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On Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs: "The Lord Is My Shepherd" (Psalm 23)

4/27/2020

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​There would I find a settled rest, while others go and come,
No more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.
— Isaac Watts
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Psalm 23 is perhaps the most beloved and well known of all psalms. Martin Luther summarizes the content of this Psalm:

The 23rd psalm is a psalm of thanks in which a Christian heart praises and thanks God for teaching him and keeping him on the right way, comforting and protecting him in every danger through his Holy Word. The psalmist compares himself to a sheep that a faithful shepherd leads into fresh grass and cool water. In addition, he shows that table, the cup, and oil also as images from the Old Testament worship and calls it God’s Word, as it is also called rod and staff, grass, water, and the way of righteousness. (Reading the Psalms with Luther, p. 59)
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B Minor Basics: The Resurrection of the Son of God

4/12/2020

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The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men
And be crucified and on the third day rise.
                                                                                                -- St. Luke 24:7
As the Church transitions from the forty penitential days of Lent to the Fifty Great Days of Easter, the word of the resurrection once again rings true: "Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!" Perhaps in no other sacred choral work do they ring more clearly or gloriously than in the Et resurrexit ​movement of Bach's Mass in B Minor. 

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B Minor Basics: The Incarnation and Crucifixion of the Son of God

4/11/2020

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God is man, man to deliver,
And the Son / Now is one / With our blood forever.
— Paul Gerhardt (1607-1676)
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On this Holy Saturday, the Faithful remember the connection between the incarnation (Christmas) and the cross (Good Friday). Christ cannot redeem what He has not assumed, as we see in the following exploration of two complimentary movements in The Mass in B Minor by J. S. Bach (1685-1750): Et incarnatus (“And was incarnate”) and Crucifixus (“And was crucified”).
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O Sacred Feast

4/9/2020

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With the inclusion of the hymns “Now, My Tongue, the Mystery Telling” (Lutheran Service Book 630) and “Thee We Adore, O Hidden Savior” (LSB 640) in the 2006 hymnal of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, it would appear that St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225-1274) is gaining a foothold in his contribution to Lutheran sacramental piety. Still missing from our hymnic repertoire, however, is perhaps his finest contribution, “O Sacred Feast”:

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A Living Hope: Easter Music Inspired by                                            Bonhoeffer’s Last Sunday

4/8/2020

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Today you are not to be given fear of life but courage;
and so today we shall speak more than ever of hope,
the hope that we have and which no one can take from you.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Confirmation Sermon, March 13, 1932
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On Sunday, April 8, 1945, in an abandoned schoolhouse in the village of Schönberg, the Lutheran pastor and prisoner, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), celebrated the first Sunday after Easter (hereafter “Easter I”) with a short service of preaching, prayer, and praise. Bonhoeffer had been imprisoned since April 5, 1943, charged with collaboration in a failed plot to assassinate Hitler. Hitler, whose army was reduced to young boys and old men, was handing out death sentences aplenty. On this solemn occasion, Bonhoeffer read from a devotional book known in German as the Losungen (“watchword”), which appointed Isaiah 53:3 as the Old Testament watchword for the day and I Peter 1:3 as the New Testament counterpart (Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy, pp. 527-529). The traditional Communion propers for this Sunday, especially the Introit and the Gospel Lesson, were certainly on his mind, if not included in his sermon. Inspired by these events, this issue of “Lifted Voice” will focus on musical settings of the aforementioned devotional readings and appointed propers for Easter I. 
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    Pr Brian Hamer

    Brian J. Hamer is Chaplain to Destroyer Squadron 23, Naval Base San Diego, via the LCMS Board for International Mission Services.

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