Grant peace, we pray, in mercy Lord;
Peace in our time, O send us!
Peace in our time, O send us!
—Martin Luther (after a Latin hymn)
Peter Bender describes the text of the Agnus Dei, “Lamb of God”:
[The Agnus Dei] is the fifth and final great hymn of the Divine Service. The words, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” were first spoken by John the Baptist in the public announcement of Jesus’ ministry. These words are the sum and substance of what our Lord came to do. (Lutheran Catechesis, p. 119)
In Christ, the Lamb of God, the two-part plan of the Passover is fulfilled: kill the lamb and eat the lamb. The death the of Lamb of God is a once-for-all, calendar-day event. But the eucharistic eating of the Lamb continues around the world until Christ returns. We are accustomed to singing the three-fold Agnus Dei one time, but Art Just notes the Medieval precedent for singing it ”as long as there was bread to break” (Christ’s Gifts in the Liturgy: The Theology and Music of the Divine Service, p. 41). How fitting that Jesus is described as the Lamb of God thirty times in the eschatology of the book of Revelation, where Jesus is enthroned as the Lamb who is worthy “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12).
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