Okay, all levity aside, Bach is the epitome of the powerful musical legacy Martin Luther left in his reformation of the church. However, Luther wasn’t an unskilled composer of a few hymns that happened to turn out okay, but in fact he was a very able amateur musician that if he had not been so engrossed in theology and wanting the church to change he might have become a great composer. While they agreed on justification by faith, one of the main differences between Luther and the other leaders of the Reformation, Zwingli and Calvin, is that Luther had a great love and respect for music and believed that music was a vital part of Mass and the Christian life. He said in a letter to Ludwig Senfl that music is next to theology, and he felt that music and the word of God are closely related – most especially that the word of God is best expressed and taught through music (Westermeyer 144-146).

In Luther’s quest to bring the Gospel to the people where they were, through the Mass and the Bible being in the vernacular (the language of the people in whatever region they lived) and other such innovations, like writing hymns that would be easier for the average person to learn and sing, he tended to be fairly loose in his differentiation of the secular and the sacred. To him, the distinction between sacred and secular was not nearly as strong as it is for us, but at the same time he did distinguish what was appropriate for worship.

There are stories that he used bar songs and other “popular music” for the tunes to his hymn texts, but most musical scholars agree that while he did use a couple of folk melodies that were not used much at the time he did not use “popular music” in the church. He did, however, take some Gregorian chants, medieval hymns, and a few lesser-known folk melodies and reworked them in the same form as the German composers of the time – which was called “bar form”. God gave him a gift of uniting old and new, high art and folk art, and rural and urban styles with his chorales, so they appealed across all lines. He made it so church music was not just for the professional musicians and out of touch with the common person because they had been written hundreds of years earlier, but made them in the contemporary style of the day in their own language so that the songs met people right were they were at in their day-to-day living and they “stuck in their head” with people singing them throughout their daily work. Secondary only to the invention of the printing press, his music helped Luther’s message spread quickly and widely throughout Europe, so that instead of a local heresy that would have been quickly squashed by the Roman Catholic church it became an event that changed the course of Western history forever.

About 200 years later, a Lutheran organist brought Martin Luther’s chorales to a whole new musical level and has helped them even more endure through the ages as the one of the most beautiful artistic expressions of love for God imaginable. This organist was Johann Sebastian Bach. “More than anyone else, J.S. Bach symbolizes music that grows out of, yet moves beyond worship” (Westermeyer 240). His contribution not only to Sacred/Christian music, but also to Classical music as a whole is phenomenal. In spite of how complex his music is, it grew out of and affirmed the congregation’s song – the preludes and fugues were meant to be an instrumental introduction to the congregational singing of a chorale (in our language today, a hymn).

The best thing about Bach is that his music was not about simply writing music for the beauty of music itself, it was his attempt to express the beauty of the Gospel of Christ and his love for His Savior. Because he did not want to claim glory for himself from his music, when he signed his manuscripts, he also wrote something which you might recognize from my following in Bach’s footsteps, “Soli Deo Gloria” which is Latin for “To God Only be Glory.”

That I may one day be able to use the gifts God has given me to create something a fraction as meaningful for the Kingdom as anything Luther and Bach ever did.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Westermeyer, Paul. Te Deum: The Church And Music. Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN, 1998.

Luther knew his life and reputation were at risk, but he went nonetheless.  By now, he understood the power of evil: after he posted his ninety-five theses on the door of Wittenberg’s Castle in 1517, he faced years of trials and persecution, he was excommunicated from the Roman church, and he continually faced threats against his life and his freedom.  On the way, he was comforted by the words of Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”  (Psalm 46:1-3)  It was then that Luther penned this famous hymn.

As it turned out, Luther was craftier than his adversaries and defended his cause in the meeting with authority and eloquence.  On the way home, as he was traveling in his carriage in the forest, friendly Prince Philip “kidnapped”  Luther and kept him in his castle, protecting him from eminent harm.  Indeed, God was true to His word!!!!

