Disappointment set in. The more I sang “How Lovely Shines the Morning Star,” the more I missed the presence of a story line. Unlike Nicolai’s other "greatest hit" "Wachet Auf", this seemed to have no beginning, middle, and end. Every stanza, though beautiful in its own right, sat like a pearl on a necklace without a clasp, an unending circle of the beauty of Jesus. Without an obvious progression, it’s been very hard to remember which stanza comes next.
For several days, I said, “Fine, that reflects the seventh stanza’s depiction of Jesus as ‘Beginning without end, the First and Last, Eternal.’ I can learn to live with that.” From readings on the German version of Wikipedia, I knew too that Nicolai was a mystic—into blessed feelings of oneness and theological arguments about the absolute unity of God and man—so I guess that kept me from looking further for a while.
But about twenty minutes ago, the light dawned. Although each stanza is intensely personal and full of the first person no matter the scriptural references, the general structure seems to be based on the Old and New Testaments.
These references are not comprehensive, but are noted as evidence:
Stanza 1—references to the Old Testament
Morningstar, Jesse’s root, David’s son from Jacob’s stem, king and bridegroom
Stanza 2—Old Testament and Gospels all mixed up together
Mary’s son, highborn King, Gospel as milk and honey, King as heavenly manna
Stanza 3—Gospels
Part of the Lord’s body as branch is to tree
Stanza 4—Gospels
Lord Jesus as giving me Spirit/Word/Life/Blood
Stanza 5—Epistles
God the Father has loved me from beginning of world, I’m wedded to Your Son
Stanza 6—Old Testament, (possibly Gospels), Epistles
All instruments praise God, Jesus is my bridegroom, everyone should be jubilant and thank the Lord the King of all the earth
Stanza 7—Revelation
Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, He will take me to Paradise; “Amen, amen, come…do not wait long” (reminiscent of second-to-last verse of Revelation)
Whew. Nicolai takes us through the Prophets right up to Revelation, even touching on the historical books through his references to David. Only one thing he neglects: he doesn’t seem to mention anything about the Law. Hmmm....
P.S. Here is the most helpful article (in German) on Nicolai that I struggled through!
2 comments:
From Gail Ramshaw's book, "Words that Sing "Philipp Nicolai was a Lutheran pastor living in the second half of the sixteenth century....he was renown for preaching like Chrysostom and for attacking Calvinists for their virulent polemics. He is remembered, however, not for such stereotypical Lutheran spirit, but for the two love songs he composed. Communal tragedy inspired him to write; In 1597-1598, the plague killed 1,300 of his parishioners, and he wrote some meditations and hymns as his preface says, 'to leave behind me (if God should call me from this world) as a token of my peaceful, joyful, Christian departure, or (if God should spare me in health) to comfort other sufferers whom he should also visit with the pestilence.'"
To know the circumstances, and the utter desperate times Nicolai lived and faithfully served under, is to intimately be acquainted with the consequences of the Law and the Fall of Mankind. To endure the death of those we love shouts the Law in our face more than anything else I know.
It brings me crawling back to the Cross with such longing that is too deep for words. I lost my sister last year and am grateful for Nicolai's "comfort" those visited by this pestilence called death.
I think this is called the Queen of Chorales because it speaks Grace like no other to those crushed by loss through death of a loved one, the most intimate reminder of the consequences of our failure to live up to the Law.
I'm so glad that Ramshaw goes into a little more detail about Nicolai's life. Most of the books I have say three things: (1) N. was a Lutheran; (2) he wrote these songs in 1599 in direct response to the horrors of the Plague; (3) "Wachet Auf" and "Wie Schon Leuchtet" are considered the "King and Queen of Chorales." Not much to go by! The gloss is very thin in some of these hymn-story books.
By the way, the source I listed above in the postscript says Nicolai PROBABLY wrote the songs around 1599, but that is "controversial". Anyway, they appeared first in that 1599 book "Freudenspiegel dess ewigen Lebens" [Glad Mirror of Everlasting Life] that Ramshaw identifies as a book of comfort--so even if they were written earlier, they were deemed worthy of presentation in response to the Plague.
As you note, they are STILL worthy of helping us respond to death. I haven't lost anybody terribly close to me yet, but would like to learn songs like these to be bolstered "in the event".
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