HOTC #22: LSB 424, O Christ, You Walked the Road
Sometimes, albeit rarely, a new text comes along that matches an old tune so perfectly that it actually overtakes the original pairing of tune and text. In many places, the hymn we consider today has become almost the hymn for the First Sunday in Lent, even though the text is only fifteen years old. Below, we dive into the short history of this text, and squeeze the meaning from its five short verses.
Christ Falling on the Way to Calvary by Raphael, ca. 1514-1516
The Author
Rev. Dr. Herman G. Stuempfle, Jr.
Herman G. Stuempfle spent most of his life in his native Pennsylvania, and was an prominent figure in the United Lutheran Church in America (ULCA) and its successor organizations, the Lutheran Church in America (LCA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), eventually becoming first dean and then president of his alma mater, Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He was a prolific poet and hymnwriter, producing two volumes of hymns - Hymnary.org lists 125 texts under his authorship. He was named a Fellow of the Hymn Society in 2004.
The Rev. Dr. Stuempfle died in 2007.
The Text
This text was commissioned by the Allegheny Region of Lutheran Social Services to celebrate their 50th anniversary in 1998. It treads the by now familiar story from the Gospel lesson for the First Sunday in Lent: Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
Christ knows all about our humanity: in Stuempfle’s lyrics He has “…walked the road / Our wand’ring feet must go,” because He has come here and been one of us - He knows of temptation (the theme of the First Sunday in Lent) just as we do; He knows the pain of loss (the theme of the final Sunday in Lent, coincidentally); and He knows all about mob mentality, politics, suffering, betrayal, death, and Hell (Holy Week, in a nutshell). Having not only created humanity, but also physically become humanity, God in Christ comprehends our humanity. This hymn focuses on the first of these: our struggle with “our ancient foe” (Satan, in the language of the hymn) and his temptations, seen through the prism of Christ’s struggle with “our ancient foe” and his temptations.
The hymn treats the series of temptations found in Matthew 4:1-11 in order over the next three verses, beginning with the temptation to turn stones into bread. The not-so-subtle allusion here is to the Lord’s Supper, which, by the Word of Christ, can fill our “hung’ring hearts” in a way no bread on earth - made from stones or otherwise - can do, giving us “…The food Your grace imparts.” The implication, then, is (as we Lutherans know) that Christ’s gifts are present in the sacraments, and the sacrament highlighted here is the Lord’s Supper.
The third verse treats the second temptation, in which Satan demands a miracle from Jesus - in other words, Satan wants Jesus to prove Himself to be God. The poetry here lays out a simple vision of faith, the distilled essence of Christ’s admonition “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”:
“No blinding sign we ask,
No wonder from above.
Lord, help us place our trust alone
In Your unswerving love.”
In the final temptation, Satan offers Jesus “…all the kingdoms of the world…” The text here reminds us that God’s kingdom is greater than any earthly kingdom, and that we should not forsake it for easy gain or the shiny baubles of this world.
The final verse encapsulates the hymn from the end, much as the first verse encapsulated the hymn from the beginning. The wording is parallel, but the meaning changes slightly: Christ has indeed “…walked the road / Our wand’ring feet must go,” and with Christ that road leads to the resurrection, Heaven, and eternal life.
A further, overarching, and perhaps hidden allusion can be found in the imagery of “…the road / Our wand’ring feet must go:” Christ’s carrying of His cross to Calvary, commonly referred to as the Stations of the Cross. The text doesn’t directly address this section of the Gospels, but the mental connection between Jesus walking “our” human road in striving with Satan and that of Christ bearing the cross to Calvary really is inescapable in the wider context of this hymn’s use in Lent (hence the artwork at the top of this post).
The Tune
SOUTHWELL is one of those hymntunes that seems destined for Lent. The E minor tonality has a sort of weighty, heavy quality to it that lends it to this text in particular.
Southwell Minster, Southwell, UK
The composer is one William Daman, a renaissance composer and musician in the English court circles of Queen Elizabeth I. He was a likely native of Italy, possibly from Lucca on the Ligurian coast, and arrived in England in 1566. The tune gained its name and its first serious notoriety in Thomas Ravenscroft’s “The Whole Book of Psalms,” published in 1621. Ravenscroft needed names for the tunes in his book, and settled on the use of the names of prominent English chorale foundations for some reason. Thus the tune name refers to Southwell Minster, today an Anglican cathedral between Nottingham and Lincoln.
The temptation (pun intended) is for this hymn to move slowly, to plod in the same way that we might envision the Stations of the Cross. While a walking tempo is perhaps appropriate, I repeat (as I often do) my caution against hymnplaying that plods or moves too slowly. The singers must be allowed to sing, and ponderously slow tempi impede rather than support that goal.
The tune has become something of a favorite in Lenten collections in recent decades, though is not common in the classical canon (though Jan Bender does have a rather nice setting). A selection of useful settings is listed below.
Settings of this hymn and/or tune can be found in:
For organ:
Concordia Hymn Prelude Library, Vol. 10
Master Organ Works of Jan Bender, Vol. 3
The Parish Organist, Part VII: Lent/Palm Sunday/Holy Week