184. Onesimus & Philemon Hymn

The full topic/title of this hymn is "Onesimus & Philemon; Honor in Humble Service." These "heroes of the faith" were a runaway slave and his master, both of whom (while separated) came to Christ through the apostle Paul, who then reunited them. The whole story is sketched out in Philemon, the briefest of Paul's New Testament epistles. As a last resort I could pair the hymn with a tune I have used before, CHRISTE, WAHRES SEELENLICHT; but I am hoping I can stir up one of my hymn-writing friends to contribute an original tune, and one better structured to make sense of the rhyme scheme.

Christ, to serve all men You came,
Lashed and bound to set us free,
Crowned with thorn, arrayed in shame,
Kissed with whip, enthroned on tree,
Forced a bitter wine to drink:
When on humble tasks we think,
Call to mind Your lordly fame
Set aside on Calvary!

One Onésimus, a man
Useful more in name than deed,
Fled his master, ere God’s plan
Bade Paul plant the gospel seed.
Thus did Christ, their Lord and Slave,
Choose both slave and lord to save;
What in uselessness began
Was for useful service freed.

Well the one served Paul in chains;
Yet though slave and free are one,
Paul commended him with pains
To his lord, Paul’s other son:
Both begotten by one word,
Equal grace on each conferred,
Cleansed alike of vice’s stains,
Aught between them pardoned, done.

Lord, as with Onesimus,
Make us willing, patient, true,
Brave, devout, industrious,
Fruitful, useful unto You.
Like Philemon, let us live
Fellow sinners to forgive,
And to those be generous
Who the deeds of service do!

EDIT: David P. Werner contributed the original tune ONESIMUS for this hymn. I think it's breathtaking:

Three Robbie Stories

When I begin a phone call to my mother with the words, "I have a Robbie story for you," I can be sure the conversation will end with her wiping tears of laughter off her cheeks and saying something like, "I really needed that."

For those tuning in late, "Robbie stories" are what my mother and I call the tales of my own stupidity and bad luck, which either happen only to me or are just remembered that way because I make a point of telling them well.

When she introduced me to her current fiance, the first thing she wanted me to do was tell him some of my Robbie stories, the way that always makes her laugh.

I have had three Robbie stories for her since I moved into my present rented house in Versailles, Mo. By way of remembering them for future chin-wags, here they are.

Robbie and the Sauerkraut Sandwich

Don't cry.

So I was lying in bed one night, torn between wanting to sleep and fear of continuing to have the same dream that had been plaguing me for hours. It wasn't a frightening dream; it was, in fact, a very boring dream. A very, very, very boring dream. It was a dream about being at work, struggling through a task so tedious that it should have put me to sleep, but instead it kept waking me up out of sheer horror that anything could be so dull. Every time I started to drift off, the same dream came back.

I finally decided I would rather lose a night's sleep than put up with that dream any longer, so I got out of bed and went - where else? - to the kitchen. Perusing the contents of the fridge, I realized it contained an unopened jar of sauerkraut which, with some ketchup and salad dressing and a couple slices of bread, could make a meatless, cheeseless Reuben. At 3 a.m. in a night turned topsy-turvy by stupid dreams, that somehow seemed a good idea. While I was making it, I thought, I'll brew a cup of chamomile tea to help me sleep afterward.

I took out two slices of bread. I smeared ketchup on one slice and salad dressing on the other. Then I started trying to open the sealed jar of sauerkraut. I strained at it. I changed my grip. I sweated. I grunted. I gnashed my teeth. I banged it on the counter. By no amount of effort in my power could I break that seal. And then, suddenly, it popped; I was so surprised, I lost my grip on the jar and it went flying.

My one stroke of good luck is that the jar did not shatter when it landed on its side across the slices of ketchup- and salad dressing-smeared bread. It did, however, eject a third of its contents all over the counter and into the sink. Sauerkraut and sauerkraut juice everywhere. I had to pick up everything on the counter and mop under it with paper towels. I had to wash ketchup and salad dressing off the outside of the jar. I had to pick up globs of sauerkraut and throw them away. I also had to throw away a cereal box that had been standing on the counter, and that was now saturated with sauerkraut juice; the cereal, safe inside a waxed paper bag with a chip-clip holding it shut, survived.

