"Singing with Devotion" (4)

Gerhardt's hymn show evidence of a sacramental piety. His hymns presuppose that Christians are participating regularly in the Divine Service, receiving the Sacraments. The hymns help catechize on what is going on with the sacraments, teaching about what we receive there.

Not only Kleinig but many of the speakers made reference to the abundance of sacramental references in Gerhardt's hymns that didn't come through in the English translations.
a) "All the best stanzas didn't make it into English."
b) The images and references to the sacraments often do not come through. As Dr Kleinig said, when translators must render concepts into English along with the constraints of the meter and rhyme, there just isn't much ability to set forth the images in the German poetry.
c) He pointed out how sometimes a hymn would talk about the life-giving nature of "Christ's blood," but be translated as the life-giving nature of "Christ's cross." Certainly nothing wrong with extolling Christ's cross. But the benefits of that cross are poured out to us in the blood of the Supper, and we've lost something when that doesn't come through in translation.