Hymns of the Faith
“Fairest Lord Jesus”
A Presentation of
First Presbyterian Church
Jackson,
Mississippi
With
Dr. Ligon Duncan, Dr. Derek Thomas, and Dr. Bill
Wymond
Dr. Wymond: Good morning! This is “Hymns of the
Faith” brought to you by Jackson’s First Presbyterian Church. The minister of
the First Presbyterian Church is Dr. Ligon Duncan. Stay tuned for “Hymns of the
Faith.” … And here with “Hymns of the Faith” is Dr. Duncan.
Dr. Duncan: Thank you, Bill Wymond. This is Ligon
Duncan with Derek Thomas, and we are here together, the three of us, for “Hymns
of the Faith,” and looking forward to discussing a very, very favorite hymn of
many people.
Fairest Lord Jesus
is a tune that I can remember singing as a child in Sunday School, certainly in
summer Vacation Bible School, and can recall singing at various stages all my
life. I know it was a favorite hymn of many people in my parents’ generation.
There’s an interesting story
behind the discovery of this hymn and its growing popularity, and we want to
give you a little bit of background on it because it’s a little bit mysterious.
We don’t know who wrote the text of the hymn; we don’t know how long exactly
it’s been in currency. It seems to be a folk song that was used in various forms
in different places in Germany — Silesia and Westphalia and such. We’ll give you
a little background on that, but most of you, I think, when I say the name
Fairest Lord Jesus will already have the tune in your ear or in your mind.
But, Bill Wymond, maybe you’d be willing to play that tune just to remind folks
if they don’t know the tune of Fairest Lord Jesus. [Dr. Wymond plays.]
Bill, you were remarking off the
air that the tune and the arrangement are very romantic, and they are. It also
reminds me of Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken. It has that exuberant,
passionate German romantic kind of feel to it as a tune, and very suitable for
passionate devotional expression of love and worship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course that’s what the text is about in the English translation that we
have before us.
Albert Edwards Bailey, the famous
hymnologist, says about this hymn that a good deal of mythology has grown up
around it. No one knows who translated it into English. One stanza did not
appear in German until 1842, while other stanzas of that version differ markedly
from the original text which appeared first in 1677. So he gets it all the way
back to the seventeenth century, and he argues against this being used by either
the Crusaders (even though the hymn name has been called
CRUSADER’S HYMN ), and he also disputes
whether it was used by German pilgrims as well. But, Derek, I know that another
German hymnologist gives a good deal more information about the background to
the tune and its discovery, so maybe you would be willing to share with us a
little about that.
Dr. Thomas: This is not a hymn that’s very well
known in Britain at all. Of course these days with the advent of the use of
American hymn texts and hymnbooks, and internet and so on, it’s certainly known.
But it certainly wasn’t a hymn that I remember singing. It’s not one we sang in
our school hymnbooks, and I think it wasn’t until I got hold of The Trinity
Hymnal back in the 1980’s that I came across this hymn–which is surprising,
I’m sure, to American listeners that such a well known hymn would be almost
unknown.
Dr. Duncan: Well, it was introduced into American
hymnals in the mid-nineteenth century and it caught on. And you can tell, with
the sort of romantic sound of the tune, that it would have clicked with
Victorians, although it’s interesting that it would not have made itself into
circulation into Britain in the same time, because I would have thought that
there would have been a similar kind of appreciation from Victorians. But
anyway, I interrupt. Go ahead and tell us more about it.
Dr. Thomas: Well, according
to McCutchan
1
the popularity of this hymn and the tune, the marriage of the hymn and the tune,
dates from 1850, when Richard Storrs Willis includes it in church chorales and
choir studies — sounds like a wonderful read (but Bill Wymond I’m sure will tell
us more about that, because there’s a fascinating account in
McCutchan
which only a musician could properly understand, I think, of the possible source
of this tune). It’s just a beautiful tune, and so married now to these words,
that there are some possible roots for this tune going back possibly to
the seventeenth century, and possibly even before that. I was fascinated to
learn that Franz Liszt seems to have utilized something similar to this tune in
The Legend of St. Elizabeth, which he finished in 1862. But then there’s
a little account…”an unexpected treasure was discovered in 1850 in the guise of
a Crusader’s hymn.” Now you’ve already discounted the possibility that this was
a Crusader tune. It was found in the Westphalia amid a number of other curious
relics, and according to the traditional text by which it was accompanied, this
hymn used to be sung by the German pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem. And you and
I were talking earlier how Germans certainly like the thought of pilgrimages to
Jerusalem — the pietistic strand in German Christianity. And it may, therefore,
be regarded as a national air of that time. But Bill Wymond, I think, has some
opinions about possibly this tune. I just think it’s a perfect tune. It’s hard
to imagine that the tune wasn’t actually composed for these words.