I also had to fish sauerkraut out of the kitchen drain. I'm afraid some of it got away from me. To this day, weeks later, that drain is still blocked - mostly, I suspect, with slices of fermented cabbage. And that's after being treated with two bottles of gelatinous blocked-drain solvent. When I wash dishes or utensils, it takes half a day for the sink to empty. It goes nicely with my oven, which is still so filthy from the previous tenant never having cleaned it that I have yet to bake anything in it. (I emptied a can of foaming oven cleaner into it once, but it didn't foam up and I gave up the idea of cleaning it.)

Of course, the sauerkraut juice soaked into the bread, and I had to throw that away too, uneaten. But luckily, my cup of chamomile tea was still brewing, and it looked all right. I carried it to the wastebasket to dispose of the teabag - whereupon I fumbled the teacup, spilling two-thirds of the beverage over the outside of the wastebasket and on the floor. Now I had to get down on hands and knees, with wads of paper towel, and mop up yellow, sweet-grass scented tea.

When my work was done, all I had to show for it was a third of a cup of chamomile tea, room temperature, and a blocked kitchen sink. I definitely should have stayed in bed.

Robbie and the Bed Casters

You know. These.

Part of my excitement about moving out of my parents' guest room and into my own house was based on the realization that, after 15 months on a mattress and box spring that lost their ability to support a grown person's weight years ago, I could finally sleep on my own bed again. But then I couldn't find the casters that went with my metal bed frame. I knew where they should have been - at the bottom of one of two RubberMaid barrels I used to store lawn and garden supplies, such as hosepipe and hedge trimmers - but they didn't seem to be there.

I looked and looked, but did not find. So in desperation, I went to a hardware store and spent more money than I wished on two pairs of cheap little casters. When I inserted them in the holes in the bed frame's legs, they immediately tried to slide out again, but with only a little difficulty I managed to get them all on.

Over the next couple of weeks, I found sleeping in my own bed less comfortable than I had expected. Partly this was because I seemed to be lying on a slope. One side of my bed stood distinctly higher than the other. I wanted to roll off it toward the right, and had to hang on for dear life toward the left. I partly put this down to the unevenness of my house's floors, which in places was so pronounced that I reckoned it only a matter of time until I stumbled, for example, head foremost into the toilet, or collided with the grandfather clock in the hallway. But I also suspected the new casters weren't seated quite right.

One day I got down on my knees and looked at the casters. And behold, the one at the lower right corner of the bed (as I lay on it face-up) had actually buckled under the weight. I pulled all four casters off and threw them in the garbage, then dug in that RubberMaid barrel one more time and, amazingly, fished out the original, heavier-duty casters.

I'm glad they're on, though the bed still feels tilted. A drawback of both sets of casters, however, is that the bed likes to roll around on the bedroom's hardwood floor. I get on the bed at night and it moves. I get out of the bed and it moves. I make the bed in the morning and it moves. This can be a good thing, as I need to move around the bed to tuck sheets in and so on. But it can also be a bad thing, as I learned one night when I had propped myself up in a sitting position, using every pillow I own, because of headache and acid reflux.

Sometime in the middle of that night, my weight leaning against all those pillows, leaning in turn against the wall at the head of the bed, caused the bed under me to move away from the wall. Most of the pile of pillows then dropped into the gap between the bed and the wall. And that is where the excellent builders of my house located the power outlet where I plug in my bedside lamp and alarm clock.

I haven't mentioned it before, but all the power outlets in my house lack the ability to grip prongs of an electrical plug. I've had to experiment with bending the prongs, balancing the plugs just so, and sometimes just pushing things against them to keep appliances like lamps and space heaters plugged in. I guess it's the head of my bed that keeps my alarm clock plugged in. The way my bed rolls freely on its casters and the hardwood floor, this has often been a concern to me. But that night it wasn't the bed's movement but the collapsing tower of pillows that pulled my alarm clock's plug out of the wall outlet.

Needed.

So, because of those bloody bed casters - without which my bed frame would be gouging cracks in those nice floorboards - I had to get out of bed in the middle of the night, rearrange all the pillows, make the bed, and re-set the alarm clock. I'm starting to think about shopping for a hammock. Or at least bed-frame caster cups.

Robbie and the Hanging Clothes

Last Saturday I spent the morning at what I later learned was the more grungy of the two laundromats in Versailles, Mo. Nevertheless, I managed to get all my clothes cleaned, dried, and neatly folded or hung on hangers. I put the hanging pants in one basket, folded over, and hanging shirts in another, and loaded them into the car with the baskets of folded clothes.