This hymn also has given comfort and strength to those persecuted and martyred for their convictions long past the Reformation.  One such example closer to the United Methodist tradition was in the 1720′s.  A remarkable revival began in a town in Moravia, which is the eastern part of the Czech Republic today, the Jesuits opposed it, and the meetings were prohibited.  Those who still assembled were seized and imprisoned in stables and cellars. At David Nitschmann’s house, where a hundred and fifty persons gathered, the police broke in and seized the books. Not dismayed, the congregation struck up the stanzas of Luther’s hymn,

“And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us;
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.”

Twenty heads of families were for this sent to jail, including Nitschmann, who was treated with special severity. He finally escaped, fled to the Moravians at Herrnhut, became a bishop, and afterwards joined the Wesleys in 1735 in their expedition to Savannah, Georgia.  What is even more interesting about this story is that the Moravian Church was actually a “protestant” movement rebelling against the authority of Rome more than a hundred years before Martin Luther, and there are Moravian churches still in existence today in the US and Canada.

Since he wrote it in 1529, Luther’s hymn has been translated into nearly every language. There are said to be over eighty English translations alone to this hymn, but the version most used in the United States (including the one in The United Methodist Hymnal) is the translation by Frederic Henry Hedge in 1852.

The first line of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is inscribed on the tomb of Martin Luther at Wittenberg, and its powerful words and tune continue to live.  The hymn was sung at the funeral of President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the National Cathedral in Washington DC, March 1969, and it was also included in the National Service of Prayer and Remembrance, held shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks against America.

If you would like to know more about Martin Luther and the story behind the start of the Reformation, a fantastic movie titled Luther was filmed in 2003, starring Joseph Fiennes, and is currently available on DVD and video at your favorite video store.  I have this movie, and though I am not enough of a Luther scholar to know exactly how accurate it is to historical fact, it certainly depicts Luther’s love of God, his love for people, and his struggle with his own humanity, which led him to know that it is by faith in Jesus Christ, not works, that we are forgiven and made clean.

“A mouse for want of better stairs,
Ran up a rope to say his prayers.”

At that time in England there was a great desire to rely only on the Scriptures, and so they tended to take the Calvinistic approach of only singing Psalms and not allowing any other hymns in the church.  They also believed that musical instruments were “of the devil” and so they sang “a cappella” – without accompaniment of any kind.  Some of the Psalms were paraphrased and adjusted to be more metrical, but they still were not very good for singing.  Isaac constantly complained about this to his father, so to shut him up his father challenged him to try to do better.  He did so with amazing speed and ability, and now we have over 700 hymns, Psalm settings, and other spiritual songs. What an amazing gift that God gave us.

He fought ill-health throughout much of his life, and he was considered ugly and disproportionate – short, with his head much bigger than what would have fit with his body.  His soul, though, was a thing of beauty, and the depth of his love and devotion to the Lord is fully evidenced in his writings.  I’d like to ask all of you to find time to be with the Lord and to read and meditate on what I would say is his finest hymn, and most appropriate this Easter season, “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross.”  It is reported that Charles Wesley said that he would have rather written just this one hymn than all of the ones he did write.

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ, my God;
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See, from His head, His hands, His feet
Sorrow and love flow mingled down.
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

I’m really moved by singing or listening to the newer version of this song that Matt Redman and Chris Tomlin did a few years ago, called “The Wonderful Cross” They added a chorus that really ties it all together,

Oh, the wonderful cross
Oh, the wonderful cross
Bids me come and die
And find that I may truly live.

He is risen!  He is risen indeed!
Hallelujah!