Dr. Wymond: Isn’t it fascinating to think about folk
song tunes? We have this whole genre of American Negro spirituals which has so
enriched our music, and I have always wondered, well, who was the first person
to make up that tune? The legend — or the lore — is that they were sung as
people were chopping cotton, working out in the fields. And so one doesn’t know,
but somehow these things get spread as one worker goes from one farm to the
other. And so it must have been with this particular tune. Someone at some point
made this up, but nobody knows who did. And there was a search that some
musicologists made, and they were looking at various hymn tunes that they
thought might be the origin of this and none of them passed the test, because
they all started out alike, but then as you got farther into the melody it
varied so much that you couldn’t say this was the first version of this tune. I
know that’s not that interesting to you, but nevertheless the search was on.
But nobody really knows where
this came from. But it does not sound like a Middle Ages tune to me — something
that would have been sung while the Crusades were at their height. It does sound
more like an eighteenth century or a nineteenth century folk tune to me. It has
such simplicity about it, for one thing, and it has kind of an easy elegance
about it which doesn’t sound like the more forceful tunes of the 1600’s or even
the early 1700’s. So that’s why I think that it’s a late eighteenth century or
early nineteenth century tune.
Dr. Duncan: Bill, you were talking about how we
have come to be the inheritors of some of those Negro spirituals here in the
United States that would have been used in the fields in the 1700’s and in the
1800’s, and presumably one reason that we have a lot of that material at our
disposal today is that musicologists or people that were interested in tunes
went out and recorded those, wrote them down. And there’s an interesting story
similar to that connected to this tune. Apparently a musicologist wanted to hear
some of the folk songs in an area, and he and a friend went out and started
trying to sort of record tunes and such. Tell us a little bit about that.
Dr. Wymond: Well, there were two German
musicologists, Dr. Hoffman (Heinrich August
Hoffman von Fallerslebein) was one of them, and the other was Ernst
Friedrich Richter, and they were walking through the countryside in Silesia,
which was a part of the German east border. And it was in the summer, they say,
of about 1836, and toward the evening time they heard the people who were in the
fields, who were called haywardens, singing this tune. And so they went over and
asked those folks about that tune, and they divided up the responsibility of
preserving it. One of them wrote down the tune as he heard it, and the other
wrote down the text. So this may be the way that this eventually got into the
hymnals and also into Franz Liszt’s compositions somehow.
Dr. Duncan: Would you play the tune that they
list there as what they heard? The haywardens singing? Because as you said, as
the musicologists searched for the origin they got all sorts of tunes that were
similar to the tune as we know it today, but not quite the same. And this one
was not quite the same, I think!
Dr. Wymond: It varies a little bit toward the end.
I’ll do just the tune. [Plays.] Here’s where it varies…then the tune stays the
same as we know it…then it changes in time.
Dr. Duncan: Wow! That’s pretty close.
Dr. Wymond: Yes, that one is close. But other tunes
that people looked at really had a…let me just play another one. [Plays.] And so
on like that…
Dr. Duncan: Right; and it veers off, yes.
Dr. Wymond: So anyway that was not the origin. I
have an idea that most of the people who wrote these tunes must have heard this
folk song at some point, and we’re all influenced by it. So they started off,
anyway.
Dr. Duncan: Well, this was presumably…even amongst
trained musicians it was common to borrow tunes. You would hear something in
another great composer that he had written thirty years before, and you would
borrow that tune and stick it somewhere in the middle of your composition.
Dr. Wymond: Absolutely! Bach did that all of the
time. He borrowed from Italian and French composers…he borrowed from himself a
lot of the time! So everybody understood that it was okay to echo these
things. In our time we’ve gotten much more careful about copyright, and so you
couldn’t do that without giving some credit if you borrowed a good bit. But it’s
a wonderful tradition.
