very thing. In the course of the hymn, Gerhardt actually draws upon the historic Holy Gospels for all four of the Sundays in Advent: stanza 2 confesses the entry into Jerusalem that is heard on the First Sunday in Advent; stanza 9 (in the versification of TLH 58) confesses the coming of the Lord for judgment that is heard on the Second Sunday; stanzas 3 and 5 recall the imprisonment of St. John by Herod and the special emphasis on rejoicing that mark the Third Sunday (Gaudete); and stanza 7, in particular, confesses the bearing away of sin and guilt by the One who is the Lamb of God, as heard on the Fourth Sunday in Advent.

Interwoven with these stanzas rooted in the Advent Gospels are several stanzas that underscore the blessed “why” and “wherefore” of the Lord’s coming. It is for the sake of His own holy love that He comes, to bring salvation and set the singer free from sin and death. There is no need to entice Him or force His hand, because “He comes, He comes all willing, / Moved by His love alone” (TLH 58, st. 6). Only those who oppose Himhave anything to fear from His coming.

Catherine Winkworth has translated Gerhardt’s other Advent hymn, beginning “Wherefore Dost Thou Longer Tarry” (Lyra Germanica, 2nd Series [1858], 6), but it has evidently not found its way into any English hymnals. This hymn, too, begins with a question and a prayer, but in this case it is an earnest cry for Jesus to come quickly and help:

Wherefore dost Thou longer tarry,
Blessed of the Lord, afar?
Would it were Thy will to enter
To my heart, O Thou my Star,
Thou my Jesus, Fount of pow’r,
Helper in the needful hour!
Sharpest wounds my heart is feeling,
Touch them, Savior, with Thy healing!

Here the burden and the fear are brought about especially by the Law of God and His righteous wrath, always the fiercest and most terrible enemies of sinful man

For I shrink beneath the terrors
Of the law’s tremendous sway;
All my countless crimes and errors
Stand before me night and day.
Oh the heavy, fearful load
Of the righteous wrath of God!
Oh the awful voice of thunder
Cleaving heart and soul asunder!

The world is of no use or benefit; it only makes things worse with “comforts that but grieve, / Joys that sting memories leave, / Helpers that my heart are breaking, / Friends that do but mock its aching.” No, the only help and consolation is with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Bread Of Life without price, to whom the singer prays: “Feed My soul with Thy salvation.” For Gerhardt, this is surely a sacramental request.

Having cried out in faith for the Lord to come, the singer rejoices in the confidence that his Savior has heard, and that He will come and enter in. Thus, heart and soul are admonished to prepare for such a guest, in order to receive Him rightly (the very thing that Gerhardt’s other Advent hymn seeks to do). That is to adore Him with an open heart and to pour out all “griefs and fears before Him.” In this way, all that threatens to hurt and destroy, including the thunder of God’s own Law, works to the singer’s benefit, because it is a call to repentance and faith in the Word of the Lord:

What would seem to hurt or shame thee
Shall but work thy good at last;
Since that Christ hath deign’d to claim thee,
And His truth stands ever fast;
And if thou can but endure,
There is nought so fixed and sure,
As that thou shalt hymn His praises
In the happy heavenly places.

CHRISTMAS

The season of Advent really sets the tone for the entire Church Year. Nevertheless, Gerhardt’s piety and faith are chiefly indebted to the Incarnation and the Passion of our Lord. Thus, he has written seven Christmas hymns, and yet another for the Circumcision of Jesus on the Eighth Day of Christmas. All but one of the seven have been translated into English and published in a Lutheran hymnal somewhere:

“All My Heart This Night Rejoices” (TLH 77; LSB 360)
“O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is” (TLH 81; LSB 372)
“I Stand Beside Thy Manger Here” (Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary 129 [Mankato, MN: Evangelical Lutheran Synod, 1996])
“Come, Your Hearts and Voices Raising” (TLH 90; LSB 375)
“We Sing, Immanuel, Thy Praise” (TLH 108)
“Behold! Behold! What Wonders Here” (Ohio Synod hymnal 25 [Columbus, OH: Lutheran Book Concern, 1908])

What emerges throughout these Christmas hymns is Gerhardt’s wondrous admiration for the mystery and astounding benefit of the Incarnation. That God should become flesh and blood, a man like one of us (save only without sin), is a sure indication that God loves us, as well as the bedrock of our salvation. For “God is man, man to deliver, / And the Son / Now is one / With our blood forever” (TLH 77; LSB 360, st. 2). Especially considering that four of his own five children died as infants, Gerhardt’s devotion to the Christ Child and his confident faith in the significance of the Incarnation are all the more moving:

He whom the sea
And wind obey
Doth come to serve the sinner in great meekness.
Thou, God’s own Son,
With us art one,
Dost join us and our children in our weakness.