I love the message of this song,

There’s only one who never fails
To beckon the morning light
There’s only one who sets loose the gales
And ties the trees down tight
When all around my soul gives way
He is all my hope and stay
There’s only one, only one Holy One

Later it was translated into German and Russian, and in the 1920’s Reverend Stuart K. Hine, a British missionary to the Ukraine, learned it in Russian and sang it in his ministry there.  He translated three stanzas into English, which was sung at an evangelistic meeting in England during World War 1.  Later he wrote the fourth stanza, and published it in Russian and English in a Russian evangelistic paper he wrote and distributed to Russian emigrants in North and South America.  George Beverly Shea sang it at many Billy Graham Crusades, which is part of why it is so well-known and loved today.

There is a story about the inspiration of the fourth stanza which Rev. Hines wrote, though the validity of the story is questionable.  He was visiting a home in the Carpathian Mountains near the Polish border when he found a Christian by the name of Dimitri and his wife.  Almost by chance, a Bible had fallen into their hands, but no one in the village, save Dimitri’s wife, had learned to read, and she only with the greatest of effort.  As she slowly spelled out the wonderful words of John 3:16 to the wondering villagers, tears began to flow, and one by one they dropped to their knees, crying aloud to God.  Twelve of these villagers had been truly converted, and it was these believing disciples that Rev. Hines met when he called at the cottage in the mountains that day.  He arrived just in time to hear them crying out in amazement again at the revelation of God’s love at Calvary.  He was so inspired that he wrote this fourth stanza:

And when I think that God, His Son not sparing
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing
He bled and died to take away my sin

And can you not help to go ahead and sing the chorus?

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art!  How great Thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art!  How great Thou art!
© 1941 Manna Music

And for those of you like me that have a hard time with the King James – type lingo, “How great You are!  How great You are!”  If there is anytime that you come upon a hymn you have trouble understanding because of the language used, you might want to write it out using more contemporary language (and look up the words you don’t know the meaning to in a dictionary) for your devotional time and see if that helps.  If you don’t have a hymnal at home, just about all well-known (and a bunch of not-so-well-known!) hymn texts can be found at www.cyberhymnal.org.  Understanding what words you are singing will add such tremendous depth and meaning to your worship, and I believe that it will also open new doors to a deeper relationship with God.

Soli Deo Gloria (To God only be glory)

A chance reading of Thomas à Kempis sowed the seed of John’s conversion. It was accelerated by a night spent steering a water-logged ship in the face of apparent death. He was then 23 years old. Over the next six years, during which he commanded a slave ship, his faith matured. He spent the next nine years mostly in Liverpool, studying Hebrew and Greek and mingling with George Whitefield, John Wesley, and the Nonconformists. He was eventually ordained, and became curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, in 1764. It was at Olney that he formed a life long friendship with William Cowper, and produced the Olney Hymns. In this wonderful collection was the hymn that basically was John’s autobiography, “Amazing Grace”.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see. (I encourage you to read the whole thing here)
© Public Domain

A marble plaque at St. Mary Woolnoth carried the epitaph which Newton himself wrote:
JOHN NEWTON, Clerk
Once an infidel and libertine
A servant of slaves in Africa,
Was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour
JESUS CHRIST,
restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach
the Gospel which he had long laboured to destroy.
He ministered,
Near sixteen years in Olney, in Bucks,
And twenty-eight years in this Church.

A fantastic movie about the impact of John Newton and this hymn on William Wilberforce, an abolitionist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, was recently made, called “Amazing Grace“. If you haven’t seen it yet, try to rent it because you will be blessed by it. An interesting historical discrepancy in the movie is that the tune that we know today and is used in the movie was not actually written until 1831, and in America, so therefore would not have been known or sung by William Wilberforce. Nonetheless, it is spiritually very moving, and really makes you think about how we, who have received God’s grace, need to stop the slavery that still exists today. If you would like to read more about William Wilbeforce, John Piper wrote a great autobiography which you can find at his website, Desiring God.

