“To Jordan came our Lord the Christ,
To do God’s pleasure willing.”
(Martin Luther, LBW 79)
Over break my son went through the hymnal to sing all the Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany hymns. So I pointed out the Epiphany hymn, “To Jordan came the Christ Our Lord”, and he went to the piano to find the melody. He reported back that the words were great but the tune was tough. I thought this was fair and forgot about it. Hymn are powerful tools in which we recount God’s word for us back to him in praise and thanksgiving.
A couple days later, I picked up the next book in my “to be read” stack. It had been a while since I picked up this book, and my bookmark had fallen; so I started over. Chapter 1 began with this hymn, “To Jordan came our Lord the Christ.” I had to laugh. But I also decided to reread this hymn.
I want to share a few from the book.1 “What is striking is Luther’s grounding of the baptismal death of the sinner and resurrection of the believer in the narrative theology of trinitarian advent.” “This mediation of Christ’s filial relation to God as Father to the believer is possible because, as his verse 5 shows, Luther’s narrative interpretation of the baptism story, in tandem with the transfiguration story, anticipates the Easter vindication of the Crucified One.”
We are in the midst of the season of Epiphany in which God reveals the man Jesus to be God. The season with the Day of Epiphany in which we remember God revealing Jesus as his beloved son to the wise men from the East. The next Sunday, we observed our Lord’s Baptism which is confirmed by God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The season ends on the Sunday before Ash Wednesday. On this Sunday, we remember the Transfiguration in which glorified Jesus is revealed.
The season of Epiphany is filled with God revealing Jesus as his beloved Son. Likewise, this hymn recounts the joys revealed to you and me in Christ. Listen to this seventh verse:
What hymns move you to rejoice in God’s goodness to you?
1Paul R. Hinlicky, Luther for Evangelicals.