When I reached home, the first thing to happen when I opened the back door of my car is that the basket of hanging pants rolled straight out onto the unpaved driveway, landing open-side down.

I immediately picked it up and brought it into the house, where I inspected the damage. Somehow every pair of pants had picked up a coating of dirt, dried grass clippings and fragments of dead leaves, etc. So had the inside and outside surfaces of the basket. I had to brush dirt off both sides of every single pair of pants and brush out the basket. I cannot begin to explain how, in one brief contact, all that dirt got into all those places. The closest thing I can get to an explanation is, "Of course it would, because I'm Robbie. This is the kind of thing that always happens to me."

Two by Alexander McCall Smith

The Good Husband of Zebra Drive
by Alexander McCall Smith
Recommended Ages: 13+

In the eighth novel of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, that series of charming diversions set in the African country of Botswana by a Zimbabwe-born Scottish writer, Mma Ramotswe lets her husband, a good man and a good auto mechanic, try his hand at detection. She also has a near miss with losing her trusty assistant, for since Mma Makutsi became engaged to the heir of a successful furniture store, she has started to chafe against being a mere assistant.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is assigned to help the rudest woman in Botswana find out if her husband is cheating on her. Partly because of her brusque refusal to give him a clear description of her husband's car, he inadvertently follows the wrong man in an embarrassing mistake that, by luck, turns out for the best.

Both Mma Makutsi and Charlie, the older of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's two silly young apprentices, try their luck with other careers. Mma Makutsi's rash resignation lasts half a day before a humiliating encounter with her secretarial-school nemesis sends her running back to the detective agency. Charlie's attempt to launch the Number One Ladies' Taxi Service comes to an ignominious end before it has even started.

Meanwhile, the agency solves a couple mysteries in the low-key, down-to-earth way typical of the series. Mma Makutsi flushes out a thief who is stealing from his employer by offering a piece of advice based on a flawed understanding of human nature. Mma Ramotswe discovers the crime behind the unexplained deaths of three hospital patients and, surprisingly, it isn't murder. Even Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni foils a criminal conspiracy. But as in their other adventures, the most interesting discoveries they make are about their relationships among each other.

I am slowly but steadily working my way through this series and one or two others by the same author. I enjoy them for their economy of language, their gentle insight into human character, their sense of humor, and their flashes of lyricism shined upon a culture and a country of largely unsung beauty.

This review was based in part on an audiobook read by Lisette Lecat, and in part by a hardcover copy, both borrowed from the local public library. The next book in the series is The Miracle at Speedy Motors.

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate
by Alexander McCall Smith
Recommended Ages: 14+

In the sequel to The Sunday Philosophy Club, Isabel Dalhousie of Edinburgh, Scotland reflects, as moral philosophers do, on duty, weakness of will, and even whether memory may be seated somewhere other than the brain. Along the way she is diverted by a mystery in which a heart transplant recipient seems to have received, as well, the donor's dying memory of the face of his killer.

For one thing, her niece Cat returns from attending a wedding in Italy, followed by a handsome Italian suitor who is closer to Isabel's age. While she considers trying to seduce Tomasso and enjoying herself a bit, she struggles with concern about Jamie, Cat's ex-boyfriend, for whom she harbors inappropriate feelings while he only wants Cat back. Her advice, when bassoonist Jamie tells her he plans to turn down an offer from the London Symphony Orchestra in order to stay close to Cat, is both hard for her to give and nearly the end of their friendship.

In the midst of these personal dilemmas, Isabel agrees to help a man named Ian explore the meaning of the painful flashes of memory that he fears will lead him to reject his new heart. Not for the first time, her sleuthing - what someone with a less finely calibrated sense of ethical duty might even call nosing into other people's business - puts her in possible danger, when she recognizes the man following her on the street as the possible killer of Ian's heart donor. As in her previous case, though, the real solution turns out to have more to do with the pain of a young man's surviving loved ones, with the healing of guilt and grief.

In this series, the Scottish author of the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency series displays more of his proprietary blend of humor, scenic and cultural charm, reflection on matters of character, and mystery-suspense that simmers on low heat. McCall Smith hits notes I have heard him play before, including references to en brosse haircuts and akrasia (cf. 44 Scotland Street), but these references have a comforting familiarity, much like how fans of his Botswana-based novels might take comfort in their repeated references to Mma Ramotswe's "traditional build" and Mma Makutsi's "difficult skin," etc. The Edinburgh setting has its own palate of colors that the artist uses in all the books he sets there, until certain phrases simply evoke Edinburgh. When I tire of them, I will stop reading them. For now, though, I just hope the local library system can supply me with the third book in this series: The Right Attitude to Rain.

