HYMN FOR LENT 5. Thee I Love
- Gracia Grindal
- Mar 31
- 4 min read
Text: Johan Scheffler Angelus Silesius. (1624-1677). Tune: Johann Balthasa König (1691-1758)
1 Thee will I love, my strength, my tower;
Thee will I love, my hope, my joy.
Thee will I love with all my power,
With ardor time shall ne'er destroy.
Thee will I love, O Light Divine,
So long as life is mine.
2 Thee will I love, my life, my Savior,
Who art my best and truest friend.
Thee will I love and praise forever,
For never shall Thy kindness end.
Thee will I love with all my heart--
Thou my Redeemer art!
3 I thank Thee, Jesus, Sun from heaven,
Whose radiance hath brought light to me;
I thank Thee, who hast richly given
All that could make me glad and free;
I thank Thee that my soul is healed
By what Thy lips revealed.
4 O keep me watchful, then, and humble;
Permit me nevermore to stray.
Uphold me when my feet would stumble,
And keep me on the narrow way.
Fill all my nature with Thy light,
O Radiance strong and bright!
5 Thee will I love, my crown of gladness;
Thee will I love, my God and Lord,
Amid the darkest depths of sadness,
And not for hope of high reward,
For Thine own sake, O Light divine,
So long as life is mine.
REFLECTION
When Mary comes to anoint Jesus’ feet we see the power of Christ’s love returned to him through her beautiful sacrifice. There are many hymns that teach about God’s love for us, and some that rejoice in our love for Jesus, but this one has a purity of tone that fits Mary’s devotion probably as much as any. Of course, the miser Judas doesn’t like what he sees, he thinks it a waste and even scolds the Lord for accepting the gift. He sounds pious, but Jesus knows his heart. We know this character too. My mother, a shrewd pastor's wife, once observed after many congregational meetings, that often the first one to stand up and oppose some physical improvement to the church building would always say, "We should spend it on missions." While she gave sacrificiously to missions, and supported them, she knew that often this person gave neither to the church nor to missions. It was just a pious thing to say that redounded to the credit of the person.
Mary’s love is about as pure as human love can get. She is flagrant with her substance out of love. We should admire it as Jesus does, reproving Judas for his pious treachery.
This scene in John is just after azarus, her brother, has just been raised from the tomb and whom Martha worried would stink of corruption and just before Jesus washes the feet of his disciples and goes to his suffering and death on the cross. John has begun the story of Jesus’ life with the miracle of the wine at the wedding in Cana, another excess of richness. And it ends with his death which Mary’s offering anticipates. These are the ointments of death. It is like a note in a symphony which warns something is coming.
One hears in the hymn a mystical love and longing for union with Christ. Those are the feelings of Mary of Bethany and the other women in the gospels who wash Jesus’ feet. While most of us may not be able to claim as pure a love and longing, sometimes when we look at Mary kneeling at the feet of Jesus, we see what that might be like. And we admire her, and need Silesisus’ hymn to say it for us.
HYMN INFO
Johan Scheffler or Angelus Silesius as he called himself later, the writer of the hymn for today, was well trained as a Lutheran by his father, a devout Polish noble who had to flee Poland because of his Lutheranism. The family lived in Breslau and Johan received an orthodox Lutheran education and studied medicine. He attended school in Leyden and Padua from which he graduated with a Ph. D. and M.D. He became the private physician to Duke Sylvius Nimrod of Württemberg-Oels. While studying in Leyden, Scheffler became acquainted with the work of the Lutheran mystic Jakob Boehme and was attracted to it, but it created suspicions of him among orthodox Lutherans. His mysticism finally drove him out of the Lutheran church to become a Catholic monk where he took the name Angelus, probably from a Spanish monk. He wrote most of his hymns before his conversion, many highly regarded hymns known for the mystical leanings. In 1653 Scheffler became a Roman Catholic. He entered a monastery in Breslau where he died of what was called a “wasting disease.”
König, the composer, was a highly regarded musician in the Frankfurt area. He sang in the choir under the direction of Georg Philipp Telemann. He became the director of the chapel at Katharinkirke in Frankfurt and soon the city's director of music (Kapellmeister). He composed cantatas, operas and hymns. In 1738 he published a work of 1,913 melodies (Harmonischer Liederschatz/Harmonic Treasury of Songs). This hymn tune (Ich will dich lieben) along with "O dass ich tausend Zungen hatte/O that I had a thousand tongues" are still popular in cuttent hymnals. His tunes had the emotional effect that fit pietist hymns especially.
LINKS
The University of Notre Dame Folk Choir
Northland Baptist Bible College
Concordia Publishing House
Extra bonus. Very few hymns refer as fully to this text.
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