- First Presbyterian Church - https://fpcjackson.org -

Hymns of the Faith: Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming


Hymns of the Faith

Lo,
How a Rose E’er Blooming

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 now with “Hymns of the Faith” is Dr. Ligon Duncan.

Dr. Duncan: Good morning, Bill Wymond! This is
Ligon Duncan, and I’m here with Derek Thomas as well, and the three of us
together are going to enjoy this hymn of the faith that we will be studying this
morning. It’s a very old and beautiful tune with a deeply moving text rooted
both in medieval tradition, and especially the “Branch prophecies” of
Isaiah–Isaiah 11:1, and how that’s picked up in the New Testament. It’s a hymn
called Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming, and I love the flowing melody
to it. In fact, before we even begin to study it, I wonder, Bill, if you’d just
play through this beautiful melody once. [Dr. Wymond plays.] Now, I love
singing that song, and I love the tune. The congregation struggles sometimes
with the syncopation to it, and as you were playing it, Bill, I was wondering —
did Praetorius give that syncopation in his arrangement of it, and would that
have been unusual in the period, to have that kind of staggered rhythmic effect
in the other parts?

Dr. Wymond: No, I think that it’s really typical of
music of the period because what happens is in the tunes of this era, you have
the slow starting note at the beginning of the phrase, and then slow notes at
the end of the phrase. And you’re also having this play rhythmically between
the time of 2/2 and 3/2
. But anyway, it adds a kind of syncopation
which was so characteristic of the time, and I think adds a lot of interest to
the music. It’s especially true of the folk-song feel — here we go again with
folk songs! — but this obviously is a song at the marketplace, I think,
originally. So both in the classical and in the popular music they use this play
on these syncopated rhythms.

Dr. Duncan: Now, we were talking off-air
beforehand about Praetorius, and you said he’s a Lutheran church musician. So
Lutheran hymnody would have had those effects of a little bit of rhythmic
syncopation?

Dr. Wymond: That’s right. You remember A Mighty
Fortress
, by Luther [Plays original rhythm]…that same feel that would
be a problem for our congregation because we’re used to such regular rhythm now.
But the music was very lively then.

Dr. Duncan: Is there a plainsong behind this
somewhere, or do you think this is a folk melody?

Dr. Wymond: I think so. It’s hard to know for sure
because those things were so intertwined. The people would come out of the
church and sometimes take the melodies they had heard and turn them into folk
songs, and then the church took them back in an altered form. But it seems more
folk oriented than early church oriented to me.

Dr. Duncan: Derek, we were talking about the
interesting sort of transpositions that have happened in this song, because
in the medieval times the rose, especially in Roman Catholicism, this sort of
symbolism was always about Mary
. And what Michael Praetorius has done is
he’s shifted the focus from Mary to Jesus
, and he’s kind of combined the
rose imagery with the Branch prophecies of Isaiah. Talk us through that just a
little bit.

Dr. Thomas: Well, yes; of course the name
Rosemarie (or Rosemary) is a play on that, joining Rose to Mary. (Don’t tell my
wife that!) [Dr. Duncan laughs…Dr Wymond: “Since her name is Rosemary!”]

Dr. Thomas: And my mother’s name was Mary Rose,
and my grandmother’s name was Rose, too. So there’s this long tradition of it in
my own family. But, yes, it’s interesting how the Lutherans could pilfer what
was evidently a very Catholic hymn of adoration to Mary and by a change of a few
words — the syntax especially in the second verse of the hymn — alter it to a
reference to Jesus.
And I wondered if they did that with allusion to the
Rose of Sharon motif in the Old Testament. So it becomes then a hymn
about (or a carol about) a prophecy of Jesus rather than one of Mary.

Dr. Duncan: Tell us just a little bit about those
Branch prophecies, Derek.

Dr. Thomas: Well, it’s one of those great
readings, isn’t it, at Christmastime?

Dr. Duncan: You get it in the carol service that
is done at King’s College every year.

Dr. Thomas: In theLessons and Carols.”

(Isaiah 1) — “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a
Branch will bear fruit.”

And in those middle-teen verses of Isaiah you actually have
several metaphors of forests and trees (and Tolkien fans can resonate almost
immediately); and this is a picture of desolation, the trees having been burnt
to the ground. You can imagine grey, ashen landscape with tree stumps just
sticking up out of the ground. And there is a solitary shoot, just one
little sprig that seems to be alive amidst all this death and carnage, and from
that shoot will come Jesus. That’s the prophecy.