Closing in on the Magic Number

The expanded edition of my "Useful Hymns" book is shaping up quickly. The number of original hymns I have been aiming for all this last year is 200, double the number I initially published at the beginning of 2015, and that isn't counting hymns that I translated and existing hymns (translation included) for which I supplied original tunes. I may also, when all is said and done, work into the book my melodic setting of Luther's Small Catechism and a Divine Service setting that I wrote almost 15 years ago.

But for right now, I'm just excited to have a specific plan for each of the remaining 17 slots in the main sequence of hymns - hymns for which I now have titles, topics, and in some cases, tunes picked out, though I have yet to write their texts. Here are my plans for hymns 184-200, in no particular order:

• HEROES OF THE FAITH
  
  • Abraham: For Justifying Faith
  • Jacob: Wrestling with God
  • Moses: Strength in Weakness
  • Joshua: For a Devout Heart
  • David: The Gift of Penitence
  • Isaiah: For Christ-Centered Ministry
  • Minor Prophets: Warning and Promise
  • Women of the Faith
  • Timothy: For Faithful Youth
  • Onesimus & Philemon: Honor in Humble Service
  • Seven Churches of the Apocalypse: For Perseverance
• CARE OF THE COMMUNITY
  
  • Intercession for the Sick
  • For the Despised and Rejected
  • For Troubled Families
  • For Healing of Division
  • For Courage
  • For a Cheerful Heart

With my plans for the remainder of this book so clear, I can all but taste the completion of the project. As for the hymns for which I haven't chosen a tune in advance, I'm thinking about asking my friends in one or two hymn-writers' discussion groups to contribute their original tunes. Perhaps they'll agree to an exchange, in lieu of royalties, in which I will let them make free use of my work if they let me use a bit of theirs. I think it would be good to stir into my book a few tunes that aren't either old unsung masterpieces or my own original work; call it creative diversity.

183. Hymn for the Body Politic

Apropos this year's presidential election cycle and all the signs that our civilization is sliding down a steep slope to utter ruin, here is my attempt at a hymn interceding for the condition of society. I am aware the "Gomorrah/flora/fora" rhyme in the first stanza lends it a splash of unintentional humor, especially given the uncommonness in everyday English of the plural form of "forum" and the sketchy effect "flora" has on the poem's tone. All I can say is, not every poem can be equally successful. I felt it imperative to allude to Sodom, Gomorrah and Nineveh in the first stanza, and every other way I could think of to fit them in had at least equally awkward results. Tune: DER HERR IST MEIN GETREUER HIRT, an 18th-century tune originally paired with Wolfgang Mosel's German paraphrase of Psalm 23.

Lord, who would spare for ten men’s sake
A Sodom or Gomorrah,
Whose pity Nineveh could wake
For men and beasts and flora:
Hear now our penitential cry!
Your patient love do not deny
Our nation’s folk and fora!

The heart of man is deathly sick
With sin, a very cancer;
So is our body politic
To Satan’s tune a dancer.
Our citizens and leaders choose
Your kind regard to risk and lose;
Let mercy be Your answer!

You who the world for us preserve
While we of Christ are telling,
Cause yet a while the stars to swerve,
Nor fall upon our dwelling!
Because for us You have such care,
Let wrath be tempered by the prayer
From faithful hearts still swelling!

Since You desire good order, Lord,
Let them not bear it vainly
Whom You allow to use the sword;
Let justice, though ungainly,
Protect the innocent from crime
Until the long-appointed time
When You shall wield it plainly!

This generation is so vile,
What medicine can cure it?
Were You not with us all this while,
How long could we endure it?
O Lord, come soon! O Christ, cut short
This age, of which the foul report
Must vex your Holy Spirit!

Till then, help us in peace abide
And on Your precepts fasten!
Remind us You are on our side
When You afflict and chasten!
If evil leaders we deserve,
A faithful remnant still preserve
While to our aid You hasten!

