Wake up, wake up, it's high time

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Jesus sleeps on the lake in a storm , Hitda Codex , around 1000

Wake up, wake up, it's high time is a hymn that goes back to a text by the Swabian - Swiss reformer Ambrosius Blarer from 1561. It is in the Evangelical Hymnbook (No. 244) and in the Evangelical Reformed Hymnal of Switzerland (No. 789) with a melody by Melchior Vulpius and is also one of the common German-language Christian songs developed by the Working Group for Ecumenical Songs. The song is a wake-up call to the sleeping Jesus Christ in view of the “distress at sea” of the church ( Mk 4,37–38  EU ).

Emergence

In 1562 the publisher Gregor Mangolt made a handwritten collection of the sacred poems of his friend and like-minded friend Ambrosius Blarer, who was then working in Winterthur, in Zurich . Inside is awake vff, awake vff! it is included in large zyt as one of the last texts by Blarer († 1564), who was almost 70 at the time. The background of the verse prayer in 14 pair rhymes is the fierce, sometimes violent, Reformation and Counter-Reformation disputes in the Swiss cantons of those years, the outcome of which was open. Blarer himself had to leave his hometown Konstanz in the course of the recatholicization in 1548.

In Mangolt's copy, the song is entitled “Ein spruch oder gsang vff 16 Januarij im 1561 jar”. On 16 January 1561, the bishop of Como and Papal Nuncio in Switzerland called Giovanni Antonio Volpe on the Diet in Baden , the Swiss on behalf of Pope Pius IV. To participate in the continuation of a decade interrupted the Council of Trent on.

reception

Blarer's call for help to Christ did not become a church chant and remained largely unknown for 300 years. It was not until the hymnologist Philipp Wackernagel , who gave Ambrosius Blarer an important place in his collection Das deutsche Kirchenlied, from Martin Luther to Nicolaus Herman and Ambrosius Blaurer (Stuttgart 1841), also printed Wach auf, Wach auf in the original wording of the Mangolt manuscript . This marked the beginning of the "discovery" of the text and its processing in various evangelical hymn books.

Friedrich Spitta published the hymnbook for the evangelical congregations in Alsace-Lorraine in 1899 , in it wake up, wake up as a song for the Reformation Day with all 14 stanzas of Blarer's and the melody of preserve us, Lord, at your word . The song is missing in the German Evangelical Hymnbook (1915), but it was included in the regional church song part for Frankfurt (1928) (rubric Die Kirche und die Gnadenmittel ). In the regional church song part for Rhineland and Westphalia (1929, 7 stanzas), the melody ? / i The day dawns and is revealed by Melchior Vulpius, who has remained associated with him ever since. Audio file / audio sample

In 1932 the youth songbook Ein neue Lied, edited by Otto Riethmüller , was published . It offers wake up, wake up in an eight-stanza version (arrangements of Blarer's stanzas 1–3, 7–9, 13 and 14, rubric Collection and Mission of the Church ).

In the time of National Socialism , Wake Up , Wake Up was printed in song books both by the Confessing Church and by the German Christians , there in the context of the church struggle , here as an expression of the "national awakening", whereby Christ with Blarer's 13th verse as the "captain" was understood and all statements of guilt and penance fell away.

This topic can be found in the 11- stanza version of the EKG (No. 204, heading Psalms, supplications and hymns of praise - The Church ) with Blarer's stanza 10; on the other hand, his stanzas 6–8 are left out.

The EC version ( Divine Service - Collection and Broadcast ) offers arrangements of Blarer's stanzas 1–6, 8 and 9. The EC stanza 7 is a new creation that deepens the idea of ​​penance. The EC stanza 8 describes the threat to the church even more clearly than Blarer's stanza 8 as a conflict over the validity of God's word . The first stanza 10 is only heard in the second half of Blarer's final stanza; the first half formulates the request (missing in Blarer) that the “enemy” be converted to Christ and, together with “us”, praise him.

The fact that the song was also received by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für ecumenisches Liedgut assumes an interpretation that no longer has the denominational contrast in view, but rather the rejection of Christianity, partly caused by lack of “discipline and respectability” (verse 6) by Christians Faith and Church in general.

Text in the Evangelical Hymnal

Awake vff, awake vff! es ist Groß zyt , text from the manuscript from 1562 (Edition Philipp Wackernagel 1841)

1. Wake up, wake up, it is high time,
Christian, do not be far with your help!
The furiously boisterous sea
runs up with power and urges us very much.

2. If you do not help soon, it
will be done; we must perish quickly.
Threatened by the wild roar of the waves,
it settles down and becomes very still.

3. Oh Lord, for the honor of your name
keep us in peace with your teaching;
give your church good rest,
health, and prosperity.

4. Also the very best:
that in faith we
praise you strongly and firmly and live the name yours,
you, be your dear little people,

5. be completely new born out of your spirit;
give it to us, sir, or it will be lost.
Our heart desires all of this,
although we are not worth any.

6. Are to blame
for the
contradiction, your patience often provoked anger, your faithful warning also despised,
all discipline and respectability laughed at.

7. And
if the measure is now full that our sin should have a well-
deserved punishment, then we are right
as an unfaithful servant.

8. However, while your word is good,
fight back all those arrogance
who do not let us stand
and want to see it driven away .

9. Do not make fun of us before them;
the thing is yours, O mighty God.
Do not disgrace our enemies;
we like to fall into your hand.

10. Convert the enemy to Christ's teaching,
that with us he may praise and honor you
and that all the world may
see that you do great miracles on earth.

literature

  • Christa Reich : 244 - Wake up, wake up, it's high time . In: Martin Evang, Ilsabe Seibt (Hrsg.): Liederkunde zum Evangelischen Gesangbuch . No. 19 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-50342-3 , pp. 25–33 ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

Commons : Wake up, wake up, it's high time you  collect images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karl Fry: Nuncio Giovanni Antonio Volpe and the Council negotiations with the III frets . In: Journal for Swiss Church History 26, 1932, pp. 34–58 ( digitized version ); January 16, 1561: p. 43
  2. ↑ The author's statement for the text is "Ambrosius Blarer 1561". The song is not listed in the list of pieces protected by copyright (No. 960).
  3. ↑ In praise of God it is missing.