Oh come, you spirit of truth
Oh come, you spirit of truth is an Evangelical Lutheran hymn for Pentecost . The pastor and later superintendent Philipp Spitta wrote it at Pentecost 1827 in the domain village Lüne near Lüneburg and published it in 1833 in his song collection Psalter und Harp . The text is a supplication to the Holy Spirit for courage to confess in "times of poor faith".
Emergence
After the first theological exam, Philipp Spitta accepted a position as a private tutor , as did many pastoral candidates of his time . The best of the songs he later published were written during these years. They testify to an intense, emotional and anti-rationalist piety and stand in the context of the romantic counter-movement against the Enlightenment and a return to the confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church .
Although Spitta's collection of psalteries and harp was intended, according to the subtitle, "for domestic edification", that is, for the devotions of a household, the songs were soon incorporated into hymn books for church services, especially since they could all be sung to well-known hymn melodies.
shape
The seven stanzas of the Whitsun song consist of eight iambic , three-part lines that rhyme alternately feminine and masculine . This stanza scheme is common in hymn poetry. Oh come, you Spirit of Truth has been sung with different melodies of this stanza form in the past.
content
The lyrical we of the song is the church . The addressee is (explicitly only in stanzas 1–3, 5 and 7) the Holy Spirit , whose powerful coming is asked. As the background to the request, the song describes a (European) Christianity with little faith , which is supposed to repent and, spurred on by the example of the newly converted "heathen" and unimpressed by "all enemies raging", preach the Gospel . The mission in distant continents, which was very active at the time in the course of colonialism , is thus accompanied by the concern of internal mission , the renewal of faith in Germany and Europe.
text
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1. O come, you spirit of truth,
and come to us,
spread light and clarity,
banish deception and appearance.
Pour out your holy fire,
touch your heart and lips, so
that everyone
can confess the Lord more faithfully .
2. O you, whom our greatest
ruler promised us:
come to us, dear comforter,
and make us courageous.
In this slack
and unfaithful time give us
the sharp weapons
of early Christianity.
3. Unbelief and folly boast
more insolently now than ever;
therefore you must arm us
with weapons from above.
You have to give us strength,
patience and faithfulness
and you have to free us completely
from all fear of people.
4. It is a free confession
in this our time,
an open confession
in
spite of all conflict, in spite of all enemies rage, in
spite of all paganism,
to praise and praise
the Gospel.
5.
Your word resounds in all the heathen lands ,
they throw
away Satan's bonds and their idols;
they
come
into the kingdom from all sides ;
oh should it be taken from
us, closed to us?
6. O verily, we deserve
such severe judgment;
the light has appeared to us,
but we do not believe.
Oh, let us
bow down to the grace of God, so
that he may
leave the candlestick of the word with us .
7. You Holy Spirit, prepare
a festival of Pentecost near and far;
with your strength accompany
the testimony of the Lord.
O thou open the hearts of
the world and open our mouths to us,
that we may
make salvation known to it in joy and pain .
melody
The assigned to the song in all hymn books today , originally part of an autumn song with a simpler rhythm, became popular with singing in the later lively form with the exuberant closing melisma, first with the text Praise God confidently . Their liveliness corresponds to the urgent request for the life-giving spirit.
literature
- Ulrich Parent, Joachim Stalmann: 136 - O come, you spirit of truth . In: Gerhard Hahn , Jürgen Henkys (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelisches Gesangbuch . No. 4 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-50325-3 , pp. 68–70 ( limited preview in Google Book search).