Much of "Jesus, Grant That Balm and Healing" is about avoiding temptation or overcoming temptation by meditation upon His cross and suffering and the love that motivated Him to rescue us. But recently I was struck by the second stanza.
Should some lust or sharp temptation
Prove too strong for flesh and blood,
Let me think upon Thy Passion,
And the breach is soon made good.
I always thought that meant that we could think about what Jesus has done for us and avoid falling into sin. And it is true that other spots in the song allude to such things. (At least, in English that's how it comes out.)
But I think this part of the hymn isn't talking about avoiding it. Like it says, the temptation proved "too strong." So even then, even when we succumb to the temptation, the solution is still to "think upon Thy Passion." The breach between what God demands and what we actually perform, that breach is made good by hearing the forgiveness of sins.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
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It's interesting that LSB has a different text:
ReplyDeleteShould some lust or sharp temptation
Fascinate my sinful mind
Draw me to Your cross and passion
And new courage I shall find
I don't know if your interpretation of the TLH text is correct, but it makes sense to me and the text seems to point to what you are saying. The LSB text definitely takes away that interpretation and puts it back on our shoulders. It even takes away the strength of temptation using the word "fascinate". It seems to me with each new hymnal the image of the strength of sin has been lessened.
We've been singing this hymn all week from LSB. I think we'll get out TLH next time.
Melanie
Melanie, I haven't looked at the German to know which is a more accurate translation. But one thing I do know:
ReplyDeleteLSB has definitely "lessened the image of the strength of sin." I started complaining about this five years ago. When the suggested hymn translations came out on the internet and the committee was requesting input from the Church, I gave input. Lots of input. In virtually every hymn where there was a reference to "your sin shall not harm you," either the translation was changed, the stanza was dropped, or the whole hymn was dropped. I talked to gobs of guys prior to the 2004 convention (when they voted on LSB), asking them to give input to the committee because they sure weren't gonna listen to some little girlie.
The two huge flaws I see in LSB are the paucity of hymns that are prayers for our pastors and for the Ministry, and the near-total deletion of references to the teaching in Rom 6-7 about how we continue to be sinners even though we are saints, and that that sinfulness does not mean we have ceased to be Christians.
The change (eliminating "No sin can harm if Thou art near" and "What harm can sin and death then do?") began in LW. Over the 25 years that so many pastors and laymen used LW, the lack of those hymn-references changed their theology, so that when they saw such references in TLH hymns, those references went by the wayside. And this is not an insignificant change.
One more thing, before I get accused of being anti-LSB (again!), which I'm not. There is a lot of good in LSB. Especially, the good hymns on the sacraments that weren't in TLH. But the excellent hymns and prayers that got left out of LSB don't have to be ignored. Congregations and families can hang onto their TLHs, and continue to use them for songs or stanzas that were eliminated from LSB. I just think it's really sad that the LHP committee put us into the situation where we have to do that, when we could've had the most superb English hymnal to have ever existed.
ReplyDeleteI particularly think of addiction as that kind of sin that just proves too strong and there is no resisting it. That sin also is covered by the passion of our Christ.
ReplyDeleteI can not tell you how many times I chant to myself "what harm can sin and death now do, the true God now abides with you."