Lord’s Day, Vol. 2 No. 51

Now Thank We All Our God 

When we sing the stately hymn of thanksgiving and praise, “Now Thank We All Our God,” we might not realise it was written during one of history’s darkest periods of suffering. Nothing brings more suffering and tragedy to our world as war. Even if one believes that war may be the necessary instrument for peace in some situations, it still leaves an aftermath of death and destruction.

One of history’s longest and most terrible wars, the last of the great religious wars of Europe, was the Thirty Years’ War of 1618-1648. H.G. Wells described it as “one of the most cruel and destructive” of history. Germany, the main battleground between the warring Catholics and Protestants from various countries of Central Europe, suffered misery beyond description, with the German population decimated from sixteen million to six million.

At the outset, Martin Rinkart was called to pastor a church in the walled city of Eilenberg where many fugitives took refuge.

He faithfully ministered to the weak and the dying for the full duration of the war, enduring famines, plagues, and marching armies that swept the city. During the dreadful plague of 1637, he would often conduct as many as forty funerals a day and eventually over 4,500, including that of his wife. Yet in the midst of the horrors of that war, Rinkart wrote a “table grace” that was sung as a national song of thanksgiving at the end of the Thirty Years’ War. It became a hymn of praise sung across the centuries throughout the world, aided in popularity by its English translation.

The experience out of which the song was written, reminds us that in the worst of circumstances, we can still raise our Te Deum in trial, our praise amid tribulation, our doxology amid desolation.

Now thank we all our God

          With hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done,

           In whom this world rejoices;

Who from our mother’s arms

          Hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love,

          And still is ours today.

O May this bounteous God

             Through all our life be near us

With ever joyful hearts

            And blessed peace to cheer us;

And keep us in His grace,

            And guide us when perplexed,

And free us from all ills

            In this world and the next.

All praise and thanks to God

            The Father now be given,

The Son, and Holy Ghost,

            Supreme in highest heaven;

The one eternal God,

            Whom earth and heaven adore

For thus it was, is now,

            And shall be evermore.

This hymn can be found in the Revival Hymns and Choruses # 27. [Extracted and edited from Songs in the Night by Henry Gariepy].

Yours lovingly in Christ,

Ps. Lek Aik Wee