Our
helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.
For
still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
his
craft and power are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
on
earth is not his equal.
---Martin Luther, c. 1529
In some churches, when time in the service runs short, hymns
may be abbreviated by leaving out verses (personally, I think each verse has
its own message for me, and I love singing them all!). With most hymns you lose
some of the wisdom using this approach, but the general message remains
understandable. Today’s hymn is a stark exception. Sing only the first verse of
this hymn, and the world is left in the hands of evil, with no valiant hero to
fend off our “ancient foe”. What a state we’re left in at the end of the
first verse of this 500-year-old hymn!
But in hymns as in life, an old saying comes to mind. It
goes like this: “Everything works out in the end. If things haven’t worked
out, it’s not the end!” With our human
shortsightedness, we grow impatient for things to work out, for problems to be
solved, for worries to be calmed, for questions to be answered, for right to
prevail. Because our sight is limited to vision, we tremble at the unseen
unresolved. Because our sense of time is
limited to what we can measure, we cower at the prospect of a boundless
future. Remembering that God’s time is not
often our time, let us actively await the final stanza…
“God’s kingdom is forever.”
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