"St. Crispin" (TLH #371)

Transposed from E major to F major

"St. Crispin" (TLH #304)

Transposed from E major to F major

"St. Crispin" (TLH #245)

Transposed from E major to D major

"God Loved the World So That He Gave"

At the beginning of Worship Anew this week, Eric Kaschinske recited the second verse of "God Loved the World So That He Gave":

Christ Jesus is the ground of faith,

Who was made flesh and suffered death;

All those who trust in Him alone

Are built on this chief cornerstone.

As he was saying these words, I was playing the tune ("St. Crispin") in my head.  I realized that the last syllable of "cornerstone" is sung to the tonic note, and because this is the musical center, there's a sense of that firm foundation.  Here's the musical phrase for the last line:

"St. Crispin"

The arrangements in Lutheran Worship and The Lutheran Service Book are the same.  I went through one verse of that arrangement (LW #362) and one verse of the arrangement from The Lutheran Hymnal (#245), which I had to transpose from Eb major to D major to match the key of the LW arrangement.

"God Loved the World So That He Gave"

A couple weeks ago, one of the hymns in church was LSB #571 "God Loved the World So That He Gave."  It was the 2nd Sunday in Lent, and John 3:16 - one of the Biblical sources for the hymn - was in the Gospel reading (John 3:1-17).  While singing the hymn, I noticed something about the pairing of the text and "St. Crispin," the tune to which its sung.  Not only is this specific to "St. Crispin" but also to the particular arrangement the tune has in The Lutheran Service Book (the same arrangement is also in The Lutheran Hymnal).

A couple years ago, I read John Eliot Gardiner's Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven and learned about the practice of inscribing musical crosses into works.  Here's Gardiner's diagram of some crosses Bach inscribed in BWV 4: III:

Since learning about this, I've found quite a few of these cross inscriptions, and one of them is in the particular arrangement of "St. Crispin" in The Lutheran Service Book.  The second musical phrase - melody and harmony - is:

When isolated, the harmony part in the last two bars has a cross inscription:

Not only is there a cross inscription, but it has relevance when considered with the text.  For the first four verses of the hymn, the words that are sung to the melody above this cross inscription deal with the cross or the crucifixion:  "His only Son the lost to save," "Who was made flesh and suffered death," "His Son with saving grace is nigh," and "Forgives all sins which you have done."  God saves the lost through His Son's crucifixion; Christ "suffered death" on the cross; Christ's crucifixion is an illustration of God's "saving grace"; and it's through Christ's death on the cross that all our sins are forgiven.