manifest

[ man-uh-fest ]

adjective

readily perceived by the eye or the understanding; evident; obvious; apparent; plain:a manifest error.

verb (used with object)

to make clear or evident to the eye or the understanding; show plainly:He manifested his approval with a hearty laugh.

to prove; put beyond doubt or question:The evidence manifests the guilt of the defendant.

First recorded in 1350–1400; (adjective) Middle English manifest(e), from Latin manifestus, manufestus “detected in the act, evident, visible”; (verb) Middle English manifesten, from Middle French manifester, from Latin manifestāre, derivative of manifestus. See manus

- Dictionary.com

*Epiphany* by Fernando Gallego (1440-1507), painted ca. 1480-1490

The Author

The Rt. Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, a photo taken in the 1870s.

Wordsmithing perhaps ran in the blood of the Wordsworth clan - the author of the text before us today was the nephew of the celebrated English romantic poet William Wordsworth. He was an Anglican churchman, and a talent in his own right - he took the Chancellor’s Gold Medal for poetry at the University of Cambridge twice, once in 1827 and again in 1828. This text appeared in a collection called The Holy Year in 1862; seven years later Wordsworth would be made Bishop of Lincoln, and he is today interred in the cathedral there.

His contributions to hymnody are many: besides this hymn, three others (LSB #477, LSB #494, and LSB #906) appear in Lutheran Service Book, and Hymnary.com attributes 108 texts to him (though many of these are later translations of his work, and so essentially duplicate listings). In addition, he composed the obscure hymntune WORDSWORTH, which does not appear in Lutheran Service Book or any other hymnal other than its original printing in 1903, some 18 years after Bishop Wordsworth’s death in 1885.

The Text

A mentioned above, this text comes from a collection of Wordsworth’s hymns, The Holy Year, published in 1862. It was intended for use on the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, as a retrospective on the previous weeks’ Epiphany lessons, as follows:

Verse 1 takes its themes from the traditional lesson for Epiphany, St. Matthew 2:1-12, with the visit of the Magi after the birth of Jesus

Verse 2 takes in both of the next two Sundays in the historic one-year lectionary, St. Matthew 3:13-17 (the baptism of Jesus) and St. John 2:1-11 (the wedding at Cana).

Verse 3 is (I bet you’ve guessed it by now) dwelling on the gospel reading for the Third Sunday after Epiphany, St. Matthew 8:1-13, in which Jesus cleanses a leper

Verses 4 and 5 depart from the scheme of the lectionary, though I would argue the reference to Christ shining “like lightning” in Verse 4 is a reference to the Transfiguration, which is celebrated on the fourth Sunday following Epiphany in the traditional one-year lectionary. Otherwise, Verse 4 is largely a meditation on the 13th Chapter of St. Mark’s gospel. The overall more serious temper of these verses is perhaps reflective of the pre-Lent nature of the final Sundays of the Epiphany season (the so-called “-gesima” Sundays of the one-year lectionary).

The verses uniformly end with the phrase “God in man made manifest,” a poetic device that pairs “man” with “manifest” in a symbolic way. This was missing in Lutheran Worship, which had exchanged “man” for “flesh,” but Lutheran Service Book returns to the wording found in The Lutheran Hymnal and Wordsworth’s original text.

While Wordsworth clearly intended this text for use as a retrospective on one of the final Sundays of the Epiphany season (the text is headed “SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY” in the original source), it works equally well as a prospective text when celebrating Epiphany, calling forward the Epiphany stories of the coming weeks so that a congregation can shift focus from the manger scenes of Christmas to the exposition of Christ to the world and the beginnings of His ministry. That said, Lutheran Service Book still appoints this hymn Hymn of the Day for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany, particularly in the one-year lectionary and in Year C of the three-year lectionary (which closely follows the traditional one-year lectionary).

The Tune

The choir stalls and chancel of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle

This tune is, of course, more famous setting Henry Alford’s 1844 text "Come, ye thankful people, come,” which appears in Lutheran Service Book as #892. It is the creation of Sir George Elvey, organist and master of the choristers at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, from 1835-1882. St. George’s is the British royal family’s church inside Windsor Castle, and is famous as the home of the Order of the Garter and burial place of many of Britain’s monarchs, including most recently Queen Elizabeth II.

Elvey was musical tutor to several members of the royal family in his time, and a very accomplished if somewhat overlooked composer in our own time. He has several very nice anthems to his credit as well as a wedding march for Princess Louise, sixth child of Queen Victoria. His other great hymntune, DIADEMATA, is recognizable as the tune for “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” LSB #525.

The tune itself is a real classic of the Victorian hymntune genre, and gives the organist plenty of scope for a good romp since most congregations are very familiar with it. Some beginning organists may find trouble with the intter voices in the Measure 10 (E-Bb, F-A), which I find are easier when both taken with the left hand, but this is really the only teachnically demanding portion of this setting.

While a more restrained registration is generally called for in “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come,” there’s nothing wrong with cutting loose on the last couple of verses of “Songs of Thankfulness and Praise,” which I clearly do in the recording at the top of this blog post. Of particular note is the third line of the fourth verse, “All will then the trumpet hear,/All will see the Judge appear;” which is an excellent opportunity to do a little tone painting by bringing on a trumpet stop or by unleashing any Swell reeds coupled to the Great (which is what I’ve done in the recording above), a registrational technique known as an English swell.

As the tune achieved and maintained popularity through the 20th Century and even up to our own time, it has several modern settings for organ and some for choir, many of which are listed below.