Dr. Duncan: Well, and even today with copyright you
have musicians that do what they call “sampling,” where they’ll literally pull
things out, and they’ll have to give credit to where they pulled it from. But
they will pull things out of other compositions and plop it right in the middle
of their own.
The text of this hymn is a very
devotional text focused on Jesus Christ: “Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all
nature, Son of God and Son of Man!” And so there’s an immediate identification
of Jesus Christ as being fair–and by the way, that is going to be a key to the
whole text. It’s an acknowledgement that Jesus is more precious, more beautiful,
more glorious than anything else in the world. It’s an ascription of primacy to
Jesus Christ above everything in terms of value. It’s not unlike the text from
Philippians 3:1-11, in which the Apostle Paul says that he counts everything
else rubbish in comparison to the greatness of knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and
the power of His resurrection. And this devotional hymn is all focused on the
glory of Jesus Christ, and how much more precious He is than anything else.
But there’s an acknowledgement
that He’s the ruler of all nations, so it’s an acknowledgement of His sovereign
rule over the world, and that He’s Son of God and Son of man. Which goes right
back to the earliest confessions of the church: that Jesus was fully human and
fully divine.
And then it expresses the love of
the hymn singer to Christ: “Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, Thou my
soul’s glory, joy, and crown.” And, Derek, I can’t hear words like that now
without thinking of our friend John Piper, who is all about this. You know, it’s
all about desiring Christ in all His glory, and valuing Christ more than
anything else in the world. And I would think that this would be a text that
John would like a lot, because it’s all about valuing Christ more than anything,
however glorious the other things might be.
Dr. Thomas: I’ve always thought of this hymn as a
children’s hymn, maybe because the language and poetry is so simple; and perhaps
also we tend to associate poetry about nature — meadows and sunshine, and
twinkling stars and so on – as being more for children. Although of course the
Psalms often reflect on creation. I was trying to work out in my head as you
were talking why I’d not ever considered this to be one of the great hymns. I
mean, it’s a beautiful hymn. And I tend to think that the marriage of the hymn
to this very singable and memorable tune gives the poetry greater weight that
perhaps it otherwise would have got.
Dr. Wymond: Also, Derek, I think it’s because we
associate this song with our school experience. A lot of us sang this song in
school. It’s been a favorite song in American folk song singing, because it was
considered almost a folk song, and some famous choirs have sung this particular
song as one of their theme songs. I think the St. Olaf Choir, for instance,
under Christiansen, has used this. And so we have emotional associations with
it.
Dr. Thomas: I think this is a great “second hymn”!
Now let me explain. If you had a service with four hymns — and not every service
has four hymns — but if a service has four hymns, I think it’s good to have the
opening one to God the Father, and the second one to the Lord Jesus, and the
third one to the Holy Spirit. And I think this one is a good second hymn devoted
to Christ and devoted to an experiential emphasis. Because there’s a pietism in
the proper sense of the word that comes across.
Dr. Wymond: Now, Derek, you have touched one of my
favorite theme songs! First of all, I like the fact that a congregation sings a
lot of hymns. I think that’s their main way of responding, and so I’m always
glad when we have time to have four hymns in a service here. And I do think that
there is a progression of the spirit and the attitude that you bring to worship,
and I think that the worship ought to start on a high note. It ought to end on a
high note, but as we think about the pilgrims making their ascent to the temple
in Jerusalem, they’d sing these wonderful elevated songs of praise. And even in
the synagogue worship, the worship began with Psalms of praise. And I think that
helps to direct the heart and the mind of the congregation the right way: not
being so meditative, but rather being exaltant as the worship begins. So I
agree: this is a good second hymn.
Dr. Duncan: The text continues, and says, “Fair
are the meadows, fair are the woodlands, robed in the blooming garb of spring:
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer, who makes the woeful heart to sing.” I think
it’s these two stanzas, Derek, that probably bring to your mind the relative
lightness of the text in comparison to other hymns that we’ve studied on this
program, in terms of there’s not a lot of deep theological reflection going on
in those lines, although there is a comparison of the glories of nature to the
glory of Christ, and nature pales in comparison, which is itself a substantive
theological thought. And probably the more beautiful the nature that you’re
seeing — and the German mountains and the German countryside can provide some
absolutely breathtaking displays of natural glory…
Dr. Thomas: I was thinking of it in terms of where
we are here in Jackson, Mississippi, and spring last week, at most! And it’s
this week with the pollen…
Dr. Duncan: [Laughs] When the Bradford pears are
blooming, I think is my favorite time in Jackson.
