“Singing the Faith: O Sacred Head, Now Wounded”
Isaiah 53:4-5

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost—October 23, 2016

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

This morning we continue our Fall Sermon Series “Signing the Faith,” looking at the background and meaning of some favorite hymns.  We’ve already considered what surveys show are the #1 and #2 favorite hymns for the second half of the 20th and beginning of the 21st centuries, “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace.” 

They didn’t take such surveys of favorite hymns hundreds of years ago, but, if they did, the hymn we continue with today would probably have been the all-time favorite of the 18th, 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.  It still remains a favorite, and is always included in every hymnal of every denomination.  It’s probably the only hymn that is both the main theme of a famous classical Bach Cantata, “St. Matthew’s Passion,” and was also a best-selling recording by the pop singer Amy Grant.

O sacred Head, now wounded,

With grief and shame weighed down,

Now scornfully surrounded

With thorns, Thine only crown.

O sacred Head, what glory,

What bliss, till now was Thine!

Yet, though despised and gory,

I joy to call Thee mine.

This beautiful meditation on the suffering and death of Christ was originally the last of a series of seven poems by an anonymous author from the Middle Ages.  These seven poems were written from the perspective of someone bowed down at the foot of the cross, looking up at Christ.  Each poem is addressed to a different and successively higher part of our Lord’s body: his feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart, and, finally, his sacred head.

Gazing upon Christ on the cross, you see both your sin and your salvation.  Your sin which caused his suffering, your sin for which he was punished. As the hymn continues:

What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered

Was all for sinners' gain;

Mine, mine was the transgression,

But Thine the deadly pain.

Lo, here I fall, my Savior! 

‘Tis I deserve Thy place;

Look on me with Thy favor,

And grant to me Thy grace.

The Good News is, you see in the suffering of cross of Christ on the cross not only the consequences of your sin, but you also see in the cross of Christ your salvation from sin.  For, your Savior has had mercy upon you.  Because of his sacrifice on cross, your sins are all forgiven.  Because of his sacrifice on the cross, you have the promise and comfort and hope of eternal life.  That is the focus of the hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” the promise and comfort and hope of eternal life that you have on account of Christ’s sacrifice for you upon the cross.

The original Medieval Latin poems on which this beautiful hymn was based were already widely beloved favorites in the 1600’s when the final poem, addressed to the head of Christ, was translated and rewritten in German by the man who next to Martin Luther himself is the most famous Lutheran hymn writer, and next to Goethe the most famous German poet, Paul Gerhardt.

O sacred Head, now wounded,

With grief and shame weighed down,

Now scornfully surrounded

With thorns, Thine only crown. . .

Men mock and taunt and jeer Thee . . .

How art thou pale with anguish,

With sore abuse and scorn!

Paul Gerhardt himself in his own life endured much suffering, sadness and sorrow.  He was born in 1607 and his parents died when he was very young.  Growing up he had a miserable and deprived life, not only because he was an orphan, but also because of the Thirty Year’s War, a civil war that started when he was 12 and continued to wreak horrible destruction and devastation upon the country for most of his life.

Gerhardt studied to be a pastor and eventually became the most famous preacher in Germany at a prestigious church in Berlin.  But, he lost all of that too, when the head of the government left the Lutheran Church, and then forbid the Lutherans to preach certain doctrines, and instead required them to accept a watered-down faith.  Gerhardt courageously refused and so was dismissed from office.  About the same time that he lost his position as a pastor, he also lost most of his family: four of his five children and his wife all died.

In order to secure another position as a pastor, Gerhardt had to relocate from Berlin to a distant, rustic region.  So, at age 63 he was not retiring but starting over again.  He labored faithfully until his death at age 70 and was buried in the last church he served, which was later renamed Paul Gerhardt Church in his honor.

Over the years as he was serving as a pastor he was also writing hymns.  The Lutheran Hymnal of 1941 included 21 of his 133 hymns, and ALL of the hymns in our worship service today were written by Paul Gerhardt. 

The handbook to the Methodist hymnal says, “Gerhardt’s hymns reflect a deep and abiding TRUST in a providential and loving God.”  That is the most amazing thing about Paul Gerhardt, and many other writers of our favorite hymns.  In their own lives so many of them endured great suffering, sadness, and sorrow, and yet they wrote so confidently and sweetly about God’s love. 

Joseph Scriven lost his fiancée in a boating accident just a few hours before their wedding, and in response to that terrible tragedy he immediately wrote, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”  Pastor Martin Rinckart buried in just a few days dozens of parishioners who died of the plague.  After conducting the funeral of his own wife, he went back home to the empty parsonage, sat down at his desk, and wrote, “Now Thank We All Our God.” 

Where did they get such confidence in God’s love, despite their own suffering, sadness and sorrow?  What was their source of confidence and hope?  How can YOU have that same confidence and hope?

Paul says in Romans, “[Christ] was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ . . .  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.” 

You can have confidence and hope because “[Christ] was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”  You can have confidence and hope because you “have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  And because “he was put to death for our sins and raised to life for our justification,” because “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,” you can have confidence and hope of eternal life.  “And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”

From the cross of Christ you also have the assurance that, no matter what happens, God is never angry with you or punishing you.  Because, as Isaiah says in today’s Old Testament Reading: “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows.  We observed him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.  He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Paul Gerhardt’s hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded,” beautifully portrays Christ’s suffering and death on the cross as the foundation of confidence, hope, peace, and assurance.  As another favorite hymn puts it:

My hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness . . .

When every earthly prop gives way,

He then is all my hope and stay.

On Christ, the solid rock, I stand . . .

That is the theme of Paul Gerhardt’s hymn, “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded.”  Confidence and hope, peace and assurance, that comes from looking to the cross of Christ, and his sacrifice for your salvation, as the sure and ultimate sign of God’s love, despite all losses.

We have again seen dramatically in the recent hurricane and flooding that followed how everything in this world that seems so permanent can all be swept away in a moment.  As Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “The world in its present form is passing away.”  Everything in our world—even our world itself—is coming to an end.  Everything that seems so permanent and enduring is really only temporary and transitory.

But, in Christ and his sacrifice on the cross, you have comfort and hope and peace and assurance that endures, beyond this life this life and its losses.

O sacred Head, now wounded,

With grief and shame weighed down . . .

What language shall I borrow

To thank Thee, dearest Friend,

For this Thy dying sorrow,

Thy pity without end? . . .

Remind me of Thy passion

When my last hour draws nigh.

Mine eyes shall then behold Thee

Upon Thy cross shall dwell . . .

Who dieth thus dies well.