384. Holy Saturday Hymn

Continuing to close gaps in the LSB three-year lectionary before I proceed with Year B, we come to the observance sometimes also known as the Easter Vigil. Although, actually, the different names travel with different approaches to observing it ("Jesus' rest in the tomb" vs. "It counts as Easter as soon as the sun goes down on Saturday"), sort of like how different hymns written for Jan. 1 are either "New Year" or "Circumcision of Our Lord" hymns. (I don't plan on revisiting that dilemma in this book; see Useful Hymns.) Again, the LCMS online calendar doesn't even provide for a Holy Saturday service, perhaps in recognition of the fact that the clergy are in a state of collapse by that point, but the church I attend does have an Easter Vigil and so does my vicarage congregation, so I wouldn't call this an entirely pointless hymn.

The lessons, per LSB, are Daniel 6:1-24, 1 Peter 4:1-8 and Matthew 27:57-66. The tune is HERR UND ÄTSTER, credited to "Herrnhut, c.1740/1755; Basel, 1830" in the 1970s Australian Lutheran Hymnal, which places it with the hymn "Gathered here, O gracious Lord and Savior." On the facing page, without repeating the music, it is also appointed as the tune for "One thing more than all my heart is craving."

Since my Savior in the tomb has rested,
Having suffered for my sins,
I shall not submit, however tested,
To the death that strives within,
Nor return to floods of dissipation,
Though deemed strange by every man and nation.
Let them judge me as they may:
Christ has set apart my way.

Mew me up, world, like the prophet Daniel
In the hungry lions' den;
Were my faith as mustard's merest granule,
I'd say, "Even so, amen!"
Jesus' death my life has separated
From what was, and what-will-be located,
Through baptism's drowning tide,
At my living Savior's side.