Dr. Thomas: It’s about a week, or two weeks at
maximum. But I have this memory — and I would have been under seven, so five or
six years old — growing up on a different farm from where I was a teenager,
walking into a forest that was behind the farm. It must have been spring time
and the entire floor of the forest — it wasn’t a dense forest; there was plenty
of sunlight that came down into the forest, so the floor was just a carpet of
bluebells. I have that picture in my head that’s, you know 45+ years ago now…and
this line, “Robed in the blooming garb of spring,” which brings that to mind.
But I’m not sure…if you don’t have a spring, I’m not sure… you’d have to
explain, perhaps, that a little!
But I was listening over the
weekend to a friend of ours, Sinclair Ferguson, say something about Spurgeon.
And what he said about Spurgeon was that… He was being a little critical of
Spurgeon’s exegetical prowess in preaching, but he said the thing he liked about
Spurgeon was his instinct to see Jesus in the text. And I think that this hymn —
I thought about it several hours afterwards — that we can never assume, not just
about ourselves in preaching, but about the congregation in its worship — we can
never assume that it can see Jesus in the worship. And I think that this hymn
brings that right up front, the instinct to see Jesus.
Dr. Duncan: And it continues on in the same way
in the third stanza, and then concludes with “Beautiful Savior! Lord of the
nations! Son of God and Son of Man!” [so there’s a repetition of the ascription
of full humanity and full deity and His lordship over the nations] “Glory and
honor, praise, adoration, now and forevermore be Thine.” And so the whole hymn
is taken up with the soul’s contemplation of the beauty and the glory and the
honor and the dominion of Jesus Christ, and ascribing that to Him. And though
that is very appropriate to children, and though the language of the English
translation is simple and flowery, there really is some substance to that for
the soul to chew on. And that’s something that we could do well with more of,
really reckoning with the fact that the most beautiful things that we see in
this world, the most precious things that this world has to offer, are not as
glorious as the Lord Jesus Christ. And having the soul really rest in deep
satisfaction in the person and work of Christ.
Now one thing that’s not talked about a lot in
the hymn is the work of Christ. There’s a focus on His person. And I’m not sure
of the origin — I notice that one of the hymnologists puts the tune origin in
lyrics from Roman Catholic sources. Now I don’t have enough information on that
to follow up on, although I’m a little surprised, given that this appears, Bill,
in the Munster Gesangbuch, which presumably means it will be the
Protestant City Church in Munster in 1677. I’d be a little surprised for them to
have a tune — or a song, a lyric — from Roman Catholic sources there. I just
don’t know enough about it to follow up on.
Dr. Thomas: It’s a bit like Silent Night.
Great, phenomenal tune…words are okay, but it needs something in addition. This
text needs an addition. If we sing this, we need a gospel focus text to it.
Dr. Duncan: Yes.
Dr. Wymond: I must tell you that I had a dear
friend here in Jackson for many years who was the organist at the First Baptist
Church. Her name was Hazel Chisholm, and she was just a legend in this part
because she had a phenomenal ear, played most everything by ear because she just
remembered all of the music. And she was there up into her seventies…retired,
and lived to be about 96 years old, and was buried in her home town, which is
Summit, Mississippi. And so a few years back I was driving by Summit, so I
thought I would just stop by and see if I could find her grave in the city
cemetery. And sure enough, it was there and I saw it, and over the grave were
these words: “Fairest Lord Jesus, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.”
Why don’t we listen to this hymn
now?
“Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of
all nature,
Son of God and Son of Man!
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I
honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and
crown.
“Fair are the meadows, fair are
the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of
spring:
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to
sing.
“Fair is the sunshine, fair is
the moonlight,
And all the twinkling, starry
host:
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus
shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can
boast.
“Beautiful Savior! Lord of the
nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise,
adoration,
Now and forevermore be Thine.”
_______________________________________________
1.
Our Hymnody, a Manual of the Methodist Hymnal
, by McCutchan, Robert Guy. The
Methodist Book Concern, New York, Cincinnati , 1937.