Each week, you may find information here about the music in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas. Some of this information is original; most of it is copied from other websites such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org. It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.
This Good Friday, we present the reader's theater drama Voices around the Cross with music.
About the Piano Music:
O Sacred Head Now Wounded - Paul Tate
(c.2004, GIA Publications)
“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” is one of the great hymns of the church, perhaps the greatest passion hymn. It has an equally great history. It is based on a long medieval Latin poem, Salve mundi salutare, with stanzas addressing the various parts of Christ's body hanging on the Cross. The last part of the poem, from which the hymn is taken, is addressed to Christ's head, and begins "Salve caput cruentatum." The poem is often attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153).
Bernard of Clairvaux, saint, abbot, and doctor, fills one of the most conspicuous positions in the history of the middle ages. His father, Tecelin, or Tesselin, a knight of great bravery, was the friend and vassal of the Duke of Burgundy. Bernard was born at his father's castle on the eminence of Les Fontaines, near Dijon, iu Burgundy, in 1091. He was educated at Chatillon, where he was distinguished for his studious and meditative habits. Bernard had all the advantages that high birth, great personal beauty, graceful manners, and irresistible influence could give, but, strengthened in the resolve by night visions of his mother (who died in 1105), he chose a life of asceticism, and became a monk. He entered the monastery of Citeaux, the first Cistercian foundation, in 1113. Two years later he was sent forth, at the head of twelve monks, from the overcrowded abbey, to found a daughter institution in the Valley of Wormwood, the Abbey of Clairvaux. On the death of Pope Honorius II., in 1130, the College of Cardinals split without a clear choice of Pope. Bernard was instrumental in the restoration of Pope Innocent II to Rome, which greatly increased his influence in the Church. The summer of 1146 was spent traversing France and Germany to rouse the people to engage in the second crusade. In both countries the effect of his appearance and eloquence was marvellous, almost miraculous. The population seemed to rise en masse, and take up the cross. In 1147, the expedition started, a vast army, of which probably not a tenth ever reached Palestine. It proved a complete failure, and a miserable remnant shared the flight of their leaders, the Emperor Conrad, and Louis, King of France, and returned home, defeated and disgraced. The blame was thrown upon Bernard, and he soon died, weary of the world.
One of the hymns by which St. Bernard is best known as a writer of sacred poetry is "Salve mundi Salutore," an address to the various limbs of Christ on the cross. It consists of 350 lines, 50 lines being addressed to each. Many other hymns and sequences are attributed to St. Bernard. Hymns, translated from, or founded on, St. Bernard's, will be found in almost every hymnal.
The poem was translated into German by the Lutheran hymnist Paul Gerhardt (1607–1676). He reworked the Latin version to suggest a more personal contemplation of the events of Christ's death on the cross. It first appeared in Johann Crüger's hymnal Praxis pietatis melica in 1656. Although Gerhardt translated the whole poem, it is the closing section which has become best known, and is sung as a hymn in its own right. The German hymn begins with "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden".
Paulus Gerhardt studied at the University of Wittenberg, after which he was pastor at Mittenwalde, and then St. Nicholas’s Church in Berlin, then finally archdiaconus at Lübben. The outward circumstances of Gerhardt's life were for the most part gloomy. His earlier years were spent amid the horrors of the Thirty Years' War. He did not obtain a settled position in life till he was 44 years of age. He was unable to marry till four years later; and his wife, after a long illness, died during the time that he was without office in Berlin; while of the five children of the marriage only one passed the period of childhood. His latter years at Lübben as a widower with one surviving child were passed among a rough and unsympathising people.
Gerhardt ranks, next to Luther, as the most gifted and popular hymnwriter of the Lutheran Church. With a firm grasp of the objective realities of the Christian Faith, and a loyal adherence to the doctrinal standpoint of the Lutheran Church, Gerhardt is yet genuinely human; he takes a fresh, healthful view both of nature and of mankind. In his hymns we see the transition to the modern subjective tone of religious poetry. From the first publication of Gerhardt's hymns they at once came into favour among all ranks and creeds; and a large proportion are among the hymns most cherished and most widely used by German-speaking Christians at the present day.
The length of many of Gerhardt's hymns ("Ein Lämmlein" is 10 stanzas of 10 lines; "Fröhlich soil," 15 stanzas of 8 lines), and the somewhat intricate metres of others, have caused his hymns to be less used in English than otherwise might have been the case; but a considerable proportion have come in some form or other into English hymnbooks. A large selection, translated with scrupulous faithfulness but not retaining much of the lyric grace of the originals, was published by the Rev. John Kelly, in 1867, as Paul Gerhardt’s Spiritual Songs.
