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NOW THANK WE ALL
OUR GOD
(Note: we had
permission to print the text during Lent but have had to remove
the text after Lent. Refer to your hymnal for the text.)
My first exposure
to this hymn of thanksgiving came when I read the account of a
family of German immigrants who arrived in the United States
shortly after the Civil War. The account was written in 1925 by a
woman who had made the journey as a 7-year- old girl. The crossing
was stormy and lasted seven weeks. When the ship reached America,
the girl’s mother read a scripture, and then they all sang “Nun
danket alle Gott.”
The hymn had been
written by Martin Rinkhart, a Lutheran pastor in Eilenburg,
Saxony, during the Thirty Years War in the 1600s. The town had
been under siege. Starvation and the plague were rampant. People
fought in the streets over a dead rat! Pastor Rinkhart buried more
than 4,000 people.
When peace
finally began to dawn on Germany, he wrote the words to this hymn,
expressing his gratitude to God. The Peace of Westphalia, a
collection of treaties, finally ended the war in 1648. Pastor
Rinkhart died in 1649, having served his parish for 31 years.
When we think of
the hardships that lay ahead of the immigrant family and the
problems that faced Pastor Rinkhart and his parish at the end of a
terrible war, we can only wonder that they could still thank God
for his blessings. How can we, who have been even more blessed,
fail to be even more grateful for the blessings he has showered on
us?
Heavenly Father,
as we sing this wonderful hymn of thanksgiving, help us to
appreciate all the blessings you have bestowed on us. We ask this
in the name of your son, Jesus Christ.
Leslie Riggle
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