HOTC #24: LSB 445, When You Woke That Thursday Morning
Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet by Jacopo Tintoretto, 1548-1549
We last met Jaroslav Vajda back at New Year’s with his translation of the Slovak hymn that eventually became “Now Greet the Swiftly Changing Year.” Here we get a look at some of Vajda’s original work, in what I would contend is one of the more successful and topical pieces of modern hymnwriting out there today.
The Author
As noted above, we’ve discussed Jaroslav Vajda before, and you can find that discussion here.
The Text
This text has its origins in a 1991 brief from the Commission on Worship for the creation of a new communion hymn. Vajda’s own explanation (which you can read in the Companion to the Hymns, I’m not going to steal all their thunder) makes clear that the composition of a communion hymn quickly led him to the examination of the broader theology of the Lord’s Supper and eventually (perhaps inevitably) to the very origin event of the Lord’s Supper, the Last Supper; Maundy Thursday.
The structure of this text can broadly be broken into two parts: the first three verses, which dwell on the Last Supper itself, and the final two verses, which speak to the theology and meaning of the Lord’s Supper.
The hymn addresses Christ in the first person: “When You” instead of “When He,” for example, clearly marking it as a contemporary composition, as older hymns rarely do this. The first verse offers us at first a description of Christ, with some speculation on the introspection that must’ve faced a Christ on the brink of the events of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. The second verse details the circumstances of the Last Supper (again with some interpolation).
The watershed of this hymn comes in the third verse, where the concept of the Lord’s Supper enters the text. The language here is almost epic in quality, and ends with a paraphrase of the Words of Institution.
From here, the final two verses move on to the original Commission on Worship brief: a communion hymn. The text stresses the unity that comes in communion; “One in faith, in love united,” in the opening words of the fourth verse. The final verse draws a stunning connection between the sacrament visited on our altars every week, and the wedding feast of the Lamb, described here so vividly as “…joyous, blest communion / In Your never-ending feast.”
Really great writing - evocative, personal, and rich. It’s Vajda at the height of his powers, for my money it’s one of his best, better even than his much more popular “Now the Silence” (LSB #910).
The Tune
Marty Haugen
Interestingly, Vajda himself preferred the tune IN BABILONE (LSB #650 and #842) for this text, but here it is in the hymnal, set to Marty Haugen’s JOYOUS LIGHT. The tune has its origins in the Holden Evening Prayer, a contemporary vespers service penned by Haugen in the mid-1980s.
As the tune (and, for that matter, the text) are still under copyright, settings are somewhat rare, but a selection of them are listed below.
Settings of this hymn and/or tune can be found in:
For organ:
Concordia Hymn Prelude Library, Vol. 6
Were You There: Easy Hymn Preludes for Palm Sunday, Holy Week and Easter
Alternate harmonizations:
Introductions, Harmonizations, Accompaniments, Interpretations, Vol. 8 by Jeffrey Blersch