HYMNS ON THE PASSION

which can be used in the congregations during Lent

at the weekly service and on Days of Prayer

according to the custom of each place

[by Thomas Kingo]

[from the Gradual of 1699]

[Translation © Mark DeGarmeaux unless noted]

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Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary home page (ELH has 16 hymns by Thomas Kingo)

O come, let us worship (A Study in Lutheran Liturgy and Hymnody by M. DeGarmeaux) (107k)

The Path of Understanding -- The Development of Lectionaries and their use in the Lutheran Church (by the Rev. Alexander Ring)

THE FOURTH WEEK IN LENT

Judas' Despair

SØDE SYND DU VELLYST-ENGEL* [13]

tune: Freu dich sehr

 

1 Sweetest sin, angel of passion

How thy smallest seed doth send

Tender shoots of fairest fashion,

Promising its flowers to send.

But thy fruit is shame and wrath,

Anguish, pain, eternal death,

Bitter heat and burning hell-fire

From God's judgement and His fierce ire.

 

2 Judas, like a mirror, shows me

Each and every source of sin,

Teaching sinners e'er so closely

How to flee the grasp of sin.

Sin and Satan came to him

His dominion all to win

That he might betray the Saviour

Earning Satan's evil favour.

 

3 When he saw the Lord then bearing

Shame of sin and guilt of death

Then in anguish he would spare Him

Now his roguish heart regrets.

How his conscience thus did sink

When He took sin's poisoned drink

When his wish with gall was blended

And with death eternal ended.

 

4 When he sees the silver pieces

Price for which his God he sold

Then his heart its beating ceases,

Every drop of blood turns cold.

Coin and money never may

Help him from his sinful way

Stamp of death his heart is sealing,

Pains of hell he soon is feeling.

 

5 See, my soul, how quick he yearneth

Favour from the priests to earn

How his conscience sorely burneth

Such blood-money to return.

Casting them on Temple floor,

Rending now his conscience sore

Many poisoned arrows bearing,

As his heart is much despairing.

 

6 See his wicked tears forth-breaking-

Now at last he understood

What great evil he was making

All against such holy blood.

God's own Son he had betrayed,

Who a captive now was made,

Bound to cross and shameful dying;

Judas with remorse is crying.

 

7 But his heart so coldly hardened

Though God yet would pardon send

Still he bows himself to Satan,

Unrepentant to the end.

All the joyous streams of heaven

To the ransomed souls e'er given

He so shamefully despises,

And to hellish river rises.

 

8 Jesus stands before his viewing,

Burdened with the whole world's sins,

Full of woe and shame and ruing

After Judas' bitter kiss

Unrepentant still to greet,

Falling at his Master's feet

Leaving Jesus in His danger,

Judas is to grace a stranger.

 

9 More yet, he his Lord betrayeth;

To God's grace still "Nay" he saith.

On His blood and wounds he treadeth,

Swiftly runs the way of death;

He rejects His pardoning pain

And His precious bloody stain;

Now a noose he soon is making,

Blood of Christ to judgement taking.

 

10 Let me never be accounted

With this wretched evil man;

Even if my sins be counted

More than all the ocean sand!

Even if I lie within

Thickest mire of deepest sin

Satan's many arrows bearing

Keep me, Lord, from e'er despairing.

 

11 If unto Thy throne and glory

With my sin I quickly flee

Then a gracious crown of glory

Must remain intact for me.

Even though by sin I can

Set us all in bond and ban

Still God has us all forgiven,

Still His Son as Saviour given.

 

12 Is there any sin that's greater

Than that Jesus' precious blood

Were not greater still to dry it

As He once did dry the flood

Which from out His heart broke forth

As He took on Him God's wrath

Since it was with poison rounded

And since Satan Him had wounded.

 

13 No! My Jesus' grace surpasses

All the sins of earth and more,

All the sinful woe and anguish

Laid upon His purple sore.

Safely anchored in His bay,

All my evil washed away,

In repentance I will drown me

Though sin's fetters once had bound me.

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