A Beautiful Thanksgiving Prayer

 Bach and the Blood of Christ

        Several years ago, I listened to an interview of a gifted vocalist who sang in a chorale featuring classical choral selections. She loved the strong melodies and lush, complicated harmonies of Bach’s cantatas. Then she made a disparaging comment about the libretto (words) written in the 12th or 13th century for which Johann Sebastian Bach had composed music in the 18th century. She recoiled at lines about sorrow, suffering, and blood, specifically the blood of Christ.

Cristo Crucificado painted by
Diego Valazquez in 1632. It is
housed in the Museo del Prado
in Madrid. 

        Clearly, the singer did not understand the red thread of the Gospel. The writer of Hebrews in chapter 9, verse 22 wrote, …without the shedding of blood there is not remission (of sin). May we be like J. S. Bach and sing, speak, and tell of a Savior so full of love for rebellious humans that He submitted to torture, ridicule, and a cruel death shedding His own blood.
        May this verse of Bach’s O Sacred Head, Now Wounded be our prayer of Thanksgiving and commitment this week.

        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 for Thee.

Thomas Schaffer gave me the Diego Valazquez print from his European trip. I taught Thomas in church and his third grade year. The photo to the left caught Thomas and my father, Thomas's upper elementary grade Sunday School teacher following Thomas's high school graduation from Woodland High School. Dad and I taught very differently. He opened the boys class that he taught often with this phrase in his prayer, "Lord, help us to learn a little bit today." I was appalled when Thomas as a early high school student prayed this phrase during his offertory prayer. I had to confess to the Lord my judgmental and inaccurate attitude. I have come to believe that if we walk away with one kernel of Biblical truth that will impact our life during the week, then we have  connected with God. 

(Family/Friend Trivia: Thomas and Ashleigh, his wife, lived in extreme northwest Illiniois in one of their early pastorates located 20 miles south of the burial place of Dad's great-grandfather, the first Edmund Gates who was born 1805 and died 1876. Dad would have commented, "Thomas, it's a small world!)