Back in September, I noted that an important American-Lutheran Christian, Robert Graetz, had died. For that post, go here.
Over the weekend, I learned that his wife, Jean, has also died. To read her obituary, go here.
Robert and Jean Graetz deserve to be better known for their public Christian witness. May they rest in peace, and may light perpetual shine upon them.
One of my favorite Advent hymns is “Wake, Awake…,” which has been called “the king of chorales.” It was composed by a German-Lutheran pastor, Philipp Nicolai (1556-1608). You will find it in the “end times” section of the Lutheran Service Book (#516), but it could just as easily be placed in the "Advent" section, since that season, too, at least in part, has to do with Christ's end-time return.
Nicolai, a graduate of Wittenberg University (class of 1579), was pastor of a Lutheran congregation in Unna, Germany, which fell victim to the plague in 1597-98. A great many people died.
During that fall/winter, Pastor Nicolai wrote a devotional booklet “to leave behind (if God should call me from this world) a token of my peaceful, joyful, Christian departure, or (if God should spare me in health) to comfort other sufferers whom He should also visit with the pestilence….” Three hymns were included in this booklet, including “Wake, Awake” (“Wachet auf”). So, this hymn was composed during a pandemic.
Nicolai looked forward to the Lord’s Second Coming, when disease and death would give way to God's New Creation begun in Jesus Christ.
In our time of plague, maybe we need Pastor Nicolai’s perspective more than ever. The hope for God’s perfect future lifts our eyes from despair, when everything looks dark, and points us to our Coming Savior. Yes, we are shaken and disturbed by what is happening all around us. We are visibly reminded that this fallen creation is not our true and eternal home; we are to be looking for that new creation that is coming. In the meantime, God calls us to keep watch, to wait, and not to lose hope. Soon, the night will be past….
“Wake, Awake…,” is based on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matthew 25.1-13), but it alludes to other Scripture texts as well, including Rev. 19.6-9 and 21.21. Look ‘em up! Here are the hymn's three stanzas:
(1) "Wake, awake, for night is flying," The watchmen on the heights are crying; "Awake, Jerusalem, arise!" Midnight hears the welcome voices And at the thrilling cry rejoices; "Oh, where are ye, ye virgins wise? The Bridegroom comes, awake! Your lamps with gladness take! Allelujah! With bridal care Yourselves prepare To meet the Bridegroom, who is near."
(2) Zion hears the watchmen singing, And all her heart with joy is springing; She wakes, she rises from her gloom. For her Lord comes down all-glorious, The strong in grace, in truth victorious; Her star is ris'n, her light has come. Now come, Thou Blessed One, Lord Jesus, God's own Son, Hail! Hosanna! We enter all The wedding hall To eat the Supper at Thy call.
(3) Now let all the heav'ns adore Thee, Let saints and angels sing before Thee With harp and cymbals' clearest tone. Of one pearl each shining portal, Where, joining with the choir immortal, We gather round Thy radiant throne. No eye has seen the light, No ear has heard the might Of Thy glory; Therefore will we Eternally Sing hymns of praise and joy to Thee!
In my opinion, Christian hymnody doesn’t get any better than this! To hear the hymn sung (and to join in singing it!), go here.
One more thing: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the greatest musician/composer of all time (who also happened to be a Lutheran Christian!), based one of his cantatas on Nicolai’s hymn. To listen to the best online performance of it, go here.
Advent hope be with you!
Addendum (12/18/20): Brian Bartusch, who is the organist for the congregation to which my family and I belong, recently uploaded a video of Bach's piece, "Sleepers Awake, a Voice is Calling" (BWV 645), which is also based on the Nicolai hymn. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffm-oSw9Af8&feature=youtu.be
For the past week, I have been watching the wonderful, insightful, and engaging lectures on Abraham Lincoln by Dr. Allen C. Guelzo. I like such thirty-minute "Great Courses" lectures, since they fit perfectly with the duration of my workout routine (on an elliptical machine).
At the time he taped these lectures, Dr. Guelzo was a professor of history at Gettysburg College, which is an institution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Now he is a Senior Research Scholar in the Council of the Humanities and Director of the Initiative on Politics and Statesmanship in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. In addition to his other academic degrees, he earned a Master of Divinity degree from Philadelphia Theological Seminary. Given his interest in Christian theology, it is not surprising that his most well-known and award-winning book is on Lincoln’s religious views: Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President (Eerdmans, 1999). (For Brian Lamb’s excellent interview with the author, go here.) (Further aside, but relevant for what follows: Back in the day, Dr. Guelzo supported Jack Kemp for president.)