Dr. Duncan: And it’s a symbol of Israel’s hope,
and the way that the Lord is going to cause His promise to continue to the
descendants of Abraham.

Dr. Thomas: And the prophecy of course given right
on the advent of the coming of the Assyrian Empire that would desolate the
Northern Kingdom entirely and eventually the Babylonians who would desolate the
Southern Kingdom in Jerusalem. So it was probably one of the lowest points in
Israel’s history, where hope was disappearing entirely except for this shoot
that there is a prophecy that will still be fulfilled.

Dr. Duncan: And the New Testament writers pick up
on that. It’s possible that when Matthew is making that famous quote in the New
Testament — and Old Testament scholars will scour the Bible for, trying to
explain that “He will be called a Nazarene” doesn’t refer either to Jesus being
a Nazarite, which as far as we can tell He wasn’t. John the Baptist was a
Nazarite; that is, he had taken that peculiar Old Testament vow rooted in the
first five books of the Bible not to drink fermented wine, not to cut his hair,
to obey the unique laws of the Nazarite. Jesus wasn’t that, because we know that
He was accused of being “a glutton and a wine bibber.” Nor is that probably a
reference to Jesus directly at least being from Nazareth.

But it may well be a reference to
the netzer, if we use that root for branch…for Jesus being…He’s
that sprout, He’s that stem
, He’s that thing that when you look at it first
it might be despised, but in fact it’s the root of what God is going to do in
continuing the hope of His people. And so that becomes a New Testament image for
Jesus Christ.

And of course it’s picked up in
this beautiful, beautiful hymn — carol — that we sing at Christmastime. We sing
it a couple of times a year, and I love to listen to it. It’s been done in
numerous arrangements and you hear it if you’re listening to these holiday
channels that play on satellite radio and such, you’ll probably hear it thirty
times between now and Christmas.

Dr. Thomas: And that prophecy is then picked up
again in Isaiah 35:

“The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert
shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice
even with joy and singing.”

Dr. Duncan: So the Rose of Sharon picture isn’t
just one from that; you get the rose picture from Isaiah 35 as well.

Dr. Thomas: Right. And actually, this prophecy
mentions the excellency of Carmel and Sharon:

“They shall see the glory of the
Lord, and the excellency of our God.”

Dr. Duncan: Bill, as you look at this tune and
the arrangement that we have it in from Praetorius, we were talking off-air that
as far as we know…we don’t know who wrote the text originally. It was
found in a Carthusian monastery, and Praetorius took a fifteenth-century German
melody and arranged it. Talk us through the melody a little bit. I mean, why do
we like this melody so much, for one thing?

Dr. Wymond: It’s interesting how this is so
popular. It’s been, all of our lifetime, one of the main songs that collegiate
choirs sang and is somewhat popular in the church. But in these days where
people are looking for new and different Christmas music, it certainly is always
included. It’s very much a tune out of the early Baroque period or the high
Renaissance period, and it’s a solemn sound to us.

Dr. Thomas: Except that it sort of…when it changes
half-way through it seems like a dance.

Dr. Wymond: Yes, it does.

Dr. Duncan: It gets really bright…it starts off
mysterious…

Dr. Thomas: …And then goes back into solemnity
again.

Dr. Wymond: Because in this music you had different
tempos within the context. We’re so regular in what we do in our tempos now, but
Baroque music so often had this A-B-A feel, and the B section a lot of
times would pick up in tempo. Sometimes it would change the rhythmic figure from
2 to 3, so it was more dance-like.

Dr. Duncan: Walk us through that right now, and
tell what you and Derek have just been describing. Just walk us through each
line of the music and show us where it starts solemn and goes bright and then
comes back again.

Dr. Wymond: So here it starts off… [plays]…it
just went from 3 to 2 right there… [plays]…and then we go into a
quicker feel… [plays]…and then back to the theme… [plays].

Dr. Thomas: And when you’re singing that, you have
to sing off the beat at the end of the first line and at the end of the last
line.

Dr. Wymond: Yes, that’s right.

Dr. Thomas: I’m not using technical terms here….

Dr. Wymond: Well, that’s okay. I like that. That
sounds….

Dr. Thomas: There’s another hymn where we have to
do that, where we have to sing almost through the beat.

Dr. Duncan: Thou Who Wast Rich Beyond All
Splendor
…yes.

