387. Feast and Week of Pentecost

With this hymn, I finally close the gap between the beginning of Bountiful Hymns (my third hymnbook, currently in progress) and the beginning of the three-year-lectionary cycle of hymns, which will form the bulk of the book. There's already a hymn for the Day of Pentecost for Series A, and there will be different ones for Series B and C. This hymn covers the propers that the LSB lectionary provides for:

• Pentecost Eve (Exodus 19:1-9, Romans 8:12-17 and optional 22-27, and John 14:8-21);
• Pentecost Evening/Monday (Isaiah 57:15-21, Acts 10:34a and 42-48, and John 3:16-21); and
• Pentecost Tuesday (Isaiah 32:14-20, Acts 8:14-17, and John 10:1-10)

—however rare the occasion may be on which these services are actually observed. The lectionary is the project; I mean to complete it.

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that many of these texts appear elsewhere in the cycle: the Eve's OT in Proper 6, its Epistle in Proper 10 with the optional verses in Proper 11, and its Gospel divided between Easter 5 and 6; the Evening/Monday Gospel overlapping with that of Lent 2; and the Tuesday sharing its Gospel with Easter 4. But that's just Series A; I doubt there will be as much overlap in Years B and C. It's one of those hymns where you'll insert the relevant stanza between the unvarying opening and closing stanzas. The tune, meanwhile, is MANNHEIM, adapted from Friedrich Filitz (1847), which Lutheran Hymnary paired with "Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah" and SBH with "In His temple now behold Him." Also, three hymnals (LHy, CSB and LH from Australia) all set it to "Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us." Yeah, I'm using this meter (8787 87) a lot. One reason is that I know it has a lot of good tunes to call upon, tunes that suit my criteria for this project.

Breathe, you saints, the Spirit blowing
From the cross, the empty tomb!
In your baptism feel Him flowing,
Cleansing like a fiery plume;
Though you feel it not, yet knowing
That He comes and whence, from Whom.

(Pentecost Eve)
On the eve of His ascending
To the cross, the Savior said:
"I another Help am sending,
To indwell you in My stead.
Know the truth, My word attending,
By the Spirit loved and led."

(Pentecost Evening/Monday)
Peter, preaching Jesus' merit
Unto the uncircumcised,
Saw them caught up in the Spirit;
Said, "Shall these not be baptized?"
Lo, the Gentiles now inherit
What the chosen ones despised!

(Pentecost Tuesday)
Now the Spirit brings assurance,
Righteousness and peace to light,
Freeing us from sin's vile durance
And its fruits, shot through with blight,
That, at Jesus' next appearance,
We may welcome Him aright.

(Closing stanza)
Glory to the Father render,
And to the eternal Son
And the Spirit, our Attender,
Gathering our prayers in one:
One in power, One in splendor,
One God, while all ages run!