Music for February 18, 2018 + The First Sunday in Lent

Vocal Music

• Lord Jesus, Think on Me – Raymond Haan (b. 1938)

Instrumental Music

• Intermezzo in A, Op. 118, No.  2  – Johannes Brahms (1833-1896)

Congregational Music (all hymns from the Hymnal 1982 with the exception of those marked “R” which are from Renew.)

• Hymn 150 - Forty days and forty nights (AUS DER TIEFE RUFE ICH)
• Hymn 143 - The glory of these forty days (ERHALT UNS, HERR)
• Hymn R223 - Soften my heart, Lord  (SOFTEN MY HEART)
• Hymn R206 - Holy, holy (HOLY HOLY)
• Hymn 559 - Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us (DULCE CARMEN)
• Psalm 25:1-9 Tone IIa

Today's anthem, Lord Jesus, Think On Me, is an arrangement of the hymn that is found in over 111 hymns since the turn of the 20th century. Well over two-thirds of those hymnals use this tune, SOUTHWELL, written  in 1579 by William Daman, an Italian transplant to London  in 1566 as a servant of Sir Thomas Sackville. In 1576 he became a recorder player at the Court of Elizabeth I.

The text is one of the oldest in the hymnal, written by Synesius of Cyrene around A. D. 410. After marrying a Christian in 403, he was converted to Christianity and in 410 was made bishop of Ptolemais by popular demand. In spite of his dissent from some of the tenets of the church, his outstanding character alone made him acceptable. "Lord Jesus, Think On Me" is the last of ten hymns he wrote the year he was consecrated as a bishop.  The English translation was made by Allen William Chatfield, an Anglican minister in England.

The arrangement is by Raymond H. Haan, a Michigan native who was the Director of Music for the Cutlerville East Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids for over 50 years. He is a graduate of Calvin College and the University of Michigan. He is the composer of hundreds of compositions for organ, voice, choir, handbells, piano, and other instruments.

This anthem was written for Jonathan Tuuk and the choir of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids.

This will be the first Sunday of Lent, so the service begins differently than it usually does. We will not have an organ voluntary and opening hymn, but instead will begin with the Great Litany, an intercessory prayer in the form of a litany that includes an invocation of the Trinity; a series of petitions seeking deliverance from evil, spiritual harm, and natural calamities; a series of supplications pleading for the power of Christ in our deliverance; prayers of general intercession; and asking for mercy.

As is the custom at our church as well as many others across the globe, we will sing the Litany in procession around the church. ( The Litany's use in church processions was ordered by Henry VIII when England was at war with Scotland and France.) As the procession takes many turns and loops around the nave by the choir and altar party, it is often referred to as "The Holy Pretzel."

 As is my custom during Lent, I omit playing a festive closing voluntary, opting instead to let the Lenten worshiper leave the church in contemplative silence.