452. Epiphany 1 (Series C)

The lessons for this Sunday, also known as the Baptism of Our Lord, are Isaiah 43:1-7, Romans 6:1-11 (as in Years A and B) and Luke 3:15-22. The tune is ALL SAINTS, a.k.a. ZEUCH MICH, not to be confused with ALL SAINTS NEW ("The Son of God goes forth to war") or ZEUCH EIN ("O enter, Lord, Thy temple"). However, it *is* to be confused with DIR, DIR, JEHOVA ("Jehovah, let me now adore Thee") and WINCHESTER NEW ("Ride on, ride on in majesty"), which are more or less the same tune but with more or fewer notes, and perhaps also ALLE MENSCHEN MÜSSEN STERBEN ("All men living are but mortal") which has a superficially similar first phrase. It's an incestuous tangle of tunes, for sure.

No, kids, this tune, out of Geistreiches Gesangbuch (Darmstadt, 1698), is the one that SBH and Australia's LH paired with "One there is above all others," CSB and Australian LH with "Who are these like stars appearing," LSB with "Long before the world is waking," LSB and CWH with "Since our great High Priest, Christ Jesus," CWH with "Lord, who left the highest heaven," and the Australian Lutheran Hymn-Book (1925; which I've never indexed and rarely consult) with "Who are these like stars appearing." I really have to update that hymn-tune catalog of mine; its incompleteness is weighing on my conscience. But first, I mean to finish this three-year-series hymn project. To that end:

John came preaching at the Jordan,
Bidding Israël repent.
Ere he donned the martyr's cordon
As a forerunner he went,
Adding this to all besides:
Pointing out God's Lamb and Christ.

Herod heard him, but resisted,
Pleased by any novelty;
In his vices he persisted—
Murder and adultery,
Adding this to all besides:
John's detention and demise.

Jesus, meanwhile, came for washing
By the baptist's humble hand,
In the selfsame Jordan splashing
As the lowest in the land,
Adding this to all besides:
Saving those in Him baptized.

Since He took baptismal waters,
Those whom He now bathes therein
Are reborn, God's sons and daughters,
Transferred from the realm of sin,
Adding this to all besides:
Faith and life He thus provides.

God inspired this promise handsome
In Isaiah's prescient tome:
Life for life one day to ransom,
Calling all His children home.
Now this promise is made good:
We are washed in Jesus' blood.