Excerpts

 
 

FOREWORD

All of scripture can be seen as an invitation to sing. Nowhere is this made clearer than in the Psalms, which are themselves superlative examples and models of what and how we are to sing. Consider, for example, Ps. 95:1, 6: “O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation . . . let us worship and bow down . . . before the Lord our maker”; Ps. 96:1–2: “O sing unto the Lord a new song; . . . shew forth His salvation from day to day”; Ps. 100:2: “Come before His presence with singing”; and Ps. 101:1: “I will sing of mercy and judgment; unto Thee, O Lord, will I sing.”

The same joyful imperative is to be found in the New Testament. Listen to the Apostle Paul’s admonition in Eph. 5:18–19: “Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” Paul strikes the same note in Col. 3:16: “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

And of what are we to sing? The great objective substance of the Christian’s song is the rock of salvation, the Lord’s judgment and mercy. This is what animates and informs our song, not our own emotional responses, sincere though they may be. The salvation and mercy of our God represent the cantus firmus of the Scriptures. The Song of Mary—the Magnificat—and the Benedictus of Zacharias are both wholly objective. Mary does not point to herself; instead, everything is pointed to that which is outside of herself, the grace of God (sola gratia). Her song focuses on what the Lord has done and will do, as opposed to calling attention to herself:

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior. For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him from generation to generation. He hath shewed strength with His arm; He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich He hath sent empty away. He hath holpen His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy; as He spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever (Luke 1:46–55).

Likewise, beginning with the first sentence of the Benedictus, Zechariah directs the concentration of all towards the coming Savior. The thrust of each strand of thought in these songs points to the Lord, and not to the proud father of the newly born John the Baptist:

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David; as He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, which have been since the world began: that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember His holy covenant; the oath which He sware to our father Abraham, that He would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life. And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:68–79).

Outside of Scriptures themselves, this winsome appeal to sing, combined with a firm insistence on the great foundational object of our song, is nowhere more powerfully expressed than in the writings of Martin Luther. Music is one of the greatest gifts of God in his view (and ours): “Next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise . . . The gift of language combined with the gift of song was only given to man to let him know that he should praise God with both word and music, by proclaiming the Word of God through music and by providing sweet melodies with words” (LW 53, 323–4). Of his own limited abilities to articulate this point, Luther declares (LW 53, 321–2): “I would certainly like to praise music with all my heart as the excellent gift of God which it is, and to commend it to everyone. But I am so overwhelmed by the diversity and magnitude of its virtue and benefits that I can find neither beginning nor end nor method for my discourse. As much as I want to commend it, my praise is bound to be wanting and inadequate. For who can comprehend it all? And even if you wanted to encompass all of it, you would appear to have grasped nothing at all.” Such knowledge is too wonderful for us, too. But thankfully, music’s divine power does not need our prose to explain its efficacy.

Luther not only wrote about the importance of song for the life of the church, he himself composed and edited stellar examples of such song to guide others. In his preface to the Lutheran hymn booklet of 1524, Geistliches Gesangbüchlein [Little Spiritual Book of Song] (LW 53, 316), he writes all too modestly: “Therefore, I, too, in order to make a start and to give an incentive to those who can do better, have with the help of others compiled several hymns, so that the holy Gospel which now by the grace of God has risen anew, may be noised and spread abroad.” Luther went to work with a will. Most of his chorales were written between the fall of 1523 and the summer of 1524. These hymns, boldly evangelical, written in the language of the common people, with vigorous rhythm and diction, have indeed served as models for all Lutheran hymnody to follow, as they should. The Reformation produced close to 100 hymnals from 1524 until Luther’s death in 1546. The Babst Hymnal, published in Leipzig in 1545, was considered the finest hymnal of the Reformation period and the last to appear under Luther’s own auspices. The underlying principle in all of these hymnals was to implant the Gospel through music in the most vivid and authentic way possible in the hearts and minds of the young and old alike. Te Laudamus has this goal in common with previous hymnals.

What makes Te Laudamus unique, in an age when congregational song is increasingly centered on the subjective, is the unrelenting attention paid to the objective principle. This is the heart of Lutheran theology. Without the initiative of the Holy Spirit, we lie “fast bound in Satan’s chains,” with death brooding “darkly o’er us” (TL 245, st. 2). It is the judgment and mercy of God, His great gift of grace to sinners, that constitutes the basis of our song. He gives us everything we need in our “low estate” to sing His praises with great gusto.

This volume is not intended to be the “last word” in Lutheran hymnals. It has more modest aims. It is not intended to compete with any other publication. Perhaps it might serve as a companion hymnal to those already in use. But it is unique. First and foremost, Te Laudamus includes settings of all of Luther’s incomparable chorales. No major Lutheran hymnal heretofore, to our knowledge, has done so. This feature alone makes the volume before you one of a kind. Furthermore, many of the hymns of Martin Franzmann, the esteemed 20thcentury theologian and author, and professor first at Northwestern College in Watertown, Wisconsin, and then at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, have been included. Franzmann’s hymns combine finely honed poetic sensibilities with a strong sense for the great objectivity of the Lutheran chorale in a modern mode. Also, hymn translations previously found only in Faith-Life, the theological journal of the Protes’tant Conference, are also now published for the first time for congregational singing. The volume also includes all 150 Psalms, pointed for congregational worship. Frequently, only a selected number of Psalms are included in contemporary hymnals, and at that, they have not always been pointed for congregational singing, as they are here.

It is the editors’ hope that this volume will prove to be of service to many congregations seeking to recover the great, objective singing tradition of the chorales of our past, and to perpetuate their use into the future, in this world and the next. “Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” (Rev. 5:13).

Joel J. Hensel
Fall, 2015

Available Spring 2026

Published by
The Protes’tant Conference
❦
Hardcover | leatherette
Smythe-sewn binding
765 pages
Color illustrations
ISBN: 978-1-934328-06-4

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