This week, the final two stanzas of O Living Bread from Heaven (LSB 642)
serve as the hymn of the day. Having received from the Lord Jesus Christ living
bread, we seek to serve Him with holy fear, living as wise, not foolish ones,
during our days on earth, and looking forward to the day when we leave this
world below, and enter Heaven, where joys unmingled flow.
That food can death destroy;
And you have freely granted
The cup of endless joy.
Ah, Lord, I do not merit
The favor you have shown,
And all my soul and spirit
Bow down before your throne.
4 Lord, grant me that, thus strengthened
With heav'nly food, while here
My course on earth is lengthened,
To serve you, Lord most dear.
And when you call my spirit
To leave this world below,
I enter, through your merit,
Where joys unmingled flow.
As a hymn-writer Johann Rist takes high rank. He wrote
some 680 hymns, intended to cover the whole ground of Theology, and to be used
by all ranks and classes, and on all the occasions of life. Naturally enough
they are not of equal merit, and many are poor and bombastic.
Rist meant them rather for private use than for public
worship, and during his lifetime they were never used in the church at Wedel.
But they were eagerly caught up, set to melodies by the best musicians of the
day, and speedily passed into congregational use all over Germany, while even
the Roman Catholics read them with delight. Over 200 may be said to have been
in common use in Germany, and a large number still hold their place.
Unfortunately many are very long.
But speaking of Rist's better productions, we may say that their noble and classical style, their objective Christian faith, their scriptualness, their power to console, to encourage, and to strengthen in trust upon God's Fatherly love, and their fervent love to the Savior (especially seen in the best of his hymns for Advent, and for the Holy Communion), sufficiently justify the esteem in which they were, and are, held to this day.[2]
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