All For Hymn - a blog featuring everybody's favorite topic - HYMNS! Discussions about hymns, their use in the Divine Service, translation issues, etc. will be the focus. Lutheran Service Book will be a primary source. Other traditions may pop up from time to time.
There are two options for celebrating today, one is for the coming New Year and the other is the Eve of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus.
Today we will focus on the New Year, and tomorrow the Circumcision and Name of Jesus.
As the new year approaches, the church gathers together, as the collect for the day says,
...to commit to your mercies and forgiveness the year now ending
and commend to Your blessing and love the times yet to come.
One option might be to have Corporate Confession and Absolution at the beginning of the evening service. It is also appropriate to receive the blessings of the Eucharist at this time as well.
New Year's Eve has themes that are similar to Advent and the close of the church year. The Gospel lesson is from Luke 12:35-40 (ESV), where Jesus says,
"Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,
and be like men who are waiting for their master
to come home from the wedding feast,
so that they may open the door to him at once
when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants
whom the master finds awake when he comes.
Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service
and have them recline at table,
and he will come and serve them.
If he comes in the second watch, or in the third,
and finds them awake, blessed are those servants!
But know this, that if the master of the house had known
at what hour the thief was coming,
he would not have left his house to be broken into.
You also must be ready,
for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."
Another tradition that looks back on the past and forward to the future is the singing of "O God, Our Help in Ages Past." This hymn is a paraphrase of Psalm 90, which happens to be the appointed Psalm for New Year's Eve. Pardon the recording quality here, as All for Hymn makes room for Virgil Fox.
Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
The tune was irresistable to JS Bach, although the text came after his death. Here's the fugue from BWV 552 based on the tune St. Anne. This is not Virgil Fox, but it is a live recording! The melody is most prevalent in the opening motif, followed by the pedal parts.
Under the shadow of Thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone
And our defense is sure.
This is a continuation of my series that tries to help explain the elements of the Divine Service. At the conclusion of explanations, I'll also discuss whether something is sacrificial (we serve God) or sacramental (God serves us), what Scripture inspired this element, any (contemporary) alternatives, and any hymns based on that element.
It's shaping up to be an excellent series, folks. Among other things, Micah gives us the scriptural references regarding the various liturgical acts.
And speaking of opening hymns, here is a grand setting of Hymn #1 from The Lutheran Hymnal, "Open Now Thy Gates of Beauty." This gathering would not have used TLH, so the text may vary slightly. They disabled the embed code, so you have to click over to hear it.
Not to be left out, though, here is an organ arrangement of the same tune.
WLA is an Area Lutheran High School of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS).
A highlight for me was hearing the kids rock it out to Michael W. Smith's Lux Venit/Gloria.
If you have not heard some of Dale Witte's compositions, you will find some of them on this recording, including "This Little Light of Mine" and selections from his setting of the Office of Compline - Prayer at the Close of the Day.
Coming January 10 (the Baptism of our Lord), the honors choir from the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) gives us "To Jordan's River Came the Lord."
Know of any other Lutheran high schools with postings of their choir on line, please drop a note in the comment section and it will be considered for a future post.
December 28 marks the commemoration of the Holy Innocents. Who are the "Holy Innocents?" These are the children who were killed by Herod after the visit of the Magi.
Curiously enough, the church celebrates the Magi on January 6, so it would seem our celebration of the Holy Innocents is a bit early.
The Holy Innocents, like the Feast of Stephen, falls on the day the saint(s) or martyr(s) entered into eternal glory. Church tradition holds that the date of the slaughter of the Innocents is December 28.
The Feast of Epiphany was placed into the church calendar to help us celebrate the life of Christ during the church year, so it comes at the end of the 12 Days of Christmas.
An excellent carol that celebrates the Holy Innocents is the Coventry Carol.
It was St. John and Mary, Mother of our Lord, at the foot of the cross, to whom Jesus spoke, "Woman, behold your Son ... Behold your Mother."
In his Gospel John refers to himself as the "beloved disciple" and never speaks of himself by name.
Where Luke's Christmas Story focuses on the virgin birth, John's Christmas Story digs into the Incarnation. He summarizes the Incarnation in just one sentence:
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
I really like Egil Hovland's setting of this text.
Any mention of John should include the Gospel in a nutshell (John 3:16).
For God so loved the world
that He gave his Only
begotten Son that who so believeth in Him
should not Perish
but have Everlasting
Life
Here it is, sung by and English choir.
Here is a different setting to the same text.
And here it is sung in Mandarin!
The text is set to few other Asian languages as well.
It seems odd that the commemoration of the first martyr falls the day after the birth of the Savior!
Dec. 25: The Savior Comes; Dec. 26: Stephen is martyred!
Lets take the easy road and talk about Stephen. Saints and martyrs are always commemorated on the day they leave this veil of tears and not on the day they enter it. So if Stephen was martyred on Dec. 26, we then commemorate him on that day.
First, some mythbusting. Christians do NOT celebrate Christmas because they christianized a pagan festival. They had no interest in pagan ritual and were quite content to not participate.
So, why Dec. 25? The ancient tradition dated the crucifixion on March 25, which in turn, was used to commemorate the Feast of the Annunciation (when Gabriel told Mary she was with child). Tack on 9 months to Jesus' conception and you get to celebrate His birth on Dec. 25.
Now for some trivia: What Christmas carol doesn't mention the birth of Christ but does mention the Feast of Stephen?
That's right, Good King Wenceslas!
For more about the 12 days of Christmas and the famous king of Bohemia, check out this post from Past Elder.
The secular Christmas begins the day after Thanksgiving and runs through Dec. 25. The Western Church's Christmas begins at sundown on Dec. 24 and runs through sundown on Jan. 5, just before the Magi arrive for the Epiphany season.
All for Hymn will have new posts each morning at 8:00 am EST to celebrate each of the 12 Days of Christmas.
For now, everyone light some candles and dim the lights one last time!
The first tune you hear is the correct tune, but the choir is singing "He Whom Shepherds Once Were Raising."
The text in LSB and TLH is under copyright.
The faint sound of the boy sopranos in the distance is because each of the four boys is placed at the four corners of the sanctuary. They each alternate a line from the song. The choir comes in with the second tune. Finally, the congregation joins in this refrain while the boys rotate to the next corner of the sanctuary:
God's own Son is born a child, is born a child, God in sinners is reconciled, is reconciled.
