Throughout the Middle Ages, the text and its rather eerie but joyfully-bursting-with-confidence Dorian chant tone was used as an Easter sequence to introduce the Gospel reading.
Why should the Church ever sound like the world? People don’t need more of the world; they need Jesus. Instead, the Church should sound unlike the world.
“It is good and God pleasing to sing hymns…so that God’s Word and Christian teaching might be instilled and implanted in many ways”
Yea, Peace on earth incarnate lies, And in His little finger Is pow’r that makes the dead to rise And demons scared to linger And God’s own blood there flows within, One drop of which blots out all sin; Thus we have peace of conscience.
Forth today the Conqueror goeth,
Who the foe, Sin and woe,
Death and hell, o’erthroweth.
God is man, man to deliver;
His dear Son Now is one
With our blood forever.
This hymn was widely used from the early Middle Ages to the time of the Reformation, especially the opening verses
This setting by Luther is new to us this year and will be incorporated into Matins a couple times each week; it involves antiphonal singing, namely, two groups singing back and forth with each other.
The Passion is not intended for the academic spectator or the casual tourist—it is intended for the Christian. It movingly directs his heart to meditate on and wonder at what Jesus has done for him.
Great hymns like “Salvation unto Us Has Come” teach what God’s Word says in a uniquely beautiful way: not only are they true, but they exemplify the beauty of that truth with beautiful music.
Lutheran hymns are beautiful for their clear theology grounded in Scripture, and Ringwaldt’s hymn certainly supplies an excellent picture of great terror at God’s judgment and even greater comfort found in Christ.