“O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” is a beautiful but free translation of the "Salve caput cruentatum". Gerhardt's version appeared in Crüger's Praxis (1656), in 10 stanzas of 8 lines, entitled, "To the suffering Face of Jesus Christ." Bernard's original is powerful and searching, but Gerhardt's hymn is still more powerful and more profound, as redrawn from the deeper spring of evangelical Lutheran, Scriptural, knowledge, and fervency of faith.
The hymn was first translated into English in 1752 by John Gambold (1711–1771), an Anglican vicar in Oxfordshire. His translation begins, "O Head so full of bruises." In 1830 a new translation of the hymn was made by an American Presbyterian minister, James Waddell Alexander (1804-1859). Alexander's translation, beginning "O sacred head, now wounded," became one of the most widely used in 19th and 20th century hymnals.
James Waddell Alexander, D.D., (1804-1859) was an American Presbyterian minister and theologian who followed in the footsteps of his father, Rev. Archibald Alexander. He studied at Princeton, and was Professor of Rhetoric at Princeton, 1833; Pastor of Duane Street Presbyterian Church, New York, 1844; Professor of Church History, Princeton, 1849; and Pastor of 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, 1851. His works include Gift to the Afflicted, Thoughts on Family Worship, and others. His hymn translations were collected and published at New York in 1861, under the title, The Breaking Crucible and other Translations.
Alexander’s complete text follows:
O sacred Head, now wounded, with grief and shame weighed down,
Now scornfully surrounded with thorns, Thine only crown;
O sacred Head, what glory, what bliss till now was Thine!
Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine.
What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered, was all for sinners’ gain;
Mine, mine was the transgression, but Thine the deadly pain.
Lo, here I fall, my Savior! ’Tis I deserve Thy place;
Look on me with Thy favor, vouchsafe to me Thy grace.
Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee, Thou noble countenance,
Though mighty worlds shall fear Thee and flee before Thy glance.
How art thou pale with anguish, with sore abuse and scorn!
How doth Thy visage languish that once was bright as morn!
Now from Thy cheeks has vanished their color once so fair;
From Thy red lips is banished the splendor that was there.
Grim death, with cruel rigor, hath robbed Thee of Thy life;
Thus Thou hast lost Thy vigor, Thy strength in this sad strife.
My burden in Thy Passion, Lord, Thou hast borne for me,
For it was my transgression which brought this woe on Thee.
I cast me down before Thee, wrath were my rightful lot;
Have mercy, I implore Thee; Redeemer, spurn me not!
What language shall I borrow to thank Thee, dearest friend,
For this Thy dying sorrow, Thy pity without end?
O make me Thine forever, and should I fainting be,
Lord, let me never, never outlive my love to Thee.
My Shepherd, now receive me; my Guardian, own me Thine.
Great blessings Thou didst give me, O source of gifts divine.
Thy lips have often fed me with words of truth and love;
Thy Spirit oft hath led me to heavenly joys above.
Here I will stand beside Thee, from Thee I will not part;
O Savior, do not chide me! When breaks Thy loving heart,
When soul and body languish in death’s cold, cruel grasp,
Then, in Thy deepest anguish, Thee in mine arms I’ll clasp.
The joy can never be spoken, above all joys beside,
When in Thy body broken I thus with safety hide.
O Lord of Life, desiring Thy glory now to see,
Beside Thy cross expiring, I’d breathe my soul to Thee.
My Savior, be Thou near me when death is at my door;
Then let Thy presence cheer me, forsake me nevermore!
When soul and body languish, oh, leave me not alone,
But take away mine anguish by virtue of Thine own!
Be Thou my consolation, my shield when I must die;
Remind me of Thy passion when my last hour draws nigh.
Mine eyes shall then behold Thee, upon Thy cross shall dwell,
My heart by faith enfolds Thee. Who dieth thus dies well.
