Friday, February 10, 2023

Saturday prior to Epiphany 6

 

Isaiah 61:1-3; 1 Peter 1:20; Matthew 11:4-5; Revelation 19:1-16 - The Hymn for next week is they hymn 394 “Songs of thankfulness and praise.” As we are now mostly through the season of Epiphany we come to a clearer picture of who Jesus really is. Through His words and by His miracles we see Him as He is, our coming Savior, the one who has come to save us.

Christopher Wordsworth (b. Lambeth, London, England, 1807; d. Harewood, Yorkshire, England, 1885), nephew of the great Romantic poet William Wordsworth, wrote this hymn in five stanzas. It was published in his Holy Year (1862) John 3:13-17 with the heading "Sixth Sunday after Epiphany." Wordsworth described the text as follows

 [It is a] recapitulation of the successive manifestations of Christ, which have already been presented in the services of the former weeks throughout the season of Epiphany; and anticipation of that future great and glorious Epiphany, at which Christ will be manifest to all, when he will appear again to judge the world.

The didactic text teaches the meaning of Epiphany–the manifestation of Christ in his birth (st. 1), baptism, miracle at Cana (st. 2), healing of the sick, power over evil, and coming as judge (st. 3). Originally the refrain line was "Anthems be to thee addressed, God in man made manifest." The revised refrain borrows Peter's confession, "You are the Christ!" (Mark 8:29), and makes that our corporate confession as we acknowledge the “Word become flesh” who lived among us.

 The tune SALZBURG, named after the Austrian city made famous by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was first published anonymously in the nineteenth edition of Praxis Pietatis Melica (1678); in that hymnbook's twenty-fourth edition (1690) the tune was attributed to Jakob Hintze (b. Bernau, Germany, 1622; d. Berlin, Germany, 1702).

 The harmonization by Johann S. Bach is simplified from his setting in his Choralgesänge (Rejoice in the Lord [231] and The Hymna1 1982 [135] both contain Bach's full harmonization). The tune is a rounded bar form (AABA) easily sung in harmony. But sing the refrain line in unison with full organ registration.[2]

 Collect for Saturday of the week of Epiphany 5: O God, who art eternally both merciful and just, be Thou our God; and that not in our way but in Thine. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen [3]-11 February, 2023



[1] Luther’s Seal © Ed Riojas, Higher Things
[2] https://hymnary.org/hymn/LUYH2013/104
[3] Collect for Saturday of the week of Epiphany 5, For All the Saints, A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Vol. III © 1995 The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, Delhi, NY


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