Speaking of someone who needed grace, and out of response to God’s grace wrote one of the most powerful worship songs of today, lets also look at the story of Dennis Jernigan and the song “You Are My All In All”. Dennis grew up with a grandmother that knew that God had a plan for his life and was a source of strength for him, but when she died he felt devastated and abandoned by the Lord. He struggled with homosexuality as a teen and young man, and even after the Lord delivered him from that he struggled with depression because he still felt that God took his grandmother when he had needed her the most.

He eventually sat down and wrote out a long list of the times he felt abandoned and forsaken by God, and turned it over to the Lord. God worked in his heart, showing him those painful experiences through His point of view, broke through the lies, and healed his heart. Sometime after that a little old lady who was a prayer partner with his grandmother commented that Grandmother Jernigan’s prayers had been answered – she had asked God to use him in the area of worship and music for His glory. Dennis realized that the reason God allowed the wounding was so that he could understand God’s grace and what it means to be weak.

In 1988 Dennis felt that the Lord wanted him to share his testimony about breaking the bondage of homosexuality, but this was difficult because he knew that it could mean that he would lose everything in his ministry. But God showed him that others could also be set free if they knew that there was someone else who had been freed. So, he did, and a year later he wrote “You Are My All In All” during a worship time at his church as further testimony to what God had done in and through his life.

You are my strength when I am weak,
You are the treasure that I seek…
Seeking You as a precious jewel,
Lord, to give up I’d be a fool…

Taking my sin, my cross, my shame,
Rising again I’ll bless Your name…
When I fall down You pick me up,
When I am dry You fill my cup,
You are my all in all.
© 1991 Shepherd’s Heart Music

If you haven’t already, receive God’s grace, because there is nothing that is to horrible for God to forgive and heal. If you have, how about taking the time to reflect on all that God has done for you, and I even encourage you to sit down and write about it or express it in whatever way God has gifted you.

So, first I thought I’d start off with defining what a hymn is, and as you will see I am not just talking about hymns as you think of them (i.e. old, traditional, only in a Hymnal) but rather all music sung as a congregation in praise to God.  Then, the term “hymn” most definitely includes the contemporary “praise & worship” songs, as well as the older songs often found in hymnals.  I hope you enjoy this article, and find it enlightening and helpful.  Please feel free to post any comments or suggestions – your favorite hymn or hymnwriter you want to know about or whatever.

Let me first set out some general statements about hymns:  The term, “hymn,” actually refers to the lyrics and not to the music itself.  The music the hymn is sung to is referred to as the tune or setting, and traditionally the tunes are given separate names though with contemporary music they are usually the same name. One example of this is the hymn Be Thou My Vision – the tune it is generally associated with is called “Slane.”  Throughout the history of the Christian Church, praise has been a common characteristic of hymns.  We know from several references in the Bible that Christians have always sung hymns (Acts 16:25, Eph. 5:19, Col. 3:16) which makes hymn singing traditional in the truest sense of that word.

Hymn singing is a usually a group activity, and associated with a worship service.  Hymns are more than just sung scripture - they can be new or old, and even be spontaneously created.  Because of the nature of the lyrics, hymns are also poems and have common literary characteristics such as rhyme and alliteration.  Hymns that stand the test of time are very theologically rich, and they are a great tool to teach basic Christian doctrine.  The majority of hymns are metrical, and so you can interchange different tunes that have the same meter.  I’m sad to say that also throughout Christian history hymns and hymn singing has often been controversial, as I’m sure you have experienced.

The word “hymn” is a derivative of the Latin hymnus, which comes from the Greek hymnos, derived from hydein, to sing (The Catholic Encyclopedia).  Throughout the Bible instances of singing in general and hymn singing in particular can be summarized as:  singing occurred when there was cause for celebration (for example, after a battle - Exodus 15), when there was an opportunity to praise God (even throughout the normal day – see Canonical Hours), and to encourage one another (Paul and Silas in Prison in Acts 16).

