Hymns: 341, Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates;
345, Hark! A Thrilling Voice Is Sounding;
347, Comfort, Comfort Ye My People.
There are just too many good Advent hymns out there for four weeks of Time Out, so we did three more.
Kudos to the LSB (and LW?) committee for cleaning up pietistic language and using promise language: for example, changing “He may shield us” in 345 to “He will shield us.” I have to be honest, some of the TLH lyrics made me cringe.
341, Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates
- Lift up your heads, ye mighty gates!
Behold, the King of Glory waits;
The King of kings is drawing near,
The Savior of the world is here.
Life and salvation He doth bring,
Wherefore rejoice and gladly sing:
To God the Father raise
Your joyful songs of praise. - A righteous Helper comes to thee,
His chariot is humility,
His kingly crown is holiness,
His scepter, pity in distress,
The end of all our woe He brings;
Therefore the earth is glad and sings:
To Christ the Savior raise
Your grateful hymns of praise. - How blest the land, the city blest,
Where Christ the ruler is confessed!
O peaceful hearts and happy homes
To whom this King in triumph comes!
The cloudless Sun of joy is He,
Who comes to set His people free.
To God the Spirit raise
Your happy shouts of praise. - Fling wide the portals of your heart;
Make it a temple set apart
From earthly use for Heav’n's employ,
Adorned with prayer and love and joy.
So shall your Sov’reign enter in
And new and nobler life begin.
To God alone be praise
For word and deed and grace! - Redeemer, come and open wide
My heart to Thee; here, Lord, abide!
O enter with Thy grace divine;
Thy face of mercy on me shine.
Thy Holy Spirit guide us on
Until our glorious goal is won.
Eternal praise and fame
We offer to Thy name.
345, Hark! a Thrilling Voice is Sounding
- Hark, a thrilling voice is sounding!
“Christ is nigh!” we hear it say;
“Cast away the works of darkness,
All you children of the day!” - Startled at the solemn warning,
Let the earth-bound soul arise;
Christ, her Sun, all sloth dispelling,
Shines upon the morning skies. - See, the Lamb, so long expected,
Comes with pardon down from heaven.
Let us haste, with tears of sorrow,
One and all, to be forgiven. - So, when next He comes in glory
And the world is wrapped in fear,
He will shield us with His mercy
And with words of love draw near. - Honor, glory, might, dominion,
To the Father and the Son,
With the everlasting Spirit,
While eternal ages run!
347, Comfort, Comfort Ye My People
- Comfort, comfort, ye My people,
Speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
“Comfort those who sit in darkness,
Mourning ‘neath their sorrows’ load.
Speak ye to Jerusalem
Of the peace that waits for them;
Tell her that her sins I cover
And her warfare now is over.” - Yea, her sins our God will pardon,
Blotting out each dark misdeed;
All that well deserved His anger
He no more will see or heed.
She hath suffered many a day,
Now her griefs have passed away;
God will change her pining sadness
Into ever-springing gladness. - Hark, the herald’s voice is crying
In the desert far and near,
Calling sinners to repentance
Since the Kingdom now is here.
Oh, that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way;
Let the valleys rise to meet Him
And the hills bow down to greet Him. - Make ye straight what long was crooked,
Make the rougher places plain;
Let your hearts be true and humble,
As befits His holy reign.
For the glory of the Lord
Now o’er earth is shed abroad,
And all flesh shall see the token
That His Word is never broken.
TLH and LW did us no favors in stanza five of Lift Up Your Heads. LW did us no favors with stanza for, either! Thanks, LSB people, for cleaning that one up!
I give a nod to LW for providing the best tune for Hark a Thrilling Voice, though! I think the LSB committee went with the more ecumenical tune.
I want to spend a little time talking about tempo for Comfort, Comfort. If you’re congregation is thumping along at a much slower pace than this recording, ask the organist to pick up the pace a little! After all, Jerusalem’s warfare now is over. This is triumph, not sadness.
If you want to hear Comfort, Comfort at a good clip, check out the opening to the Radical Grace podcast.
I found the Radical Grace theme on youtube (after I weeded through all the Messiah excerpts). Am featuring both versions in a post at All for Hymn.
I actually like the LSB tune for Hark a Thrilling Voice, but that’s just personal taste.
As for Comfort, Comfort, I was quite conscious of the tempo because I tend to rush that hymn, as well as many hymns that have a dance-like quality. So I may have held back a bit. But I still think that is a appropriate tempo for the hymn, albeit on the slower end of the range.
I would say that your tempo in the recording was pretty spot-on. I was using it as an example of how it should be played. In particular, I was referring to the temptation to take this one waaaay to slow, like when metronome setting of 60 or lower = a quarter note. It’s already a long hymn, no need to make it longer than the sermon!
My congregation prefers the LSB tune as well. They caught on to it quickly.
I woke up to your voice echoing in my mind. ♪♫♪♪♪♪ Your grateful hymns of praaaaaise.
That tune for Lift Up Your Heads Ye Mighty Gates was written at the church and my Dh and I were married at and at the same organ to which we walked down the aisle.
One of the organists at our current church plays Lift Up Your Heads about 30% faster than Cantor Beethe is playing it here (which seems perfect to me.) It’s an aerobic workout at our church. *wince*