182. Elisha Hymn

Among the final stages in the development of my little book of hymns, I am devoting a section to hymns on "heroes of the faith." The trick is managing always to point to Christ without crassly allegorizing the Bible stories connected with each saint. In some instances, I plan on focusing on one key event in the saint's life that can be used as a lens to focus on Christ. In this case, however, I kind of recap just about everything the Scriptures tell us about the guy from the time he takes up Elijah's mantle (2 Kings 2) to his death (2 Kings 13). I left out a few things, like the she-bears mauling 42 youths (here illustrated by Gustave Doré), the floating axe-head and Gehazi being cursed with leprosy, not only because they didn't contribute to my theme but simply to keep the hymn from becoming too tediously long. Tune: ICH RUF ZU DIR, from J. Klug’s Geistliche Lieder, Wittenberg, 1535.

O God, at work in words and signs
Beyond all comprehending,
Your wisdom seldom brighter shines
Than in Elisha’s sending.
By him You made foul water pure,
And deadly food made sweeter,
That the eater
Might of his life be sure;
Mere salt and flour conveyed the cure.

Moved by a harpist’s soothing tone,
He gave three kings instruction
To dig canals; which, being done,
Brought Moab to destruction.
A widow’s oil from one jar poured
At his word, many filling.
You were willing
Such wonders to record,
That we might fear and trust You, Lord.

He promised childbirth to a wife
Who warned against deceiving;
He then restored the dead child’s life,
That she might learn believing.
With only twenty cakes of bread
A hundred people feeding,
Only needing
God’s promise to be said,
He showed a Greater lay ahead.

He showed his lad the hidden host
That round them stood, protecting;
A foe was routed, blind and lost,
Then saved at his directing.
By his word siege and famine broke,
And God repaid for error
Death and terror;
For what Elisha spoke
You laid on with Elijah’s cloak.

While dying, he a king amazed
With signs in bow and arrows;
Indeed, his bones a dead man raised
Who fell into his barrow.
By whom but Naaman the unclean,
Despite his answer scathing
Healed by bathing,
Is it more clearly seen
Just what baptismal faith must mean?

If we learn aught from him at all,
Lord, not Elisha’s merit
But faithfulness let us recall
That, tasting of his spirit,
We may regard the means You chose
As You Yourself in action!
What reaction
Our reason may oppose,
Treat gently, like his blinded foes!

Yes, Lord! And further, give us eyes
Of faith, to Christ directed,
In whom alone, we realize,
Elisha stands perfected!
Far more does Christ give ample bread;
His death, though He is living,
Is life-giving;
Whatever foes we dread,
Far more His hosts are round us spread.

A Fit of Hymnography

I had another 24-hour fit of hymn-writing productivity, running from after suppertime Friday evening until just before supper Saturday. Between the evening, the wee hours, and the following morning I cranked out three more hymns, plus a fourth later last night. It's all part of a hymn-book project that is rapidly reaching its final form. Evidently climactic stages of a project like this bring out a lot of creative energy!

178. Noah Hymn (A Type of Baptism)

This hymn veered off my plan to be a simple "heroes of the faith" type of hymn, like ones I previously wrote on Elijah and Daniel, and became a hymn on the flood-baptism typology argued by the apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3:20-21. The flood's significance in understanding baptism is a keynote in Lutheran thought, notably expressed in Martin Luther's famous "flood prayer." I have two tunes in mind for this hymn: CROFT'S 136TH (William Croft, 1709)...

...and LAUS REGIS (William E. Fischer, 1887).

Once God destroyed mankind,
When every human mind
To evil was inclined.
Did none His favor find?
Thank God! For Noah walked by faith,
And so our race was spared from death.

God ordered him to build
An ark that would be filled
With ev’ry beast He willed
To spare from being killed;
Then Noah, his three sons, their wives,
Eight souls in all, preserved their lives.

The rain began to pour;
The deep gave up its store;
The waters upward bore
The ark, without a shore.
Before her keel again kissed ground,
That wicked world was wholly drowned.

Now let the baptized see
How this a type may be
For how God graciously
By baptism sets us free!
For as that flood drowned sinful man,
This bath puts sin to death again.

The flood beneath that boat
Eight souls to life did float;
So baptism, Peter wrote,
Now saves you. Thus take note
How God your death to sin designs
And with it your rebirth combines!

Let Noah, sire of each
Who walks this earth, now teach
How we God’s grace might reach,
Fruitful in deed and speech!
God, let us walk, as walk we must,
By faith in You, thereby made just!

