This week, as we await results of the election, I find myself drawn to Sunday’s gospel — the parable of the wise and foolish virgins at the wedding feast (Matthew 25:1-13).
Many themes emerge in this story: a festive wedding banquet; light vs. darkness; waiting; drowsiness; preparedness; judgment. Supposedly it is intended to warn us to remain alert, ready for Jesus’s return; but there are numerous other messages as well. Stay tuned for Stephanie’s sermon next Sunday!
Now I invite you to travel with me to the year 1597 and Unna, a remote village in the north German state of Westphalia. Here’s an all too familiar story: a terrible plague had hit the countryside. Philipp Nicolai was pastor of the local church. His parsonage overlooked the cemetery, where new graves were being dug daily. As many as 170 of his parishioners died in a week, 30 on one terrible day, until 1300 residents of Unna had perished.
In the midst of this horror, no doubt in between funerals, Nicolai wrote a series of meditations entitled Die Freudenspiegel, or “The Mirror of Joy.” Joy? How can we come to joy in the midst of great suffering? This is an important question for us, as we deal with the turbulence of a pandemic and a greatly divided country. Nicolai obviously was wrestling with that dilemma. He said, in his preface, “There seemed to me nothing more sweet, delightful and agreeable, than the contemplation of the noble, sublime doctrine of Eternal Life obtained through the Blood of Christ. This I allowed to dwell in my heart day and night, and searched the Scriptures as to what they revealed on this matter. . . .Then day by day I wrote out my meditations, found myself, thank God! wonderfully well, comforted in heart, joyful in spirit, and truly content; gave to my manuscript the name and title of a Mirror of Joy.”
In an appendix to “The Mirror of Joy” he included the text and tunes for two poems. These have become great hymns of the church. One, inspired by the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, is Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme — “Wake, Awake, for Night Is Coming,” number 62 in our hymnal. A century later, Johann Sebastian Bach, a devout Lutheran, composed one of his more than 300 church cantatas on it. His harmonization of it is hymn number 61.
Nicolai based his text on the parable in Mathew 25, as well as two other scriptures (Isaiah 52:8 and Revelation 19:6-9). Taking Nicolai’s text and tune, Bach composed his seven-movement cantata for the Sunday in which Matthew 25:1-13 was the Gospel. So it would be appropriate for us to sing that cantata this coming Sunday – if we could!
Here is the best-known movement of Cantata 140. I’ll bet you have heard it! As you listen to it, release your tension and let the Holy Spirit speak to you through the music. May you share in the joy that Philipp Nicolai and J. S. Bach found through their faith.
Blessings and peace,
David