Dr. Wymond: The one that goes… [plays]…yes.
Right there. Gorgeous English tune.

Dr. Duncan: Do you think that’s one reason why
chorales might like this piece, because it does provide that interesting
syncopation? For a group that’s singing together regularly, it’s not hard for
them to do. It might be a little challenging for a congregation unfamiliar with
the piece, but…

Dr. Wymond: I think that’s part of it. And also the
tune itself is just a lovely, haunting kind of tune. It doesn’t do a whole lot
dramatically. It doesn’t make a bunch of unusual jumps or anything like that.
It’s just a very well-crafted melody that kind of grips your heart.

Let me say something about Praetorius. He’s one
who is really important in music history. Michael Praetorius was born in
Kruezberg, which means “city of the cross,” in Thuringia. And this was all in
the eastern part of Germany, for so long now that wasn’t accessible to us.
Dresden is in that area, and so on like that. His last name actually is
Schultheiss, and if you’ve ever traveled in Germany, on every bistro or whatever
you’ll see that. That’s the principal beer of Germany, I think. (Forgive me — I
don’t know whether his family….)

Dr. Duncan: Really!? This is the Budweiser of
Germany! So, hold on! That’s obviously his Latinized name, but what does it
refer to?

Dr. Wymond: Praetorius…and you know, I should have
looked up to see what the meaning of that was…I don’t know. But anyway, his
father was a Lutheran pastor. And the thing that is remarkable about the man —
they say he was a polymath. He knew three or four languages, he knew theology,
he certainly knew music, and philosophy as well. So he had a special interest in
working with the text to Lutheranize it, because he was Lutheran. Most of his
musical compositions are based on Lutheran hymn tunes, church melodies like
that. And he’s of that period when a musician in order to make a living had to
be in the service of one of the princes of Germany. And of course there were
just literally hundreds of courts in Germany at that time — small little courts
— and he served two principal courts during the time that he was there. And so
back in those days the church was really indebted to these princes for
supporting church music. Bach was another supported that way for a long time.
And so we owe them. It wasn’t the government who did it, you know; it was just
these private families and individuals who took care of that. That’s not all
that important…but anyway, a very prolific composer who happened to die rich!

Dr. Duncan: How did that happen?

Dr. Wymond: Well, he had over forty volumes of
music published during his lifetime, which was unusual; and I suspect that he
was left some legacies by people for whom he worked, and also from his
publishing. But he directed that when he died most of his money be given to the
poor.

Dr. Duncan: Hmmm. Are there other pieces that
people would recognize? I know we did some pieces both in choir when I was
growing up — in my Mom’s choir as a teenager, and as a young college student —
and then probably at college, too, we did some pieces by Praetorius. Are there
things we would know?

Dr. Wymond: There are arrangements that he made of
hymns. There’s a lot of organ music that we play based on these German hymns and
so on, but this one particular song is the one best known.

Dr. Thomas: This carol, like so many carols, is
utterly contextualized in middle Europe rather than Israel — the references to
snow and the cold of winter, and so on.

Dr. Wymond: Now be careful! You’re stepping on some
sacred ground right there! [Dr. Duncan laughs.]

Dr. Thomas: I know! And it brings to mind in all
the traditional Christmas cards that you see…

Dr. Wymond: Yes, Jesus was not born “in the
bleak mid-winter”! [All laugh. Dr. Duncan: “We’re all in trouble in music!”]
And of course theologically it’s a winner, that motif of being born in winter
and dying at Easter and April-ish, when everything is blossoming and coming
into…and so it’s from death to life, and from the grave to resurrection. So that
has a wonderful thing of being woven into poetry, for sure…and theology, for
sure.

What I like about this carol is
the way that it reaches to those passages in Hebrews 2 and 4, that He
knows…especially the last line:

“O Savior, child of Mary, who
felt our human woe;

O Savior, King of glory, who
dost our weakness know,

Bring us at length, we pray,

To the bright courts of heaven
and to the endless day.”

(Hebrews 4:15) — “We do not have an high priest who cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are.”

And it does that, you know, from the height of glory to the
depths of mid-winter.

Dr. Duncan: Which the best incarnation hymns do;
they draw our attention…just like Thou Who Wast Rich. We were talking
about that and the syncopation a few minutes ago.

Dr. Thomas: And the nodding in the direction of
Chalcedon — “true man and yet very God.”

Dr. Duncan: Now when you say Chalcedon,
you’re of course referring to the Council of Chalcedon…

Dr. Thomas: And the ecumenical creed of 451 AD.