The music for the German and English versions of the hymn is by Hans Leo Hassler, written around 1600 for a secular love song, "Mein G'müt ist mir verwirret", which first appeared in print in the 1601 Lustgarten Neuer Teutscher Gesäng. The tune was appropriated and rhythmically simplified for Gerhardt's German hymn in 1656 by Johann Crüger. Johann Sebastian Bach arranged the melody and used five stanzas of the hymn in the St Matthew Passion. He also used the hymn's text and melody in the second movement of the cantata Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem, BWV 159. The harmonization found in our hymnal is from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
About the Cello Music:
Pie Jesu - Andrew Lloyd Webber
(c.1985, Andrew Lloyd Webber)
“Pie Jesu” means “Merficul Jesus,” and the Latin text calls on “the Lamb of God” to show mercy to his people. The “Pie Jesu” is an ancient motet based on the the last couplet of the “Dies Irae,” the hymn of the “Day of Wrath” that was part of the old Latin Requiem Mass.
Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (b. 1948) is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Webber was born in Kensington, London, the elder son of William Lloyd Webber (1914–1982), a composer and organist, and Jean Hermione Johnstone (1921–1993), a violinist and pianist. His younger brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, is a world-renowned solo cellist. Lloyd Webber started writing his own music at a young age: a suite of six pieces at the age of nine. He also put on "productions" with Julian and his Aunt Viola in his toy theatre (which he built at Viola's suggestion). His aunt Viola, an actress, took him to see many of her shows and through the stage door into the world of the theatre. His father enrolled him as a part-time student at the Eric Gilder School of Music in the spring of 1963. At this time he was working on a Genghis Khan musical called Westonia!, and he had also set music to Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats. In 1965, Lloyd Webber was a Queen's Scholar at Westminster School and studied history for a term at Magdalen College, Oxford, although he abandoned the course in the winter of 1965 to study at the Royal College of Music and pursue his interest in musical theatre.
Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, two film scores, and a Latin Requiem Mass. In 2001, The New York Times referred him as "the most commercially successful composer in history". The Daily Telegraph ranked him the "fifth most powerful person in British culture" in 2008, with lyricist Don Black writing "Andrew more or less single-handedly reinvented the musical.” He has received a number of awards, including a knighthood in 1992, followed by a peerage from Queen Elizabeth II for services to the Arts, six Tonys, three Grammys (as well as the Grammy Legend Award), an Academy Award, fourteen Ivor Novello Awards, seven Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe, a Brit Award, the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors, the 2008 Classic Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music, and an Emmy Award. He is one of sixteen people to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is an inductee into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.
His company, the Really Useful Group, is one of the largest theatre operators in London. Producers in several parts of the UK have staged productions, including national tours, of the Lloyd Webber musicals under licence from the Really Useful Group. Lloyd Webber is also the president of the Arts Educational Schools, London, a performing arts school located in Chiswick, West London. He is involved in a number of charitable activities, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Nordoff Robbins, Prostate Cancer UK and War Child. In 1992, he started the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation which supports the arts, culture, and heritage of the UK.
Inspired by two separate tragedies—a journalist who had interviewed him just weeks before dying in Northern Ireland as a result of the IRA conflicts, and the story of a Cambodian boy who was forced to murder his mutilated sister or be executed himself—Andrew Lloyd Webber took to writing music as a way to cope with and express his grief. When he finished his Requiem, Webber dedicated it to his father who passed away in 1982. Webber's Requiem is his most personal composition, and his only fully completed classical work. The requiem is a striking, yet welcome, departure from the style of music for which Lloyd Webber is known.
Webber's Requiem was first performed in New York City, New York in the St. Thomas Church on February 25, 1985. In 1986, Requiem earned Lloyd Webber a Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. In addition, "Pie Jesu" placed among the top 10 in British music charts earning the Requiem the Silver Certification by the British Phonographic Industry. Unlike a traditional requiem mass, Lloyd Webber combined the texts of the Pie Jesu and Agnus Dei, as well as the Hosanna and Benedictus, and split the Sactus into two movements. This treatment of the sacred texts is unique to Andrew Lloyd Webber and will be remembered and enjoyed for many, what will likely be centuries.
The combined text of the "Pie Jesu" and the "Agnus Dei" from the Tridentine Requiem Mass used by Webber:
Pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu, pie Jesu,
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem.
Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei,
Qui tollis peccata mundi
Dona eis requiem, dona eis requiem.
Sempiternam Requiem.
Merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus, merciful Jesus,
Father, who takes away the sins of the world,
Grant them rest, grant them rest.
Lamb of God, Lamb of God, Lamb of God, Lamb of God,
Father, who takes away the sins of the world,
Grant them rest, grant them rest,
everlasting rest.