St. Augustine, one of the great fathers of Christian theology said, “Do you know what a hymn is? It is singing to the praise of God. If you praise God and do not sing, you utter no hymn. If you praise anything which does not pertain to the praise of God — though in singing you praise, you utter no hymn. A hymn then contains these three things: song, and praise, and that of God. Praise then of God in song is called a hymn.”  (Exposition on the Psalms, Ps. 148 – you can read it online at CCEL)

Here are some other definitions from resources I found on the internet:

“A Christian hymn is a lyric poem, reverently and devotionally conceived, which is designed to be sung and which expresses the worshipper’s attitude toward God, or God’s purposes in human life. It should be simple and metrical in form, genuinely emotional, poetic and literary in style, spiritual in quality, and in its ideas so direct and so immediately apparent as to unify a congregation while singing it.” – Carl F. Price, 1937 [from What is a Hymn? Paper of the Hymn Society of America, © Hymn Society, Boston, MA.]

HYMN: A term of unknown origin but first used in ancient Greece and Rome to designate a poem in honor of a god. In the early Christian period the word was often, though not always, used to refer to praises sung to God, as distinct from ‘psalm’. The Western and Eastern (Byzantine) Churches developed widely differing hymn traditions. [From: New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]

Call Me Irresponsible by Michael Buble - In college Doc Thornley taught me a deep appreciation for swing & jazz, he would’ve LOVED this guy.  I miss you, Doc.

Songs of Mass Destruction by Annie Lennox – man, I wish I could sing like her

Raising Sand by Alison Krauss & Robert Plant – Led Zepelin lead singer with bluegrass music’s queen, who’d have thought how good this would turn out to be.

Who We Are by Lifehouse

Not Too Late by Norah Jones - I wish I could sing like her, too.  She was a new discovery this year.

Long Road Out of Eden by The Eagles – a little disappointing, compared to their old stuff, but enjoyable just the same

Sky Blue Sky by Wilco – I’m just getting into them, based on some other artists I like recommending them.

I also really got into The Fray, Daughtry, Five For Fighting, John Mayer, and Mute Math this year, but their CDs were released in 2006 and therefore not eligible for this list.

One might wonder why this Protestant-born & bred girl is recording Ave Maria, Laudate Dominum, and Dona Nobis Pacem, but thankfully my musical education included singing with choir directors who felt it was important for us to know and experience sacred choral literature from all periods of music. I deeply love and appreciate the rich history of music in the church back even to Judaic worship before Jesus’ coming to earth.

The Painted Veil Soundtrack with Lang Lang, piano; music composed by Alexandre Desplat – Simply beautiful. Haven’t even seen the movie yet, but just for the soundtrack I will soon.

Amazing Grace Soundtrack by David ArnoldBeethoven Piano Concertos 1 &4 – Lang Lang, piano – Can you tell that I like this guy? He makes me so jealous, though.

Piano Moods: A Collection of Romantic Melodies with Various Pianists

And On Earth, Peace by Chanticleer – a little too 20th century for me…give me Mozart or give me death. Ha ha!

Another group I really enjoyed this year was Anonymous4, especially their Gloryland CD, but it was technically released in 2006 so doesn’t apply to this list in the normal way. They sang some of the vocals on the soundtrack for The Nativity Story movie, plus they are very versatile in singing both baroque and folk song & spirituals like in Gloryland and American Angels.

Christmas Songs by Jars of Clay

It’s a Wonderful Christmas by Michael W. Smith

Let It Snow by Michael Buble (sorry I don’t know how to do the little accent thingy in html) A great late edition to my Christmas music diet.

Noel by Josh Groban - I can’t believe I didn’t love this one, but I didn’t. I liked it, but I think the Bebo Norman CD kind of crowded it out. However, “Little Drummer Boy” with guitarist Andy McKee is outstanding.

Let It Snow by Chanticleer – it was hard for them to live up to their past Christmas CDs. I did like the jazz flavor, though.

Christmas Song by Mannheim Steamroller – ditto, it was okay. Just okay.