I cannot help but draw attention to the lecture I watched this morning. It is the penultimate one in the course. Its title is “The President’s Sword.” While the second half of the lecture does, indeed, examine the failures and successes of U. S. Grant, the first half is all about Lincoln’s own “sword,” namely, his pen.
In the lecture, the professor reminds us of the president's 1861 letter to a special session of congress that he had called. Lincoln's letter, dated July 4th of that year, ought to be read by every American citizen, especially now, when, in our present national crisis, we have a sitting president who refuses to accept or publicly acknowledge the will of the majority of citizens who voted in the last presidential election. Would that the current leaders of the Republican Party would take to heart these words of their party’s most famous father.
According to Dr. Guelzo, “[Lincoln’s] first message to congress... turned into one of the greatest defenses ever offered for the essential role of [the] peaceful transfer of power as a key element of democracy…. In a democracy, majority rule, and therefore minorities must submit…. When minorities rise up against that rule and refuse to abide by the decision of the majority, then the very operations of democracy are disrupted, and the only result can be anarchy.”
The context to which Dr. Guelzo’s analysis applies, of course, was the aftermath of the 1860 presidential election.
Here’s a key paragraph from Lincoln’s letter:
"Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled--the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains--its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war."
To read the full letter online, go here.
I look forward to watching the final lecture, "The Dream of Lincoln," during tomorrow's workout.
When I was an infant and young boy, my dad, who was usually the one to put us to bed, always ended our bedtime ritual by singing a prayer. One of the stanzas went, “Now the light has gone away. Savior, listen while I pray. Asking thee to watch and keep, and to send me quiet sleep.” On some nights, we sang other stanzas to the same tune, including “Jesus Savior, wash away, all that has been wrong today. Asking Thee to watch and keep, and to send me quiet sleep.” (For the original German of "Muede bin ich, geh zur Ruh,", as well as an English version of the whole prayer-hymn, see Lutheran Service Book #887, "Now the Light Has Gone Away.") On still other nights the lyrics of the prayer-song changed yet again, while the tune remained the same: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
When my wife Detra was pregnant with Jacob, I used to sing these same lullabies to him. That ritual was continued, as his childhood bedtime was marked by those same sung prayers/hymn stanzas. For the first decade of his life, those prayers were a part of our bedtime ritual. (I’m pretty sure he’s continued to say them himself even though he’s now a mature 21-year-old….) When I was a young father, I learned from my own dad that when he was a child, those same lullabies were sung by his dad, my grandfather. Of course, he sang them auf Deutsch, which is how my dad learned them. So, these lullaby prayer-songs have been passed down from generation to generation. They are songs that pass on Christian faith as trust and confidence in God.
After hearing them sung a few years, it dawned on me that those prayer-songs were also rather sobering. They reminded me each night that I am mortal, that in fact I could die that night. Nevertheless, if I did die, I could trust that God would take me to be with him in heaven. So those lullabies helped to establish a safe place for me as a kid in an environment where I knew that, yes, I could die, and that someday I will die. Lullabies hold—and check—our fears about a world that’s full of mortality, a world that is often unforgiving, cruel, and downright evil.
How many of you have sung lullabies to your children or grandchildren before they go to sleep? Lullabies are nearly universal. This morning I was reading the Dec issue of National Geographic. In it is an article about lullabies. That article was what made me think of those prayer-songs my dad would sing with us kids every night. As the article points out, lullabies have a way of giving a person identity and comfort, of creating kinship and group membership. To sing a lullaby with a child is to make a connection. Lullabies help to bring quiet at the end of a bustling day. They are almost a kind of protest against the pressures and cruelties of the day. Sung in our most intimate spaces—usually a bedroom—these songs help to establish safe spaces for children. I suspect that during this pandemic, lullabies have become even more important. They help to preserve tender moments between parents and their young children. There is even a growing body of scientific evidence that indicates lullabies help soothe both the parent and the child. Stress drops for both the singer and the one to whom the song is sung.
Sung across cultures, lullabies echo the histories of those who sing them. And that brings us to Mary’s lullaby, which we call “the Magnificat” (Luke 1.46ff.). I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of this psalm or prayer-song as a lullaby, but it dawned on me this morning, as I read that article, that this could very well be a lullaby, one that Mary didn’t just sing on that one occasion with Elizabeth but one that she likely sang throughout the rest of her life. It was a song that was passed down “from generation to generation,” and that included her son’s generation as well. Maybe Mary sang this song as a lullaby that would comfort her child Jesus in the midst of a cruel world, where the rich and mighty hold all the power, and where the poor and lowly are threatened and often trampled upon. Just as the lullaby that my dad sang with me reminded me that I was mortal, but that God was greater than my death, so Mary’s lullaby reminded her and Jesus that this fallen world is not always fair and just, but that God would ultimately bring about his justice and would vindicate those who had suffered injustice at the hands of cruel and evil people.