About the Vocal Solo Music:
Ave Maria - Franz Schubert
(c.1923, G. Schirmer)
Every faith has its important creeds and prayers. In Christian denominations, one such example is 'The Lord's Prayer', which many members have memorized at an early age. An important prayer for the Roman Catholic Church is Ave Maria or 'Hail, Mary'. It's the best known of their Marian prayers. The Ave Maria is also used in the Greek Orthodox and Lutheran churches. The text is historically divided into two parts, with the third part being added later. The first part is based on Luke 1:28 which recounts the Angel Gabriel greeting the Blessed Virgin Mary on the day of the Annunciation. This is when the Angel tells Mary that she will be overcome by the Holy Spirit and bear a son. The middle section is based on Luke 1:40-42 and recounts St. Elizabeth greeting Mary. Mary, now pregnant, has gone to visit her relative Elizabeth who's also pregnant. When Elizabeth hears Mary's greeting, the baby in her own womb (who will be John the Baptist) leaps for joy. Elizabeth tells Mary that she is blessed, as is the child she is carrying (who will be Jesus Christ). A final portion was added around 1440. It identifies Mary's holiness and adds a petition for intercession.
Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer who died at 31 but was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical era and early Romantic era and is one of the most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth century.
Ave Maria! Gratia plena, Maria, Gratia plena, Maria, Gratia plena,
Ave, Ave Dominus, Dominus tecum.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus, Et benedictus,
Et benedictus fructus ventris, ventris tui Jesus.
Ave Maria!
Ave Maria! mater Dei, Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, Ora, ora pro nobis
Ora, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, Nunc, et in hora mortis,
In hora mortis nostrae, In hora mortis, mortis nostrae,
In hora mortis nostrae!
Ave Maria!
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and in the hour of our death. Amen.
Lamb of God, What Wondrous Love - Allan Robert Petker
(c.1989, Gentry Publications)
Allan Robert Petker (b. 1955) is a published composer and arranger with over 250 published works. His conducting books, "Choral Questions and Answers" Vols. I, II, III, IV and V, have become staples in school curriculum and for secondary resource material. He has written original scores for live performance and has penned a number of original T.V. commercials which have appeared on the CNBC network. Allan holds a Bachelor's and a Master's degree from California State University at Northridge in music, specializing in viola (BA), voice and choral conducting (MA). Petker has been involved in the choral music publishing industry for many years. In 1977 he became the Director of Publications for Fred Bock Publishing Group. In 1989 he established his own company, Pavane Publishing, and later added John Rich Music Press.
As a conductor, Allan frequently serves as a guest clinician or conductor for publishers, choral societies, church festivals, state honor choirs and colleges. He formed Consort Chorale, in the San Francisco Bay area. He was the Conductor and Artistic Director for the e, and is the conductor of the Los Cancioneros Master Chorale. Petker has been a clinician in two summer church music conferences at Lake Tahoe, one for church choir singers, "Summer Sing" and another for church choir directors, "Tuning @ Tahoe." As an instrumentalist, Allan has done freelance studio work and occasional concert playing. You may even catch him playing jazz violin and viola at a local pub, one of his favorite things to do.
Petker has set this text to the music of the “Pavane” by Gabriel Faure. Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1845-1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.
Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine, he was sent to the Ecole Niedermeyer music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. After graduating from the college in 1865, Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Fauré's music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with the modernism of the second quarter of the 20th century. His harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the teaching of harmony for later generations. During the last twenty years of his life, he suffered from increasing deafness. In contrast with the charm of his earlier music, his works from this period are sometimes elusive and withdrawn in character, and at other times turbulent and impassioned.
Lamb of God, what wondrous love, what woundrous love, O my soul,
Love, such love, that Thou shouldst die, that Thou, for me, shouldst die.
Lord of Grace what matchless love, what matchless love, O my soul.
Son of God, Thou loving sacrifice, Thou loving sacrifice for me.
Here, O Lord, am I, fearful, sinful man, guilty and condemned,
Thy death is surely mine.
Cross of God, I would to turn away, yet Love it bids me stay, O my soul.
Can it be the very death I fear is that which draws me near, Lord, to Thee?
Lamb of God, Thou died for me. Lamb of God, Thou died for me.
Lamb of God, what wondrous love.
