HOTC #25: LSB 447, Jesus, in Your Dying Woes
The Elevation of the Cross by Peter Paul Rubens, 1610-1611
We arrive, at long last, atop the Mount of Calvary, at the scene of the crucifixion.
It’s a curious fact that Holy Week section of Lutheran Service Book is 15 hymns long. Breaking those 15 hymns down, we find:
Four Palm Sunday hymns:
LSB #442 All Glory, Laud, and Honor
LSB #443 Hosanna Loud Hosanna
LSB #444 No Tramp of Soldiers’ Marching Feet
Two Maundy Thursday hymns:
LSB #446 Jesus, Greatest at the Table
Nine Good Friday hymns:
LSB #447 Jesus, in Your Dying Woes
LSB #448 O Darkest Woe
LSB #449/#450 O Sacred Head, Now Wounded
LSB #451 Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted
LSB #452 O Perfect Life of Love
LSB #453 Upon the Cross Extended
LSB #454 Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle
LSB #455 The Royal Banners Forward Go
LSB #456 Were You There
So, 60% of the Holy Week hymns in Lutheran Service Book are devoted to the events of Good Friday, and a paltry two are dedicated to the events of the day before. This hymn kicks off the Good Friday hymns, and while not the oldest or the most storied when compared to many of the hymns that follow it, it has become a standard of the Tenebrae services that it was designed for.
The Author
Thomas B. Pollock
Thomas B. Pollock forged his ministry among the ovens, mills, and workhouses of England at the height of the Industrial Revolution. Appointed curate of St. Alban’s Mission in Birmingham in 1865, Pollock’s specialty (he had won a prize in English verse while at Trinity College, Dublin in the 1850s) were metrical liturgies and litanies. This text came about in 1870, and included in Litanies for Special Services and General Use, published in Oxford that year.
Pollock died in 1896, still working at his mission in Birmingham. This hymn is his only contribution to Lutheran Service Book.
The Text
This hymn takes the form of a seven-part litany, with the refrain “Hear us, holy Jesus” returning at the end of each verse. The verses are grouped in threes around the Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross - in Latin the Septem Verba. This collection of readings from the gospel accounts of Christ’s crucifixion have a long history within the Church, originally living parallel to the Stations of the Cross (which, in its earliest form, had seven stations) and the Sorrows of Mary (a Roman Catholic observance). The seven gospel readings are traditionally thought to represent (respectively) forgiveness, salvation, relationship, abandonment, distress, triumph, and reunion.
There is no introduction, the hymn begins with the reading of Luke 23:34 - each set of three verses then follows its particular reading, and therefore dwell on them, pounding home Law and Gospel alternatively as the recurring “Hear us, holy Jesus” resounds in our ears. It has become the hymn, and increasingly the major portion of the liturgy for the Tenebrae service on Good Friday evening.
For the organist, there is abundant opportunity to tone paint and play with the words via registration and articulation from verse to verse, everything from a small, still gasp to the rumble and tumult of violence (see the TLO recording above for an example). Only the organ is really capable of the broad sonic palate that really makes texts like these come alive.
The Tune
SEPTEM VERBA is, of course, named for the text which it accompanies here. It is one of three hymntunes that Hymnary.org attributes to Bernhard Schumacher, and was composed in 1939 for inclusion in The Lutheran Hymnal in 1941. As one would expect from a tune written to a particular text, the mood and attitude of the tune match that of the text to near-perfection.
Multiple possibilities exist for the organist in the execution of this hymn. It is possible to vary the registration of the verses, returning to a particular identical registration for the refrain at the end of each verse. Alternatively, the refrain could get progressively quieter for each set of three verses. Registration could be varied in order to match the attitude of each verse, or the verses could become progressively quieter, culminating in the haunting, music-less silence in which the congregation will leave the service. The possibilities really are endless.
The tune has not had wide acceptance in other hymnals - it is only the fourth most popular tune for this text, according to the database over at Hymnary.org - and appears only in five hymnals: The Lutheran Hymnal (LCMS, the hymn is broken into seven separate hymns in this hymnal), Lutheran Worship (LCMS), Lutheran Service Book (LCMS), Christian Worship (WELS), and Christian Worship (1993) (WELS).
As such, the use of the tune in composition is confined to Lutheran church music composers of the 20th and 21st Centuries. The Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross, however, have a long history of use in classical music, many of which are masterpieces in their own right (apologies for the Wikipedia link, but it really is a pretty great list).