Together Again, and Bread Hymns

This past Sunday the Bells of Grace played for worship. We wanted to play one last time with Andrew before he flies the coop and heads for doctoral studies at Florida State. I love working with the bell choir, especially because it is so much fun to see 12 or 13 individuals all come together to make fantastic music. If you've never played bells, it may be hard to believe how very much can go wrong so very easily. It makes it all the more of a joy to work with a group like we have at Grace right now. It's exciting when we can not only play the right notes, but actually make music as a group. Plus, we like each other, and it is great to have a chance to play once over our summer break!

Best wishes to Andrew in his new endeavors. He has been an absolute blessing to the music ministry at Grace for the past three years, and we are going to miss him!

We are now in the midst of several weeks worth of gospel readings that center on the idea of Christ as bread for the world. The church is holding a food drive in conjunction with these weeks of readings ... let's see how much food we can provide to the needy through the Lutheran Food Pantry!

It can be a challenge to find enough "bread" hymns for every week of this time in the church year, but I think we did it without repeating any. One of the great ones will be sung this week: "O Bread of Life from Heaven". This hymn uses a tune by Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517), and our hymnal uses J.S. Bach's harmony for the arrangement. It is fabby, of course! We are going to sing the first two verses in unison, as congregations likely would have done when Isaac wrote the tune, and then try the last verse using Bach's harmony. Sing harmony every chance you get when Bach's the arranger! The tune is Isaac's most famous; he set it to the text, Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen (Innsbruck, I must leave thee). It is haunting and gorgeous. The text for our hymn came from Maintz­ich Ge­sang­buch, 1661, trans­lat­ed from La­tin to Eng­lish by Philip Schaff, and Hugh T. Hen­ry. Meditating on these words would be great preparation for this week's liturgy:

O Bread of life from Heaven,
O Food to pilgrims given,
O Manna from above:
Feed with the blessèd sweetness
Of Your divine completeness
The souls that want and need Your love.

O Fount of grace redeeming,
O River ever streaming,
From Jesus’ wounded side:
Come now, Your love bestowing
On thirsting souls, and flowing
Till all are fully satisfied.

We love You, Jesus, tender,
In all Your hidden splendor
Within these means of grace.
Oh, let the veil be riven,
And our clear eye in Heaven
Behold Your glory face to face.