About the Vocal Duet Music:
Behold the Lamb of God - Healey Willan
(c.1960, Concordia Publishing)
Healey Willan (1880-1968) was a Canadian organist and composer. He composed more than 800 works including operas, symphonies, chamber music, a concerto, and pieces for band, orchestra, organ, and piano, but is best known for his religious music. Willan was born in England, and he began musical training at age eight, with studies at St. Saviour's Choir School in Eastbourne. He earned, by examination in organ playing, harmony, counterpoint, history and orchestration, the Royal College of Organists' Associateship in 1897 and Fellowship in 1899. The Anglo-Catholic Tractarian movement led to an Anglican revival of plainsong, and in 1910, Willan joined the London Gregorian Association (which strove to preserve and revive "plain-chant"). In 1913, Willan emigrated to Canada. In 1921, he become Precentor of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene (Toronto), where he remained until his death. St. Mary Magdalene, under Willan, became a North American mecca for choral and Anglican church musicians. In 1920, the Toronto Conservatory (now the Royal Conservatory of Music) appointed Willan Head of its Theory Department. In 1934, he founded the Tudor Singers, which he conducted until it disbanded in 1939. From 1937 to 1950, Willan was University of Toronto Professor of Music and Organist. When the Order of Canada was established in 1967, it named Willan a Companion. In Britain, it was customary for the Archbishop of Canterbury to occasionally grant very distinguished English cathedral musicians the Lambeth Doctorate, Mus. D Cantaur; in 1956, Willan, "the Dean of Canadian composers", became the first non-English church musician to be so honoured. People who remember Willan from his time at St Mary Magdalene's like to moderate his somewhat dourly pious public image by quoting him: "English by birth; Canadian by adoption; Irish by extraction; Scotch by absorption.”
“Behold the Lamb of God” was written for the choir of Resurrection Lutheran Church in Sappington, Missouri, and based on John 1:29 and Isaiah 53: 4-5.
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.
He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities.
Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
About the Choral Music:
Perfect Atonement - David Lantz
(c.2003, Abingdon Press)
David Lantz III graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in music education from Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. He has taught music in all grade levels from K-college, including high school band, chorus, and music theory, junior high school general and choral, and elementary general and choral. Currently, he teaches at East Stroudsburg High School South, where he directs two concert choirs, jazz/show choir, and a select chorale. Lantz is the choral director at Stroudsburg United Methodist Church and director of Pocono Summer Chorus, a community chorus in the Pocono Mountains. David is a freelance studio bass player and vocalist, having also played extensively in many resorts and clubs in the tri-state area, both with his own band and with other musicians. He has nearly 300 choral anthems in print. He is a member of PMEA and ACDA. As a member of ASCAP, he has won many writers awards.
Perfect atonement, wonderful grace, Jesus has suffered and died in my place.
I’ll never repay the debt I owe that Christ has paid for my soul,
That Christ has paid for my soul.
Costly redemption merciful love, God sent deliverence from heaven above.
I cannot afford the prece he paid, the sacrifice Christ has made.
The sacrifice Christ has made.
Most Holy Savior, Most Holy Savior, how poor I must be,
How poor I must be in light of the mercy,
in light of the mercy you lavished on me, you lavished on me.
Humble contrition, obedient made, the sacrifice Christ has made.
Most Holy Savior, Most Holy Savior, how poor I must be,
How poor I must be in light of the mercy,
in light of the mercy you lavished on me, you lavished on me.
Humble contrition, obedient made, the sacrifice Christ has made.
I give my soul for the gift that you gave.
My life and submission are still not enough to made for your precious love,
to trade for your precious love.
Most Holy Savior, Most Holy Savior, how poor I must be,
How poor I must be in light of the mercy,
in light of the mercy you lavished on me, you lavished on me.
Perfect atonement, wonderful grace, Jesus has suffered and died in my place.
I’ll never repay the debt I owe that Christ has paid for my soul,
That Christ has paid for my soul.
The One Who Bears My Shame – Joshua Metzger
(c.2015, Hal Leonard Corp.)
Joshua Metzger has set a beautiful text by John Parker, with a haunting cello melody by Stan Pethel. Joshua Metzger earned a degree in Mathematics from Taylor University and toured with Taylor's Concert Chorale, where his love for choral music grew into a passion. His hymn tunes could be heard on the Carillon Bell Tower in the center of campus. By day, Josh is a principal business analyst for a Fortune 100 insurance company.
There stumbles through the street, unsteady on His feet,
Derided and defamed, the One who bears my shame.
Now struggling up the way, with not a word to say,
Betrayed, He takes the blame, the One who bears my shame.
Who is this man who carries every sin?
The weight of the world is fixed upon Him!
They mock Him as He dies ‘mid Mary’s silent cries,
They curse the sacred name of the One who bears my shame.
Who is this man who carries every sin?
The weight of the world is fixed upon Him!