Dr. Duncan: And it shows up in a number of
Christmas hymns. Tell us where you see the nod to Chalcedon here, and why that’s
important.

Dr. Thomas: It’s in the close of the fourth verse,
where it refers to Jesus as “true man yet very God,” and the language “very God
of very God; begotten, not made; being of one substance with the Father, by whom
all things were made.”

Dr. Duncan: And people will recognize that
allusion also in the Christmas hymn O Come, All Ye Faithful, where we
say, “God of God, light of light; begotten, not created.” The same kind of thing
is going on there, and that was a good sign of a good orthodox hymn writer or
text that’s giving testimony to a biblical and a historic view of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Thomas: And that’s the benefit of Christmas,
of having to sing Christmas carols at least once a year — good Christmas carols,
full of good theology about the incarnation — that it does remind us of this
wonderful truth that Jesus was both God and man.

Dr. Duncan: And isn’t it interesting that in many
ways that points back to the very origins of Christian hymnody? Because where
the diet of the early church would have been predominantly in the Psalms, in
response to the Arians who were teaching bad Christology, bad teaching about
Christ — you had writers like Hillary and Ambrose and others who wrote hymns
that were designed to do just what this hymn does, and that is give an orthodox
view of Jesus Christ. And you’re right, Derek. It is one of the great benefits
of Christmastime, because for about a month we are hearing and singing really
good theology, usually. Even on secular radio, if they’re playing the
traditional hymns you’re hearing really good theology about Christ. Walk us
through the flow of the song from stanza one to stanza five…

Dr. Thomas: Well, it begins of course with the
prophecy of Isaiah and the picture of this stem that brings forth the flower,
the rose that blossoms; that in the midst of bleakness of mid-winter and the
bleakness of Israel’s history in the seventh century BC, you have this wonderful
hope that a Child will be born who will be the Savior of sinners.

Dr. Duncan: And when it says that this Rose is
“of Jesse’s lineage coming,” what’s that all about?

Dr. Thomas: Yes…you help me with that!

Dr. Duncan: Well, Jesse was the father of David,
and so this is the reference, isn’t it, to the Davidic lineage of the Messiah?

Dr. Thomas: Second Samuel 7 and the Davidic
promise…

Dr. Duncan: …of God to David that He was going to
give him a son who was going to sit on his throne forever.

Dr. Thomas: And in the context of Isaiah’s prophecy
(you know the Northern Kingdom is about to be obliterated forever…the kings of
Israel are about to disappear) that hope, then, of Israel lies in a king, the
son of Jesse being an allusion to David.
But “great David’s greater
Son,” as He is often referred to, being Christ the King of Israel.

Dr. Duncan: I love the line that it came “as men
of old have sung.” It picks up on that sort of prophetic feel to it. This is not
something that is just Johnny-come-lately. This has been sung about, this has
been prophesied for years. But I love the line that follows that: “It came, a
flow’ret bright.” Now, I don’t know the history of that word at all — a
flow’ret
— but it sounds like a tiny flower. I’d have to go back and look it
up. Theodore Baker is the one who translated that particular stanza. I have to
check on that. But it just emphasizes again that when God is going to institute
this rescue operation for the whole of humanity, He sends this tiny little Babe
into the world.

And, Bill, are we ready to hear the carol now?
Well, let’s hear it.

Dr. Wymond: Singing our carol this morning is Gena
Everitt.

“Lo, how a rose e’er blooming
from tender stem hath sprung,

Of Jesse’s lineage coming, as
men of old have sung.

It came, a flo’ret bright,

Amid the cold of winter, when
half-spent was the night.

“Isaiah ‘twas foretold it, the
rose I have in mind;

With Mary we behold it, the
virgin mother kind.

To show God’s love aright

She bore to men a Savior, when
half-spent was the night.

“The shepherds heard the story,
proclaimed by angels bright,

How Christ, the Lord of glory,
was born on earth this night.

To Bethlehem they sped

And in the manger found Him, as
angel heralds said.

“This flow’r, whose fragrance
tender with sweetness fills the air,

Dispels with glorious splendor
the darkness everywhere.

True man, yet very God;

From sin and death He saves us
and lightens every load.

“O Savior, child of Mary, who
felt our human woe;

O Savior, King of glory, who
dost our weakness know,

Bring us at length, we pray,

To the bright courts of heaven
and to the endless day.”