Mary’s song has the structure of a psalm, and its content ties to Israel’s history, to the mighty deeds that God has done in that history. And Mary’s lullaby holds out hope—the focus for this first week in Advent—hope that God will do new and glorious deeds in the future. So, like a good lullaby, Mary’s song is full of sober reality and hope and comfort. Her song expresses her own trust and confidence that the Lord will be mindful of her and of all God’s faithful. Just as God had been faithful to ancient Israel, now he would be faithful to Mary, his chosen servant.
This prayer-song, which I think could have functioned as a lullaby for Jesus, gave him his identity and purpose, and provided comfort to him as he developed as a young boy. It certainly shaped his future ministry, his own divine purpose, and what God was going to do in and through him. He lifted up the humble and brought down the mighty powers of evil. He filled the hungry with good things, and he had strong words of criticism against the rich and worldly. His entire ministry was one of mercy, of helping individuals in dire straits. And still, for all the good that he did, he was unjustly accused, unjustly tried, and unjustly sent to a Roman cross. Could it be that Jesus may have sung Mary’s lullaby as he went the way of that cross? Might Mary’s song have been on Jesus’ lips as he died at the hands of unjust and powerful rulers? Could that song not have given him some measure of hope amidst his suffering and dying? And as Mary herself witnessed the death of her son, might she not have hummed this very lullaby, hoping that God would vindicate her dying son?
Truth be told, God did just that. Jesus was raised from the dead by God the Father. The tables on sin and death and evil were turned. In the wake of our Lord’s resurrection, it became clear that he had not only helped Israel but all the descendants of Abraham—and that includes us, too, all who have been baptized into the family of Abraham and who have received the promised blessing that God freely gives to us in His Son, the crucified and risen One. Yes, Jesus was put down by the mighty, by those who sat on earthly thrones and who were responsible for his death. But we, too, put down Jesus ourselves: our sins and powerful misdeeds are just as much to blame for his death as were the actions of Pilate and of all the rest who conspired to send him to the cross. But, like Mary sang and prophesied, God vindicated Jesus and confirmed him as Lord and Savior by raising him from death. And in so doing, God has put down the powers of sin, evil, and death itself. He has put down your sins and your death. And he has raised you to new life in him.
So Mary’s lullaby, her lyric-poem, this prayer-song, has now become our own. We will again sing it tonight and throughout this Advent season. We, too, will be reminded that God’s mercy extends to all who are brought low because of their sins and failures. We are awed that God would show mercy to us. So we, too, glorify the Lord who has done such great things for us. We are grateful to God’s Son—Mary’s son!—for what he has done for us and for the whole creation. God is mindful of you, too. You, too, are blessed, for he has performed his mighty deed in Jesus’s death and resurrection for you.
And now we are waiting for that same Lord Jesus to come again. That’s another mighty deed for which we hope and dream, and about which we sing our spiritual lullabies and hymns. We look forward to that great day when the Lord will manifest his victory over all the principalities and powers and will fulfill his promise to make all things new. So not only can we sing, “Now the light has gone away…,” but we can also sing something like, “Rock a by baptized, do not you fear; never mind baptized, God is quite near. When you are troubled, call on his name, for he will be with you, Christ’s kingdom shall reign.” In his name. Amen.
P.S. I should add that before Jacob was born, we asked my former professor and mentor, Dr. John Scheck, to write a hymn for Jacob's baptism. (Dr. Scheck was my academic adviser at Concordia College, Portland, where he taught me history, philosophy, and the humanities. He also composed the school's song, "Out of Darkness.") We sing Jacob's baptismal song every year on the anniversary of his baptism. That song, too, has become for us a kind of spiritual lullaby. It is based on Rom. 6.4 and Titus 3.5. Here are the lyrics:
Refrain: Just as Christ was rais'd from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may have a new life.
Stanza 1: Lord Jesus Christ your death and resurrection have brot to life all those who die with you, and by the washing of regeneration, your Holy Spirit does our lives renew.
Stanza 2: Renew the life of Jacob David Becker, with living water from your well of grace; Enfold him in your arms and in your Kingdom, let him rest snugly in your love's embrace.
Stanza 3: Recall for us in all your congregations, the blessing of our own baptismal days; Let parents, sponsors, children, all your people, lift up their hearts in joy and thankful praise.