Thy light and grace
Our guilt efface,
Thy heav’nly riches all our loss retrieving.
Immanuel,
Thy birth doth quell
The pow’r of hell and Satan’s bold deceiving.

Thou Christian heart,
Whoe’er thou art,
Be of good cheer and let no sorrow move thee!
For God’s own Child,
In mercy mild,
Joins thee to Him; how greatly God must love thee!
(TLH 81; LSB 372, sts. 2-4)

This lovely hymn includes two of Gerhardt’s favorite themes. There is the title of the Lord, “Immanuel,” God with us, coinciding with Gerhardt’s fervent hope in the Incarnation. And there is the manger of the Christ, which shows up repeatedly in these Christmas hymns. It is a quaint image, but not surprising in light of the Gospel of the Nativity of Our Lord from St. Luke. Taking into account the hymn writer’s Lutheran sacramental piety and faith, however, the “manger” includes not only the “once-upon-a-time” in Bethlehem, but all the more so the Altar of the Lord, the paten and the chalice of the Holy Communion, in which the same incarnate Savior, Jesus Christ, is cradled and presented to His people. The shepherds and the Magi found Him once in royal David’s city, but Christians hasten to meet Him in the Sacrament. It is especially there that Jesus calls His children, frees them from sin and keeps them safe from danger, cheers their hearts and leads them safely by His side, until they join the choirs above.

LENT / HOLY WEEK

Gerhardt’s incarnational Christmas piety is perhaps exceeded only by his passion for the Passion of our Lord, though one might not guess it from the small number of his Holy Week hymns that have been translated into English. That paucity of translations is all the more surprising, given the significance of the three that are so well known and so beloved:

“A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth” (TLH 142; LSB 438)
“Upon the Cross Extended” (TLH 171; LSB 453)
“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” (TLH 172; LSB 450)

A Lutheran could hardly imagine a Lent or Holy Week without any of these three Gerhardt hymns. How is it, then, that of his eleven other Passion hymns only four have heretofore been translated into English, and seemingly none of them have been published in any English Lutheran hymnals? Thankfully, work is being done in connection with the Gerhardt Hymn Project to rectify the problem.

One of Gerhardt’s other Passion hymns is based upon the seven words of Jesus from the Cross (“Hör an, mein Herz, die sieben Wort” in Eberhard Cranach-Sichart’s Paul Gerhardt: Wach auf, mein Herz, und singe: Vollständige Ausgabe seiner Lieder und Gedichte [R. Brockhaus Verlag Wuppertal, 2004], 77). It has more than once been translated into English (by Dr. H. Mills, R. Massie, and J. Kelly); presumably it would be of benefit to congregations that incorporate the seven words in their Good Friday devotion. Also of special interest are the hymns that Gerhardt wrote, in addition to “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” on each of the other parts of the “Salve mundi salutare” attributed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Among these, O. Marc Tangnerhas recently translated Gerhardt’s hymn of praise addressed to the hands of Christ (“Sei wohl gegrüßet, guter Hirt,” Cranach-Sichart, 86). His English rendering of the first two stanzas, here following, gives a beautiful sense of the hymn:

Beloved Shepherd, You I hail!
Your holy hands clasp firmly
The precious roses, ne’er to pale,
That reach across God’s heaven.
These roses show,
As all must know,
Your stripes and noble suff’ring:
Your Cross will end,
Salvation send,
Us life eternal off’ring.

You paid our ransom with those coins,
Stained red for our deliv’rance,
That all mankind may with You join,
Its debts paid by Your suff’rance.
Please let me now
Press to my brow
Your precious hands and praise You
That e’er Your blood
Will o’er me flood,
My soul forever rescue.
(Marc Tangner, 2007)

If Gerhardt’s Christmas hymns prostrate themselves before the Incarnation, his Passion hymns stagger at the magnitude of what the Lord God suffered in our human flesh and blood for us poor sinners. He is surely humbled by it, but finds deep comfort in it, also. For it is the suffering and death of Christ Jesus that atones for all our sins, redeems us for Himself, reconciles us to the Father, and sanctifies our own suffering and death. This is the heart and center of everything!

