February 22, 2018
Now Thank We All Our God
(Nun danket alle Gott)
Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices,
who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;
who, from our mothers’ arms, has blest us on our way
with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
Oh, may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
with ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us,
and keep us all in grace, and guide us when perplexed,
and free us from all harm in this world and the next.
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,
the Son and Spirit blest, who reign in highest heaven,
the one eternal God, whom earth and heav’n adore;
for thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
Text: Martin Rinkhart (1586-1649); Tr. Catherine Winkworth (1827-1878)
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 in 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 God has showered on us?
Leslie Riggle
In memoriam
[Yesterday |Lenten Index | Tomorrow]