Hymn of the Day: “We Walk by Faith” ELW 635
Text: Henry Alford (1810-1871)
Tune: SHANTY, Marty Haugen (1950)

Henry Alford included this hymn in his Psalms and Hymns and his Year of Praise. He wrote it for the commemoration of St. Thomas the Apostle. Not surprisingly it begins with 2 Corinthians 5:7 ("We walk by faith, not by sight) and then quotes from the account of Jesus and Thomas in John 20:19-29. But the hymn is about us, not only about Thomas -about our Emmaus walk and our meeting with the resurrected Lord in water, word, bread, and wine.

Henry Alford was the son of a rector; his mother died when he was born and he committed himself to the work God gave him to do when he was sixteen. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, was ordained and first served as a curate with his father, became a vicar and married, and in 1857 was made dean of Canterbury Cathedral, where he founded a choral oratorio society. Though he wrote keyboard and vocal music, played the organ, and painted, he was a parish priest and a Greek scholar who taught and preached well; wrote eighteen hymns; and wrote or edited forty-eight books.

Shanti" is Sanskrit for "shalom" ("peace") and also the middle name of Marty Hagen's daughter. Haugen wrote the tune a century and a half after the hymn was written, but it makes a good fit. It was recorded and included in his Mass of Creation and also in Gather (1998).

Marty Haugen is a prolific liturgical composer with many songs included in hymnals across the liturgical spectrum of North American hymnals and beyond, with many songs translated into different languages. He was raised in the American Lutheran Church, received a BA in psychology from Luther College, yet found his first position as a church musician in a Roman Catholic parish at a time when the Roman Catholic Church was undergoing profound liturgical and musical changes after Vatican II. Finding a vocation in that parish to provide accessible songs for worship, he continued to compose and to study, receiving an MA in pastoral studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul Minnesota. A number of liturgical settings were prepared for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and more than 400 of his compositions are available from several publishers, especially GIA Publications, who also produced some 30 recordings of his songs. He is composer-in-residence at Mayflower Community Congregational Church in Minneapolis and continues to compose and travel to speak and teach at worship events around the world.

Offertory Anthem: “A Song to the Lamb” John Abdenour (1962)

The canticle Dignus est agnus seems to have its origins in American Lutheranism in the late 19th century. It appeared in several service books beginning with the General Synod’s Church Book of 1868. It appears on p. 122 of The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) without music. Earlier books prescribed its use as an option for the main canticle in Matins and Vespers (in place of the Te Deum or Magnificat). Later books suggested it as an alternative song of praise in the Common Service (in place of the Gloria in Excelsis).

The text of this canticle has been reworked into a new canticle, This Is the Feast of Victory / Worthy Is Christ, by poet John W. Arthur. It first appeared as an anthem for choir, Festival Canticle: Worthy Is Christ with music by Richard W. Hillert, and made its first appearance in a hymnal in Lutheran Book of Worship as an alternative to the Gloria in Excelsis in the Divine Service.

John Abdenour sang as a boy in the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral in Detroit and began organ study at the cathedral. He subsequently received degrees in Organ Performance and American History from Oberlin College. After studying law at the University of Michigan and after pursuing a brief career as an attorney, he returned to his first love, sacred music. He undertook further study of Anglican choral training in 1996, when he spent a month in St Albans, singing with and studying the Choir of St Albans Cathedral, then directed by Barry Rose. John is the Director of Music at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fairfied, CT. He is a member of the Association of Anglican Musicians and has served as Dean of the Fairfield-West Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and has served as a faculty member of the Bridgeport AGO Pipe Organ Encounter

REFRAIN: Splendor and honor and sovreign power
are yours by right, O Lord our God,

For you created everything that is,
all things took form according to you will.

And yours by right, O Lamb that was slain,
for with your blood you have redeemed for God,
From every nation, people, tribe, and tongue,
a countless priestly host to serve our God.

And to the one who sits upon the throne,
Christ the Lamb, be worship, dominion,
splendor and praise,
For ages past and ages yet to come.

Closing Voluntary: St. John Damascene (Come Ye Faithful, Raise the Strain), Noel Rawsthorne (1929-2019)

Eighth-century Greek poet John of Damascus ( c. 675 - c. 754) is especially known for his writing of six canons for the major festivals of the church year. (A canon is a form of Greek hymnody based on biblical canticles consisting of nine odes, each with six to nine stanzas.) His "Golden Canon" is the source of Easter hymns. Written around 750 and inspired by the Song of Moses in Exodus 15, this text is John's first ode from the canon for the Sunday after Easter.

All canons in the Greek church demonstrated how Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ's resurrection. The first ode of each canon was based on the Passover event and on Exodus 15 as the metaphor for Christ's delivery of his people from the slavery of sin and death (seen more clearly at 390). That metaphor lies behind stanza 1. Stanza 2 uses images of spring and sunshine as metaphors for the new life and light of Christ. Stanza 3 concludes the text with an Easter doxology.

Organist for many years at Liverpool Cathedral, Noel Rawsthorne emerged as one of the finest organists of his generation, and maintained a non-stop global career as a top-flight concert artist. He proved no less adept as a composer: his numerous introits, carols, chants, anthems, hymn tunes, responses, and imaginative descants, often written for special occasions, have long retained their place in the repertoire.