“A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth,” in particular, especially when it is preserved in its full ten stanzas (which is sadly rare), is really much more than simply a hymn for the Passion. It is in the same kind of class as“Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice” and “Salvation unto Us Has Come,” which is to say, a hymn that compasses the entire scope of our salvation. Perhaps there is simply too much gravitas to the text and sobriety to the tune for it to function so comprehensively and catechetically as those other hymns. Yet, it is here, in his majestic meditation on the Cross and Passion, that one finds Gerhardt most at home. In one of the stanzas typically omitted (as also in Lutheran Service Book), the poet sings of that which comforts him in the trials and tribulations of life:

Of death I am no more afraid,
New life from Thee is flowing;
Thy cross affords me cooling shade
When noonday’s sun is glowing.
When by my grief I am opprest,
On Thee my weary soul shall rest
Serenely as on pillows.
Thou art my Anchor when by woe
My bark is driven to and fro
On trouble’s surging billows.
(TLH 142, st. 5)

In “Upon the Cross Extended,” Gerhardt confesses at length, with a very personal, first-person voice, that the Lord Jesus suffered all that “I” deserved. Then, having established that Christ took “my place” under the Law, under sin and death and dire judgment, the author has me declare that I am bound to my Savior by the cords of His love, so that nothing shall sever me from Him. Thus, from His Cross I learn patience and forgiveness for my neighbor when he sins against me, and to go about my life in quietness and peace. Along those same lines is the incredibly powerful final stanza of “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” which has served as the deathbed prayer for many a Christian:

Be Thou my consolation,
My shield, when I must die;
Remind me of Thy passion
When my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold Thee,
Upon Thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfold Thee,
Who dieth thus dies well.
(TLH 172, st. 10; LSB 450, st. 7)

Not only is there comfort to be found in meditation on the Passion, but above all in receiving the very body and blood of the Lamb who was there slain. That is again to make the point that, for Gerhardt, the flesh and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the very fruits of the tree of His Cross, are given and received in the Sacrament of the Altar. Not just in pious devotion, but especially in the Holy Communion, the Christian finds Christ and His comfort. As beautifully confessed in the following lines (here translated from the original stanzas 7 and 8 of Ein Lämmlein geht und trägt die Schuld):

My priceless treasure, Lord, my God,
Is Thy most holy, precious blood,
Which flowed from wounds so cruel.

This treasure ever I’ll employ,
This every aid shall yield me;
In sorrow it shall be my joy,
In conflict it shall shield me;
In joy the music of my feast,
And when all else has lost its zest,
This manna still shall feed me;
In thirst my drink; in want my food;
My company in solitude,
To comfort and to lead me.
(W. G. Polack, Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, 3rd and revised ed. [CPH, 1958], 111)

EASTER

There are three Gerhardt hymns for Easter, but only one of them is well known: “Awake, My Heart, with Gladness” (TLH 192; LSB 467). It is indeed a magnificent hymn, and it goes to show very well how Gerhardt approaches the Church Year as the story of Jesus for us. Everything that Jesus does, all that He suffers and accomplishes, is for our sake and for our benefit. Gerhardt is never content simply to state the facts of the matter, but always goes to the heart of things by dealing with the What-does-this-mean-for-us? question. In this case, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ means “Victory!” But that victory of Christ—over Satan, sin, death, and hell—is really a victory for us. Because the One who died for us, bearing our sins in His own body on the Cross, is risen from the dead, there can be no more accusations against us, no more condemnation, no more sin or guilt in us. The devil and the world have no more power over us, because the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead is our resurrection; wherever He goes, we go; we follow Him through it all, as “He rends Death’s iron chain,” as “He breaks through sin and pain,” as “He shatters hell’s dark thrall” (TLH 192, st. 6). It is Gerhardt’s most blessed gift and glorious strength, that he was able to grasp this connection to Christ and cling to His Cross in the sure and certain hope of His resurrection.

The same sweet insights are evident in another of Gerhardt’s Easter hymns, translated by John Kelly as “Be Joyful, All, Both Far and Near” (Paul Gerhardt’s Spiritual Songs [London: Alexander Strahan, Publisher, 1867], 75). It follows a similar pattern as “Awake, My Heart,” but notably includes a series of stanzas in which the risen Lord Jesus addresses His disciples with the assurance of His accomplished Gospel:

[The power of death] is gone, ’tis broken quite,
And it can hurt him never
Who to this Prince with all his might
With heart and soul cleaves ever,
Who speaks with joy, “I live, and ye
Shall also live for aye with Me,
For I this life have purchas’d.

“The reign and pow’r of death are o’er,
He never need affright you;
I am his Lord, the Prince of pow’r,
And this may well delight you;
And as your risen Head I live:
So ye, if ye on Me believe,
Shall be My members ever.

“Of hell have I the overthrow
Accomplish’d, none now needeth
To fear the pains of endless woe,
Who Me and My word heedeth;
He’s freed from Satan’s grievous yoke,
Whose head I bruis’d, whose might I broke,
And he can never harm him.”

Gerhardt’s Pentecost hymns will be discussed in the third and final installment of this paper.