This man upon the tree hangs there in place of me.
How precious is the name of the One who bears my shame.
About the Hymns:
Ah, Holy Jesus
"Herzliebster Jesu" (often translated into English as "Ah, Holy Jesus", sometimes as "O Dearest Jesus") is a German hymn written in 1630 by Johann Heermann. Heerman took his inspiration for "Ah, Holy Jesus" from a Latin text attributed to either Augustine (354-430) or Jean de Fecamp (c.1000-1079). The poetry was originally published in a fifteenth-century devotional book entitled Meditationes sanctorum patrum. Heerman's hymn version first appeared in his Devoti Musica Cordis, ca. 1630. Heerman wrote during the Thirty Years War, a time when many hymn writers became introspective. Writing during this time of uncertainty and trouble, Heerman's hymn emerged from a backdrop of his own personal suffering.
Its tune, also called "Herzliebster Jesu", was written ten years later by Johann Crüger. The hymn first appeared in Crüger's Neues vollkömmliches Gesangbuch Augsburgischer Confession (1640).
Ah, holy Jesus, how hast thou offended,
that we to judge thee have in hate pretended?
By foes derided, by thine own rejected,
O most afflicted!
Who was the guilty? Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus, hath undone thee!
'Twas I, Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee.
Lo, the Good Shepherd for the sheep is offered;
the slave hath sinned, and the Son hath suffered.
For our atonement, while we nothing heeded,
God interceded.
For me, kind Jesus, was thy incarnation,
thy mortal sorrow, and thy life's oblation;
thy death of anguish and thy bitter passion,
for my salvation.
Therefore, kind Jesus, since I cannot pay thee,
I do adore thee, and will ever pray thee,
think on thy pity and thy love unswerving,
not my deserving.
What Wondrous Love is This
(c.1983, Augsburg Publishing House)
What Wondrous Love Is This is sometimes described as a "white spiritual", from the American South. Its text was first published in 1811, during the Second Great Awakening, and its melody is derived from an English popular ballad. The hymn's lyrics were first published in Lynchburg, Virginia in the c. 1811 camp meeting songbook A General Selection of the Newest and Most Admired Hymns and Spiritual Songs Now in Use. The lyrics may also have been printed, in a slightly different form, in the 1811 book Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Original and Selected published in Lexington, Kentucky. In most early printings, the hymn's text was attributed to an anonymous author, though the 1848 hymnal The Hesperian Harp attributes the text to a Methodist pastor from Oxford, Georgia named Alexander Means. Camp meeting attendees during the Second Great Awakening would sing the hymns printed in these hymnals to a variety of popular melodies, including "The Ballad of Captain Kidd", which was well known at the time; this is likely how the text and melody came to be paired. The text and melody were first published together in The Southern Harmony, a book of shape note hymns compiled by William Walker. In 1966, the United Methodist Hymnal became the first standard hymnal to incorporate “What Wondrous Love Is This”. Today it is a widely known hymn included in many hymnals.
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss
To bear the dreadful curse for my soul.
When I was sinking down, sinking down,
When I was sinking down beneath God's righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.
To God and to the Lamb, I will sing.
To God and to the Lamb Who is the great 'I am';
While millions join the theme, I will sing.
And when from death I'm free, I'll sing on.
And when from death I'm free, I'll sing and joyful be;
And through eternity, I'll sing on.
O Love Divine, What Hast Thou Done
Hymns have always been an important devotional resource for the people called Methodists. John and Charles Wesley published many collections of hymns. The hymns were sung in class, band, and society meetings and at Love Feasts. The people carried their hymns with them to the meetings and used them at home as part of daily prayer and devotional practices. In singing, praying, and meditating on the hymns the Methodist people learned and internalized the theology they heard in the preaching and teaching. The poetry of the hymns helped get the theology of Methodist preaching from the head into the heart. Here is a powerful reflection on the meaning of Christ’s death on the cross:
O Love divine, what hast thou done! The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father’s co-eternal Son Bore all my sins upon the tree.
Th’immortal God for me hath died: My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
Is crucified for me and you, To bring us rebels back to God.
Believe, believe the record true, Ye all are bought with Jesu’s blood.
Pardon for all flows from his side: My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
Behold him, all ye that pass by, The bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, sinners, see your Savior die, And say, “Was ever grief like his?”
Come, feel with me his blood applied: My Lord, my Love, is crucified!
First United Methodist Church, Lewisville, Texas
A Community of Everyday People Learning to Love Like Jesus
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