HOTC #9: LSB 405, To Jordan’s River Came Our Lord

Written By Ryan Frederick

This hymn presages the hymn that follows it in Lutheran Service Book, the very similarly-named “To Jordan came the Christ, our Lord.” So why the multiple hymns with nearly identical titles?

Glad you asked. I’m here to explain!

The Author

The great Lutheran baptismal hymn is Luther’s from 1541, “Christ, unser Herr zum Jordan kam,” the text of which now appears as LSB #406 and LSB #407, and the original tune for which appears as LSB #406. For whatever reason, this hymn either never really made the leap over to English-language Lutheranism (it is not one of the dozens of Lutheran chorales translated by Catherine Winkworth in the 1800s), or was not used often enough to merit making the transition after the anglicization of Lutheranism in the early 20th Century (unlikely, owing to the centrality of baptism in defining Lutheran theology). This was rectified on the occasion of the publishing of Lutheran Book of Worship in 1978, the first occasion on which Luther’s text appeared in English in a published hymnal.

The WELS, however, did not participate in that hymnal or the follow-on LCMS hymnal, Lutheran Worship. Seeing the deficiency, James Tiefel was approached to write a hymn for the First Sunday after Epiphany (Baptism of the Lord). Pastor Tiefel was at the time pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Saginaw, Michigan, but has been a professor at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in Mequon, Wisconsin since 1985.

The Text

As noted above, this hymn arose as a reaction to the rediscovery of Luther’s “Christ, unser Herr zum Jordan kam” in the last half of the last century, in an effort to fill a void, as it were. As such, the text is somewhat (as the titles might imply) parallel to that of Luther’s hymn.

The text begins by hearkening back to Christmas, “…The Christ, whome heav’nly hosts adored,” before an extended reference to the Nicene Creed (and hence to St. John 1) to finish the first verse.

The next three verses reiterate the story of the baptism of Jesus, with the entirety of the third verse given over to the voice from Heaven, paraphrasing St. Matthew 3:17.

Indeed, the Third Chapter of St. Matthew’s gospel has given the Lutheran Service Book committee cause for their only alteration to Pr. Tiefel’s text: while the original second verse contains the phrase “All his promises fulfill,” the Lutheran Service Book committee has gone for “All his righteousness fulfill,” paralleling the words of Jesus in St. Matthew 3:15: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

The text then moves into a more catechismal mode: the fifth verse encapsulates the entire breadth of the redemption of Creation in a mere 26 words. The sixth verse contains probably the most stark and uncompromising statement of substituionary atonement the entire book, with the bold proclamation that “This man is Christ, our substitute!”

All-in-all a powerful and useful text, and useful if one is looking for a condensation of Luther’s text on the following pages.

The Tune

WINCHESTER NEW is anonymously composed, but clearly derives from the hymntune DIR, DIR JEHOVA, which some may recognize as setting “Awake, Thou Spirit of the Watchmen” in Lutheran Worship (LW #315), and “Jehovah, Lew Me Now Adore Thee” in The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH #21). So, while the tune name and the source of the tune (a 1742 hymnbook by John Wesley) are clearly English, the tune has German antecedents. Indeed, the earliest copy of DIR, DIR JEHOVA dates from a now lost German hymnbook from 1690, in which it set the (German) text that now appears as “If Thou But Trust in God to Guide Thee,” LSB #750.

It is not classically a tune with many compositions based upon it, however it has become a popular tune for church composers in recent years, largely due to its being paired with Henry H. Milman’s Palm Sunday text “Ride On, Ride On in Majesty,” LSB #441, the much more famous use of this tune in Lutheran Service Book.

Ryan Frederick
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HOTC #8: LSB 394, Songs of Thankfulness and Praise