---

179. Twelve Apostles Hymn

In another unpremeditated rebellion against the hero-worshiping tone of the typical hymn about the saints, I present this hymn. It pooh-poohs all speculative fancies read into the spaces between the lines of Scripture; it wastes no time before setting aside the example of the apostles and looking toward Christ. In defense of this hymn, it was sorely provoked by a book, The Apostles of Jesus by J.D. Jones, that I consulted for ideas on where to start. I started with the chapter on Andrew (since I intended to treat with him first), and was so horrified by Jones' psychological profiling, building grand edifices on flimsy evidence, reliance on pious rumor, and moralistic sermonizing that my hymn ended up being kind of a polemic against it. I glanced at the chapters on Thomas and the lesser apostles and saw no evidence the Andrew chapter was anything but representative. So if it's good for nothing else, let this hymn rinse off the cloying perfume of pious devotional soft-soap. The tune I selected for it is the 15th century German chorale ICH KOMM AUS FREMDEN LANDEN HER.

Christ, shine Your Light on those who delve
Your writ for rumor of the twelve;
Yea, let them undertake anew
To fix all eyes alone on You!

Of Your apostles, Andrew first
The good news of Messiah burst;
Let us as boldly of You speak,
To Jew as well as heathen Greek!

He who claimed first rank at Your side
Confessed great faith, yet then denied;
Like Simon Peter, gracious Lord,
Let those who stumble be restored!

He who asked for Your right-hand throne
Was first to wear the martyr crown;
Like James, lest we become puffed up,
Lord, bid us taste Your bitter cup!

One wore Your love for him as fame,
Yet in his book effaced his name;
Like John, let us true witness give,
That those we tell of You might live!

Poor Philip hardly understood
That You are fully one with God;
Christ, grant that we in You believe,
That we the Father may receive!

One thought it fit with You to die,
And yet Your rising would deny.
Like Thomas, give us hearts devout,
And treat us gently in our doubt!

One from the tax-collector’s tribe
You called to be Your faithful scribe:
Like Matthew, call us from our shame,
That we may glorify Your name!

From Judas, surnamed Thaddeus,
One question only comes to us;
To us, as well, let Your word come,
And in us, Savior, make Your home!

There yet remain Bartholomew,
A lesser James, a Simon too.
On them, the sacred page is blank;
Keep us from speculation rank!

And if Matthias or if Paul
Were heir to the betrayer’s call,
One is the prayer we would commend:
Lord, keep us faithful till the end!

Besides, we would Your mercy thank
For calling men from ev’ry rank,
Who to all lands the tidings spread
Of You, Christ, risen from the dead!

---

180. Opening and Closing of Preschool

This brief ditty was actually harder to write than the previous two hymns put together. I wrote and deleted at least four full stanzas before I struck what I thought was pay-dirt. The idea for it was suggested by a "preschool song" I wrote, words and music, for the preschool at my vicarage church in Terre Haute, Ind., in 1999. I did not think the original words were worth keeping, but I reused the tune, titled PRESCHOOL SONG.

Good friends, we greet you this new day,
This day the Lord has made!
We ask His blessing on our play,
And on our work His aid!

Farewell for now, farewell good friends!
Until we meet again,
Enjoy the blessings Jesus sends!
God be with you, Amen!

---

181. A Confession of Faith

This final hymn, for now, actually came to the surface while I was musing on a 16th-century German tune for which I wrote a harmonized setting sometime around 1998. I was trying to think of what kind of hymn would work with a tune like that, and before I knew it, I had written one. The tune is titled ICH HAB MEIN SACH; the full first line of the original German hymn was "Ich hab mein Sach Gott heimgestellt," and it was the subject of one of J.S. Bach's cantatas.

On God I rest my hope and trust:
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Without His love I would be lost;
Through Jesus Christ
He has my bonds and burden loosed.

The blood of ev’ry bird and beast
Had not for all my sins sufficed;
Though I the mark have widely missed,
Through Jesus Christ
God freely reckons me as just.

The Father gave His very best;
His Son became the last and least,
And being scourged and crowned and crossed,
Gave up the Ghost
For love of men, down to the worst.

And so, when all my sinful past
And present weakness are confessed,
The life I now live surely must
Belong to Christ,
Who in my place paid such a cost!

When at His board I am a guest,
He serves Himself as host and feast;
And so I dimly touch and taste
With all the blessed
The consummation-meal of Christ.

Lest Jesus’ struggle go to waste,
His triumph will be all my boast.
His grave bought me a holy rest;
From death released,
He lives to raise me from the dust.