Friday, August 25, 2023

Saturday prior to Proper 16

 

Sunday’s hymn of the day is Built on the Rock (LSB #645). It is based on the Gospel reading, the confession of St Peter which is the Rock on which Christ’s Church is founded. The last stanza confesses the same truth which is confessed in the Augsburg Confession: The Church is the congregation of saints in which the Gospel is purely taught and the Sacraments are correctly administered.

This hymn has long been a favorite among Scandinavians and Lutherans and included seven stanzas in the 1941 Lutheran Hymnal (Concordia), reduced to five in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship. The Scandinavian hymn's original seven stanzas were first published in 1837 in Sang-Värk til den Danske Kirke. The adaptation in Worship & Song is of the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal translation by Carl Doving done in 1909.

Author Nikolai Grundtvig was ordained in 1811. He wrote many works, including some on Norse mythology and more than 1,000 hymns. He became a bishop in 1861. Composer Ludwig Lindeman was the son of a concert pianist, an organist in Oslo, and one of Norway's leading musicians of the nineteenth century. He collected and published almost 2,000 Norwegian folk tunes.[1]

 Almighty God, whom to know is everlasting life, grant us to know Your Son, Jesus Christ to be the way the truth and the life that we may boldly confess Him to be the Christ and steadfastly walk in the way that leads to life eternal; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen[2]


[1] https://hymnary.org/text/built_on_the_rock_the_church_doth_stand
[2] Lutheran Service Book © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis
The illustration above carries the title of our Lord: the Anointed One, or, in Greek, ὁΧριστός, the Christ. Copyright © Ed Riojas, Higher Things


No comments: