ELW 309 - The Only Son from Heaven // ʜᴇʀʀ ᴄʜʀɪꜱᴛ, ᴅᴇʀ ᴇɪɴɪɢ ɢᴏᴛᴛꜱ ꜱᴏʜɴ
ZACHARY'S NOTES:
Stanza 1 // In this hymn, Jesus Christ appears not as a teacher, but as “the only Son from heaven” promised by the prophets and given by God the Father. The original text actually says Christ “sprung from the Father’s heart.” Like the disciples in this week’s reading, we look toward the many ‘bright lights’ of our time - but Christ - the “Morning Star” outshines them all.
Stanza 2 // As God’s Son, Christ arrives as the Lamb of God, who takes away our sin. This stanza refers to Christ as the “anointed” King, echoing Jesus title as “Messiah.” We name Christ in this way because he arrives on earth to “vanquish grim death” and “open heaven” before us. The remarkable picture we sing here is that Christ arrives as a child, and yet, even in this helpless form, He is here to help and save all people.
Stanza 3 // This stanza is a prayer. To ask that we would “know and love God more” might sound like measuring faith, but a literal translation is “to stay within faith’s limits, to do the Spirit’s will.” The Holy Spirit [like John the Baptist in this weekend’s text] points to Christ, so to love God more is to know more of Christ, to whom the Spirit guides.
Stanza 4 // To know Christ as Messiah is to be given faith by the Spirit. Through Christ, we know God the Father, and join with those in heaven and earth who sing the unending hymn: “Holy, holy, holy…”
Stanza 5 // The fifth stanza we sing replaced the original text with a doxological stanza. The poet’s original fifth stanza is not printed in the hymnal, perhaps because of its [at first] seemingly strange or even offensive language. It begins this way: “O kill us [or slay us] with your goodness and raise us with your grace…” God’s goodness is to take away everything we cling to in this life - teachers, time, family, friends - and leave us with nothing other than His grace. The stanza concludes with the result: “So here we may adore you with all our being praise you, and sing our thanks to you.”
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