Receiving the gift of a new year, unlike the gifts just pulled from beneath the Christmas tree, challenges us at the baseline of all our fears, and hopes. What will come? More particularly, what will become of me? German theologian (and concentration camp casualty) Dietrich Bonhoeffer penned this sturdy and bracing hymn, an apt embrace for the yet-unknown gift of this year.
By gracious pow’rs so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting come what may,
we know that God is with us night and morning,
and never fails to greet us each new day.
Yet is this heart by its old foe tormented,
still evil days bring burdens hard to bear;
oh, give our frightened souls the sure salvation,
for which, O Lord, you taught us to prepare.
And when this cup you give is filled to brimming
with bitter suff’ring, hard to understand,
we take it thankfully and without trembling
out of so good and so beloved a hand.
Yet when again in this same world you give us
the joy we had, the brightness of your sun,
we shall remember all the days we lived through
and our whole life shall then be yours alone.
By gracious pow’rs so faithfully protected,
so quietly, so wonderfully near,
we live each day in hope, with you beside us,
and go with you through ev’ry coming year.
Text by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), translated by Fred Pratt Green (1900-2000). This hymn appears as #626, By Gracious Powers, in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, published by Augsburg Fortress, Minneapolis MN
Filed under: Follow Through
Nice post and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Gratefulness you for your information.
I was studying something else about this on another blog. Interesting. Your position on it is diametrically contradicted to what I read originally. I am still mulling over the diverse points of view, but I’m tipped heavily toward yours. And irrespective, that’s what is so super about modern democracy and the marketplace of ideas on-line.