Message 11-20-05

Series: Going Deep

Scripture: Romans 8:28-39

Title: Write Your Hymn

Intro:

This is the closing of our series on "Going Deep". It’s the last of the hymns that we’ll be looking at for a while. It’s funny how I hear from different people. Some people love a series and some people just wait for it to be over. I hope you haven’t been too put out looking at these older expressions of faith. We – meaning the church of Jesus – have passed them down year after year, generation after generation because they tend to be easy for a group of people to sing and because of what they say. These are deeper songs and deeper expressions and it’s not harmful for us, as people who live in our time and age, to examine and consider what believers and follower of Christ have done and said before us.

This hymn that we look at today, "Now Thank We All Our God", should be seen as a deep expression even though it is such a simple sentiment. It’s become linked with our nation’s celebration of Thanksgiving because of its words, and so some people have come to believe that it comes from the American Pilgrim community that landed and founded a home in Massachusetts. But the truth is that although it comes from the same century, even the same generation of people, and it certainly would have made sense to the pilgrims up in Plymouth, it was written in a different place.

It would not surprise me to learn that, if connections could have been made quick enough, that before the Pilgrims were in America 50 years they were already singing this. The Pilgrims understood suffering and that’s where this song comes from – a place of deep suffering.

Study:

What a strange thing to suggest. This song so full of life and thankfulness grew out of deep suffering. It would strange if it weren’t true.

The song was written by a Lutheran priest named Martin Rinkart back in the 1600’s – you may remember that the Pilgrims landed in 1620. And you also may remember that the Pilgrims were leaving Europe for religious freedom. The Pilgrims got blown off course and, instead of ending up in the warmer climate of Virginia, they came upon and were left on the hard cold coast of what became New England. They fought the weather, illness and discouragement, working desperately hard to survive. They would have understood and appreciated Martin Rinkart.

A couple of years before the Pilgrims left for their new home was the beginning of the Thirty Years War. This was a complex and sad and destructive time where much of Europe was involved in wars of many sorts. One of the primary factors unfortunately was religion.

In the century before the Reformation had taken place. Martin Luther, John Calvin and others had brought the church of Jesus up short in their protests and accusations – demonstrating that the Roman based church had lost sight of its core faith. The Bible and God’s work in Jesus were no longer their focus. The rebellion led to many, many people joining into the Protestant Reformation.

By the 1600’s the Catholic Church had taught itself how to read again. The Renaissance was blossoming, the printing press was taking hold, and the King James Bible was printed. There was a reformation within the Catholic Church and Princes, Kings and even the Holy Roman Emperor moved to reclaim much of the land, property and people that had left the Catholic Church.

War broke out everywhere at once and then over and over and over again. Christ followers fought Christ followers and other people used their turmoil as a great excuse to grab what they could and to look out for themselves. Some people look at these aspects of history as examples of why religion is bad or even evil. I look on them as examples of how human beings are… so in need of a Savior. We take the truest expression of love, self-sacrifice and faithfulness and claim that as the source of our war.

In the midst of all the turmoil there will always be people of faith – who are just people of faith. It seems that Martin Rinkart – the author of our song today was one of them. Rinkart became the archbishop of a area of Germany that was being overridden by too many armies. He lived in a walled city called Eilenburg where he pastured.

Because it was a walled city refugees flooded it trying to escape from the wars and battles around them. A plague broke out and decimated the population. Thousands of people died. The pastors who were in the town were burying up to 50 people a day. Then, the other pastors died and Martin Rinkart was left to handle things on his own – the only pastor in town. After the plague the town was hit with a famine and Martin tried to hit a balance between feeding his own family and feeding the starving people who came to his home every day. A fire broke out during this time and some 800 homes were destroyed. Because of the illness there were times when the gravediggers refused to work, so Martin ended up digging the graves before performing the services. Then came the Swedish Army.

Today we think of the Swedish army as neutral, but they were terrible aggressors. The Swiss came and demanded a ransom or they threatened to sack the city. The commander wanted say $30,000 florins – about $15000 dollars. Martin Rinkart brought a small group of leaders with him and led the way out to the Swiss encampment. He begged for leniency and was told there would be none. So, he turned to his friends and said they wouldn’t get any help from people and should turn to God. So they got on their knees right there and prayed for God to help them.

The commander was moved in listening to Martin’s prayer and so reduced the ransom to $2000 florins.

In a relatively short time after that the war ended and to help in the celebration service, recognizing the peace, Martin Rinkart wrote the words and music of this hymn. It was translated some 200 years later by Catherine Winkworth and we have it today.

Out of his suffering he was still able to find these words.

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

Just in the little bit I’ve told you just think about how amazing it is that these words came from a man who had seen the kinds of things that Martin saw. Talk about life crashing down on top of you. For thirty years he watched army after army crushing the life out of the countryside and its people. He watched his friends, family, colleagues, neighbors all die, killed by plague, by famine, by fire and by war.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessèd peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

The best I can figure this is that through it all God spoke his presence and strength into Martin’s heart. There was a greater calling and a greater purpose than the religious or political agendas of his day and that was where he was working. His expression of faith comes through his heart, his hands and his voice. He knew the presence of God each day because he depended on it to get him through it. This hymn was an expression of a whole man, a real human being and it has spoken to the people of Jesus through ages.

I believe that Martin’s hymn came straight out of his life and wasn’t some sentimental dismissing of the reality he lived. As you consider these words I encourage you to hear them as a plain expression of the truth he lived every day. And I encourage you to find the same thing in yourself.

Listen to the work of your life, listen to what breaks your heart, listen to what gets you truly and deeply angry in the world and see if you can find God there. See if Jesus is looking at this stuff with you. See if the suffering that presents itself to you helps you see Jesus.

I’d encourage you to try something. When you get up in the morning, bow your head and say to Jesus, "I can’t do this without you".

Start with that and see how you do.

Start with that and use it as the starting point for your own hymn. For the last several weeks you’ve sung your way through this variety of songs that have come down to us from a variety of people in lots of different circumstances. Most of them have ended up praising God for what they see around them and for what they are involved in – they praise God right from where they live.

So, I’m encouraging you to write your own hymn. Write the hymn that comes out of your life. I’m suggesting that the way into that is to bow your head, just when you’re sitting on the side of the bed before you get up and say, "I can’t do this without you."

Use that as your guideline to walk into your day.

Whatever you face know that you can’t do it without Jesus. When it really starts to pile up just admit to Jesus, "I can’t do this without you." See how often you say it. Let it lead you through the day. Let it lead you back to your bed at night – the time when you will let all your defenses down, when you’ll be your most vulnerable and say, regardless of the alarm, I know, I can’t do this without you.

And then after a little bit start saying "Thanks." "I can’t do this without you" and "Thanks" are two of the fundamental expressions of hymns that come right out of life. They start to become regular conversations. Let them become the starting points of what you have to say to God in all your life. See how your life becomes more and more a hymn of your heart to God. Instead of rules then you can hear Paul’s words as the natural consequence of living in God’s Spirit.

 Live in peace with each other. 

^{14And we urge you, brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.  16Be joyful always; 17pray continually; 18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.  19Do not put out the Spirit's fire; 20do not treat prophecies with contempt. 21Test everything. Hold on to the good. 22Avoid every kind of evil.  23May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.}

I believe this is what we will find in Martin’s Rinkart’s life and in the hymn of our own hearts.

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, Whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.