Back in 2015-2016, my son and I were quite engaged with the presidential campaign. In the fall of 2016, when he was a student in a rural Indiana high school, he was the only person in his civics class to say publicly that he supported the Democratic candidate for president. Some of his friends gave him a difficult time for that position. He felt a lot of anger during those months. Nearly every day that fall, we had to de-compress and talk over serious matters. In retrospect, those post-school nights were meaningful experiences, as it allowed us to discuss our political views and develop strategies for getting along with our neighbors and friends who had different views from our own.
Based on what Jacob had heard from his friends at school, there was a lot to process. Some of those conversations began with words like, "Dad, can you explain to me again why we are supporting Democratic candidates this year?" Part of that whole experience, which I will treasure for the rest of my earthly days, was watching the nightly NBC news together with my son and conversing with him about what we were watching. We then tuned in to the PBS NewsHour and discussed what we were seeing and hearing during its segments. Ever since 2016, I have periodically cut out articles from the New York Times (yes, I still receive a hard copy each day) and The Atlantic, and have put them by Jacob's placemat on the kitchen table. During our dinnertime (yes, we still also eat together as a family), we would engage in conversation about those items.
We kept coming back to the following points:
Personal character matters.
Telling the truth matters (cf. Ps. 5.6).
Speaking the truth from the heart and not slandering others matters (cf. Ps. 15.5).
Lying and flattering with a double heart are wrong (cf. Ps. 12.1-2).
Caring for every human being matters since every human being is created in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1).
Seeking wisdom matters (cf. Solomon's prayer).
Praying for the fruit of the Spirit matters (cf. Gal. 5.22ff.).
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount matters (cf. Matt. 5.3ff.).
Caring for the widow, the orphan, the homeless, the poor, the immigrant, the oppressed, the sick (!), the marginalized, the voiceless--all this matters (cf. Ps. 10.17-18; Ps. 82; Ps. 113.7-9; Lk. 2.47-55).
Serving the Lord with fear matters (Ps. 2.11).
What does the Lord require of us but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God (Mic. 6.8).
On the night of the election in 2016, we were excited and then terribly disappointed, to put it mildly. Jacob wasn't sure he could go to school the next day. I wasn't sure I could go to my classes the next day. We talked into the wee hours of the night and decided upon a few points:
(1) We would go to school the next day and do what each of us needed to do;
(2) We would also agree to take a semi-nazirite vow until a new president was elected. I say "semi-nazirite," since I agreed only not to cut my hair. Strong drink was still an occasional option, and I might have to officiate at a funeral (which I did have to do). (For more on nazirite vows, cf. Num. 6.1-21; Jg. 13.5ff.; 1 Sam. 1.11ff.; Acts. 18.18).
Jacob and I agreed that, during the time of our vow, when we saw the length of our hair each morning, we would say a prayer for our nation, for our president, for the congress, for the Supreme Court, for our neighborhood and community, and for our friends and family. We prayed that God would grant us wisdom and strength, courage and truth, and guidance to follow the teaching of Micah 6.8 and Matt. 5.3ff.
While we jointly kept that vow for more than four months, alas, Jacob's girlfriend insisted that he cut his hair for prom in the spring of 2017. We talked this matter over for a few days and agreed that I would maintain the vow so that he could maintain his friendship with his girlfriend and go to his high-school prom.
Throughout these four years, we have read the Scriptures each morning and evening, prayed in the manner described above, and have asked God to give us wisdom, guidance, and courage. I have tried my best each morning to get my lengthening hair into decent shape. I must say that this semi-nazirite routine has helped me enter the day with renewed faith and hope, especially in the wake of some really trying tweets and times.
Today, in light of the AP's announcement about the outcome of the presidential election, my wife cut my hair.
Still, I don't plan to change my morning routine anytime soon (cf. 1 Tim. 2.1ff.; 1 Pet. 2.13ff.). I will continue to pray for my country, for the president, the congress, the Supreme Court, the president-elect, the vice-president-elect, and for all current and newly elected office-holders--and I will do so in light of the above Scripture passages.
To see the video of the haircut, go here.
Every American learns about Mrs. Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as maybe a few other instrumental figures in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, but how many individuals learn about Pr. Robert Graetz? People should know about him, too, especially Lutheran Christians.
I first met him in the fall of 1986, when I was completing my third year of seminary education as a vicar at Emanuel Lutheran Church, Lancaster, Ohio, and he was a Lutheran pastor just down Rt. 33 in Logan. As a part of that year-long experience in practical theology, my supervising pastor and I attended the monthly meetings of the local ministerium. Those meetings included a nice lunch, so I especially looked forward to them. On a few of those occasions, I sat next to or across from Pr. Graetz. I remember him as a kind person with a gentle spirit. You could tell that he had been a minister for a long time, that he had been around the block more than twice.
