"To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord"

Last week, I watched the Concordia University Wisconsin chapel service from the 13th, in which the hymn was "To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord."  I've written about this hymn before, but I noticed an-other small feature in it.

Near the end of the sixth verse, there's the line "And they are lost forever," referring to "those who cast aside / This grace so freely given" from earlier in the verse.  It's sung to this musical phrase from the tune "Christ, unser Herr":

"Forever" is sung with a melisma (Eb F Eb D C), lending a sense of this extended duration.

"To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord"

Back in April last year, when I wrote a post about the Biblical sources of "To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord," I found some musical features to write about, which I hadn't noticed when I wrote about the hymn in March 2017.  "To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord" is paired with two different tunes in The Lutheran Service Book.  Like my previous post, this post deals with the tune "Christ, unser Herr."

About halfway through the second verse, there's the line "Pure water, freely flowing," sung to this musical phrase:

"Flowing" is sung with a melisma (C Bb A G), musically giving a sense of movement.

The first two lines of the fourth verse are "There stood the Son of God in love, / His grace to us extending," sung to these musical phrases:

"Extending" is sung with a melisma (F Eb D C), and since the word itself is stretched out, there's a musical sense of its meaning.

"To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord"

When I transcribed "To Jordan Came the Christ, Our Lord" recently, I noticed a few connections between the text and one of the tunes to which it's sung.  In the Lutheran Service Book, it's paired with two tunes:  "Christ, unser Herr" (#406) and "Elvet Banks" (#407).  What I noticed is specific to "Christ, unser Herr."

There are two instances where lines about descents are sung to descending musical phrases.  In the the third verse, there's the line "The Father's voice from heav'n came down," in which "heav'n came down" is sung to the phrase Bb A G.  In the fourth verse there's the line "Upon the scene descending," describing the Holy Spirit, which descends almost in its entirety (from Bb to C):