Krispin: "Confession of Christ in Song and Sacrament"

Dr Krispin from Concordia Edmonton spoke on Tuesday morning at the recent Paul Gerhardt symposium. Although Krispin had an interesting and well-put-together lecture, I didn't do a good job taking notes, and thus have a lot of disconnected thoughts jotted down.

Although "stories behind the hymns" may be told, many of these are not true, but developed later.

Krispin reinforced Kleinig's comments that the "I" of Gerhardt's hymns is not an individualistic, pietistic thing. He also reminded us that Gerhardt squeezed lots of Bible-story references into his poetry.

Gerhardt was firmly committed to the Formula of Concord. At times, he had to choose between his vow before Christ (at ordination) and the obedience due his king. The Thirty Years War also had a profound effect on his life. Without his fierce attachment to Lutheran doctrine, and without the anfechtung [suffering] in his life, Gerhardt would never have been able to write the hymns he did.

For many of Gerhardt's hymns, tunes were written by the publisher (Crueger) to be attached to particular texts.

People would not often sing from hymnals during church in the 1600s. They would sing from memory. People would sing all the verses at home when they had family prayers. People would learn all the stanzas when they were memorizing the hymns. All 15. Or all 27. Didn't matter how many -- they'd learn the whole thing.

The pastors recognized that heresy came into the church through even minor changes in wording of hymns. Gerhardt was careful to speak the truth clearly against Calvinism.

The altar at Gerhardt's church was adorned with a veil that had a large picture of Christ's face, beaten and bloody, with a crown of thorns. After he'd been pastor there for five years, celebrating the Supper with that image before his eyes, he wrote "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded."

Gerhardt wrote his communion hymn -- "O Lord, My Love, I Have No Rest" -- in 1667. It was his legacy to his congregation when he was fired by the government for refusing to compromise with the Reformed. Pastor Gerhardt expected that heresy would soon be on its way into his congregation, so he wrote this hymn to counter it. He knew that, even if he wasn't there, the words of the hymn would be powerful to catechize the people properly into true doctrine. What is preached from the pulpit is very important. But Gerhardt knew that the words the people memorized and sang would even more strongly influence what they believed.