Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

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I am not ashamed to admit that the season of Advent and Christmas is my favorite time of the year. I love the decorations, the lights on the houses, and the music playing in the background wherever you go. Through the mire and muck of the commercialism that has become Christmas, there is still the clear and unavoidable message of the birth of our incarnate Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the resulting joy, hope, peace, and life that comes through faith in Him.

I have, over time, curated an extensive list of Christmas music that I start playing while doing the dishes on Thanksgiving Day. My list has just about everything ranging from the old European Carols and classic hymns to the more contemporary Christmas Jingles. I remember my grandparents having the Time-Life multi-album Christmas Treasury which they’d play when we’d visit for the holiday, and from that album I’ve just been adding more and more of the Christmas Songs.

Over the next few weeks, I thought I’d share here in the blog just of few of my favorite, more obscure Christmas Carols, with a little of their history, and some links so that you can listen to them too.

Es ist ein’ Ros’ entsprungen
(Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming)

With it’s text taken from the imagery of Isaiah 11:1

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.”

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming is one of the few, really good Advent Hymns that captures the hope and expectation of the coming Messiah. The words and the music work well together, conveying the longing of God’s people for deliverance.

I recently found this article on the hymn from 2015 in The Atlantic Online,

“Pull up any choral recording, slide over to the penultimate phrase—“amid the cold of winter”—and listen hard to that last word. Between the first and second syllable of winter, the minor chord blossoms into major. I mean this seriously: What else is there to  say? Here is the chill of winter transfigured into an ardent flame; here is theology as harmony. “Lo, How a Rose” even includes an extended pastoral analogy and an allusion to the Book of Isaiah. I’m not a Christian, but I’m at a loss as to what more you could want from sacred music. Kazoos?”

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/lo-how-a-rose-eer-blooming/421518/

(The rest of the article is an excellent read. I encourage you to follow the link and learn more.)

The original version of the hymn may have come from the German Rhineland, with at least 22 stanzas, appearing in a German Hymnal in 1599. Now it is usually sung with just 2 or three stanzas, typically as an a cappella choral piece.

Here are a couple of links to the carol. The first is from the Pitt Men’s Glee Club. The words are listed below.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming
As men of old have sung.
It came, a flower bright,
Amid the cold of winter
When half spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind:
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright
She bore to men a Savior
When half spent was the night.

This Flower, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels with glorious splendor
The darkness everywhere.
True man, yet very God
From sin and death He saves us
And lightens every load

Words are Public Domain

Alternatively, I’ve also included a recording by Sufjan Stevens, which gives the carol more of a folk/bluegrass feel.

A Call to Prayer

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It has been my custom over the past few years during the week of Thanksgiving to post one of the Presidential Decrees of Thanksgiving in order to be reminded of our blessings as a nation, and of our constant need to turn to God in praise and thanksgiving.

This year, as we approach Thanksgiving in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I know many of us will have to celebrate differently than we have in the past. Many families cannot come together because of travel restrictions and concerns for spreading the virus. Some live in places where gatherings or more than 2 households are prohibited. Even if you celebrate in a normal fashion, there is a cloud hanging over our heads that is unavoidable.

This year I thought I’d take a slightly different approach at Thanksgiving, and post a Presidential call for Prayer. COVID isn’t the first pandemic to hit our nation. Recently, we’ve seen the H5N1 (Avian Flu) and H1N1 Flu viruses. In 1918 there was the Spanish Flu.

But even before that, in the 1830-40’s, the world was gripped with a Cholera Pandemic. Originating in polluted water sources in India, Cholera moved through Africa, Asia, and Europe, before finally coming to the US. In Russia alone, cholera killed over one million people, including the famous composer, Tchaikovsky. Over 20 years, more than 200,000 Americans died of Cholera.

On July 3, 1849, President Zachary Taylor proclaimed a National Day of Fasting and Prayer, writing:

At a season when the providence of God has manifested itself in the visitation of a fearful pestilence which is spreading itself throughout the land, it is fitting that a people whose reliance has ever been in His protection should humble themselves before His throne, and, while acknowledging past transgressions, ask a continuance of Divine mercy.

It is therefore earnestly recommended that the first Friday in August be observed throughout the United States as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer. All business will be suspended in the various branches of the public service on that day; and it is recommended to persons of all religious denominations to abstain as far as practicable from secular occupation and to assemble in their respective places of public worship, to acknowledge the Infinite Goodness which has watched over our existence as a nation, and so long crowned us with manifold blessings, and to implore the Almighty, in His own good time to stay the destroying hand which is now lifted up against us.

(Source: Benjamin Franklin Morris, Christian Life And Character Of The Civil Institutions Of The United States, from Internet Archive)

As we gather this week to celebrate Thanksgiving, may we recall before God all for which we have to be grateful. We praise God for His providential care, for the blessings that He has bestowed upon His creation, the mercies of God which are new every morning, and the love that He has lavished upon those He has redeemed in Christ Jesus. May we speak of His glory, His grace, His wisdom, and His faithfulness toward us. And may we humbly, reverently, and passionately plea for God’s hand to stay the destruction of this virus which is now upon us.