"Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus"

About a month ago, one of the hymns on Worship Anew was "Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus."  I noticed that the line "Full of faith and hope and love" in the first verse exhibits polysyndeton (the repeated "and") and that the repetition here provides a sense of this abundance (being "full").

I also found an uncited Biblical reference.  The lines "Though today we sow no laughter, / We shall reap celestial joy" in the second verse draw from Psalm 126:5:  "Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!"

(Here's a link to my post on the other Biblical sources.)

LSB #685 "Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus"

Biblical citations in the hymnal:  Matthew 16:24; 1 Peter 4:12-13; Matthew 10:38-39; Romans 6:2-5, 8

Matthew 16:24:  "Then Jesus told his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'"

1 Peter 4:12-13:  "12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.  13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed."

Matthew 10:38-39:  "38 'And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.'"

Romans 6:2-5:  "2 By no means!  How can we who died to sin still live in it?  3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

"5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his."

Romans 6:8:  "Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him."

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The first three cited texts appear in the first two verses.  The two passages from Matthew appear at the end of the first verse ("I shall follow where You guide") and near the beginning of the second ("And with patience bear our cross").  The passage from 1 Peter 4 appears at the beginning of the second verse ("Let us suffer here with Jesus") and perhaps also in the lines "Through a world that would deceive us / And to sin our spirits lure" in the first verse.

The hymn's title line seems to come from Romans 6:5 ("we too might walk in newness of life"), but the verses from Romans 6 appear primarily throughout the hymn's third and fourth verses ("Let us gladly die with Jesus..." and "Let us also live with Jesus...").  The lines "Jesus here with You I die, / There to live with You on high" at the end of the third verse also seem to draw on "'whoever loses his life for my sake will find it'" in Matthew 10:39.

In the fourth verse, the lines "Jesus, You are now our head. / We are Your own living members" seem to come from Ephesians 5:23, 30 ("Christ is the head of the church, his body... we are members of his body"), and the line "Where You live, there we shall be" seems to refer to John 14:3 ("'And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.'").

"Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus"

Last summer, I noticed an interesting feature that connects "Let Us Ever Walk with Jesus" and "Lasset uns mit Jesu ziehen," the tune to which it's sung.

The first two lines are "Let us ever walk with Jesus, / Follow His example pure," sung to these musical phrases:

Excepting the first note, these two phrases are entirely conjunct (they don't skip over any notes in the scale), and this gives a musical impression of that "walk[ing]" and "follow[ing]."  The first verse ends with the line "I shall follow where You guide," sung to the same phrase that's in the last two measures above, and this too has that musical impression of "follow[ing]" step by step.