HYMN FOR THE REIGN OF CHRIST/Jesus Christ, our King
- Gracia Grindal
- 3 hours ago
- 4 min read
Text: Gustav Margerth Jensen 1845-1922. Per Steenberg (1870-1947)
1. Jesus Christ, our King,
Lord of everything,
Crown of thorns is what you’re given,
Then a gleaming crown in heaven.
Jesus Christ, our King,
Lord of everything.
2. You are King of kings.
Not by sword you win your vict’ry
Not by chains you have our fealty
Not with worldly things
Are you King of kings.
3. Truth is how you reign
In your glorious train,
All your people bow before you;
Beating hearts in joy adore you.
Freely truth sustains
You, and how you reign.
4. King, come clear our minds
Of the lies that bind.
Let your cross now truly teach us
As your truth now comes to reach us.
King, come clear our minds,
Of the lies that bind.
5. In your truthful Word
Dwell with us, O Lord.
Help us, Jesus, like no other,
Help us bring the world together
In your truthful Word
All the world, O Lord!
Tr. Gracia Grindal: Copyright © 2012 Gracia Grindal
REFLECTIONS
The naming and renaming of an old phrase like Christ the King which used to be Judgment Sunday to escape some modern issue seems not to have worked when Judgment Sunday was changed to Christ the King which didn’t last long given the fear of using the term King for Christ--it evoked medieval kings or divineright kings so it was quickly changed to the Reign of Christ.
The old Dømmer Dag/Judgment Day was considered too scary. We confess every time we say the Creed, Christ will come again to judge and quick and the dead. So why did the politically correct quail before the idea of king and want it changed? Maybe there were too many grim and frightening sermons preached that day that may have scared the daylights out of the congregation listening. We could ask, well, what was wrong with that? Eternity is a serious thing. One of my colleagues at the seminary would ask his preaching students if they were ready to have the souls of one of their parishioners on their hands because the Sunday before they died they had not heard a sermon that showed them the way to Christ.
Preachers like the great Jonathan Edwards knew how to terrify his listeners and did so memorably in his “Sinners in the hand of an angry God.” It has remained a classic example of such preaching and usually ridiculed until some literature nut explains its literary genius and that the real metaphor in the sermon is not arachnaphobia, fear of spiders, but acrophobia, fear of falling.
Now we have phobias about the language of king or lord because they remind us of a monarchy and feudal system that can be brutal. But we should be careful. Maybe we are adopting the definition of king that Pilate and the people around Jesus kept screaming that he is wanting to be king and displace the rulers of the day. He keeps telling them over and over again, their definition is all wrong. He keeps redefining their take on the word. His kingdom is not of this world. And furthermore, we learn, it is not simply a spiritual kingdom. Herod can bring out his swords against it, but it will not be able to kill it. Somehow in the weakness of a little baby, or a dying man on a cross who will be raised from the dead, everything will be made new. A more powerful king than any imagine. As the hymn for today has it, "Not by sword you win your vict’ry/Not by chains you have our fealty/Not with worldly things/Are you King of kings.”
HYMN INFO
Gustav Margerth Jensen was a Norwegian scholar and churchman who contributed to the liturgical life of Norwegians and Norwegian Americans when he revised the Landstad hymnal in 1921 including his 1887 version of the Norwegian liturgy. Those who grew up with the revised Landstad hymnal, The Lutheran Hymnary or the Concordia still remember that liturgy in their bones. This hymn is based on John 18:33-37 where Jesus’ trial is reported. It was published first in 1912. Jensen was editor of Luthersk Kirektidende and served Vår Frelsers church in Oslo where he was known as a fine preacher and liturgist.
Steenberg served as a church musician who lived and worked in Oslo. He was trained in Leipzig and Copenhagen, and taught at the school for the blind, and the Music Conservatory in Oslo. He compiled a book of harmonies for the Landstad hymnal, which was popular but never authorized. He also wrote liturgical music for the church.
LINKS
Johan Muren/organ and instruments
Christiane Rothfuchs
Jesus the Harmony would make a nice Christmas present. It can be read devotionally over the entire year, one poem for every day.
Blurb
"With these 366 sonnets, remarkable in artistry and number, Gracia Grindal has made literary history. The scriptural and theological knowledge that supports these poems is vast, but it is the imagination infused with the holy in poem after poem that reveals the poet's grace and skill and the astonishing work of the Spirit." --Jill Baumgartner, Poetry Editor, Christian Century, and professor of English emerita, Wheaton College