Day 44: A Hymn from a Time of Plague

DAY 44

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK SEVEN: MONDAY 27 APRIL 2020

A Hymn from a Time of Plague

Now thank we all our God, with hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done, in whom His world rejoices;

Who, from our mother’s arms, hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

If you were raised mainline Protestant as I was you are probably already humming the melody to the above, the absolute standard Thanksgiving hymn sung every year. And while you know the hymn, what you probably don’t know is that this strong affirmation of thanksgiving was written in the midst of unspeakable horror scourging Germany where the writer, Martin Rinkart, was a Lutheran pastor in the town of Eilenberg.  

During his tenure as pastor his community suffered the slaughter of the Thirty Years War, the   excruciatingly painful and deadly bubonic plague and a severe famine- all at the same time. While all the pastors in town fled, Rinkart remained to minister to all he could, with church records indicating he conducted some 4,000 funerals at a pace sometimes of 30-40 a day. It was during this time, in 1636, that he wrote, “Nun danket alle Gott” with the melody we know today written by Johann Cruger in 1637, and the harmonized hymn tune in our hymnals coming to us from the classical composer Felix Mendelsohn in 1840.    

How could he have even considered giving to the people in the midst of such horror a hymn of resounding praise and thanks to God – ‘wondrous things…rejoices…blessed us….gifts of love…”

The answer is unsettlingly simple: God’s Word tells us that this is His will for us: “…give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus,’ 2 Thessalonians 5:18. All means all means all means all – God knows that selective thanksgiving is not really thanksgiving, that the nature and dynamic of thanksgiving are such that they are marks of a personality, not selective acts of verbal gratitude. “Give thanks, with a grateful heart,” says the praise song.   

Reflective question: “… all circumstances …”  will you ask the Lord to give you a thankful heart?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 9:1 –“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; …”

Reflective hymn:

“Now Thank We All Our God” – Martin Rinkart (1586-1649)

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,

With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;

And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed,

And free us from all ills in this world and the next.