Funny
thing is, while I remember meeting him and having conversations with him, I do not
recall him ever talking about his early ministry. That year, 1986, he was named
“Alumnus of the Year” by Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, but I did not attend
that ceremony, where Pr. Graetz’s early years of ministry would have surely been acknowledged and celebrated. I only learned about that period of his life when years later I read Taylor
Branch’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning book, Parting the Waters: America in the King
Years, 1954-63 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988). Branch refers to Pr. Graetz at several important points in that narrative.
In 1955, upon completion of his education at
Trinity Seminary, Pr. Graetz was assigned to be the pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church,
Montgomery, Alabama. He, his wife, and their two young children headed south.
Pr. Graetz was filling the pastoral position that Pr. Nelson Trout had recently vacated. (Pr. Trout who later became the first black Lutheran bishop in the Western
Hemisphere, was surprised that a white pastor would be assigned to Trinity congregation
and that he and his family would be living in the newly built parsonage in that black neighborhood.)
According to Branch, “The Graetzes discovered instantly that
the social effects of the new location were severe. Previously, Montgomery
whites had allowed Trinity pastors to live among them and preach to Negro
Lutherans, on much the same social calculus that allowed doctors to visit a
brothel in a medical emergency. Now that they were living in the brothel,
however, the Graetzes forfeited their modicum of acceptability. Local whites
shunned them everywhere from the laundromat to the supermarket….” (126). Some black people in the congregation also were critical of Pr. Graetz. A few even stated publicly that they did not need a white person to tell them how to practice Christianity.
Later that same year, Pr. Graetz and his wife Jeannie worked to support the Montgomery bus boycott, and he was the only active white leader in the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA). He was the lone white pastor in the crucial protest meeting at the Holt Street Baptist Church, shortly after Mrs. Parks had been arrested and where Dr. King delivered one of his most famous speeches that year. Indeed, Mrs. Parks, who sometimes led N.A.A.C.P. meetings at Trinity Lutheran Church, was one of Pr. Graetz’s closest friends in the black community.
During the boycott itself, he personally
drove some of his parishioners to and from their jobs, all those many months.
Still later, he undertook steps to prod the city toward integrating its public
parks, playgrounds, and other city properties, and he continued to be involved in the MIA.
Because of these actions, he became a target of the KKK and white supremacists. On August 25, 1955, while the Graetz family was out of town, a few sticks of dynamite exploded in their front yard, blowing out many windows up and down the street. As a part of that police investigation, some of Pr. Graetz’s personal property and letters were removed from his study, and he himself was so rudely interrogated by the investigators that his young son blurted out, “Go away, you bad policemen!” (Branch, 191). The mayor even went so far as to accuse Pr. Graetz of setting off the dynamite himself, as a publicity stunt.
In response to that
bombing, Dr. King sent his first letter of protest to President Eisenhower,
stating that Montgomery Negroes were living “without protection of law.” Other
churches and clergy homes were also bombed in Montgomery, e.g., the
church and home of Pr. Ralph Abernathy. In January 1957, the Graetz home was bombed a second time. That was the year that a photograph of Pr. Graetz, Dr. Abernathy, and Dr. King was published on the front page of the New York Times.
Pr. Graetz died this past Sunday at the age of 92. According to the NYT obituary, during those years of civil protest and conflict, he found solace in Psalm 27, which includes the verse, “Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.”
He later wrote in his memoir, “We feel God has given us the unique privilege of standing with one foot in the black community and one foot in the white. It may not be comfortable, but that is where we are. And until God tells us it is time to slow down, we intend to keep pressing ahead with our witness.”
May this servant of the Lord rest in God's peace, and may his witness continue to have a positive impact in both church and society today.
To read his full obituary, which has an interesting if brief video embedded in it, go here.
Also, as I state at the beginning of the lecture, this is simply my "take" on the Lutheran tradition of higher education and its relationship to Valparaiso University. Other professors at Valpo or other Lutheran scholars might put the emphases elsewhere or describe Valpo's identity differently. But I do think that what I present in the lecture highlights some of the key features of that complicated tradition and shows their abiding connection to the university I'm proud to serve.
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| Taking a Break from Translating Schlink's "Ecumenical Dogmatics" |
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| Checking a Definition in Cassell's |
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| Luther Hall (photo copied from Concordia's webpage) |
