"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part V

 

The fifth stanza of the version of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” that we are use today was either written or translated by John C. Mattes in 1914. Here are the words:

O Savior, child of Mary,

Who felt our human woe,

O Savior, King of glory,

Who dost our weakness know;

Bring us at length we pray,

To the bright courts of Heaven,

And to the endless day!

 

This stanza brings the earlier ones together and looks forward to our glorious life in Heaven.

Whatever the coming year brings, and however many more I have ahead of me, I know that my life on this earth will transform into endless day in the bright courts of Heaven. And nothing is better than that.

May you have a Christ-filled new year.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part IV

Here is Harriet Reynolds Krauth’s translation of stanza 4:

This flower, whose fragrance tender

With sweetness fills the air,

Dispels with glorious splendor

The darkness everywhere;

True man, yet very God,

From sin and death He saves us,

And lightens every load.

 

The sweetness of the flower may refer to Christ’s death. Before embalming became a common practice, fragrant flowers were used at funerals to cover up the odor of decaying flesh.

As both true man and very God, Christ was the only person who could save us from sin and death. Through His death, He brought us salvation and more. We no longer have to fear the darkness, and we carry a much lighter load because His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

As we approach the new year, next week’s post will cover the fifth stanza, which addresses the future.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part III

 

The third and fourth stanzas of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” were translated into English by Harriet Reynolds Krauth in 1875, almost twenty years before Theodore Baker translated the first two. Stanzas three and four may have been composed and added to the hymn by Fridrich Lasyriz some time around 1844, but that isn’t clear. The earliest printed text that has been found ( in the Alta Catholishche Geistliche Kirchengansang published in 1599) had 23 stanzas, but these stanzas may not have been among them.¹

In any event, the first four stanzas would have been included in the carol before Harriet Reynolds Krauth translated any of it, so I’m not sure why she chose what are now stanzas three and four. Maybe they were in a different order at the time. Or maybe she started with stanza 3 because it referenced the familiar story in Luke 2:8-20 rather than Isaiah’s prophesies, which are not as well-known even to many Christians.

Here is Harriet Reynolds Krauth’s translation of stanza 3:

The shepherds heard the story

Proclaimed by angels bright,

How Christ, the Lord of glory

Was born on earth this night.

To Bethlehem they sped

And in the manger found Him,

As angel heralds said.

 

This verse makes it obvious that the song is a Christmas carol talking about the birth of Jesus.

Next week’s post will cover the other stanza translated by Harriet Reynolds Krauth.

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¹This information comes from https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/22/lo-how-a-rose-eer-blooming/.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part II

 

Like the first, the second stanza of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” was translated into English by Theodore Baker in 1894. Here is his translation:

Isaiah ‘twas foretold it,

The rose I have in mind;

With Mary we behold it,

The virgin mother kind.

To show God’s love aright,

She bore to men a Savior,

When half spent was the night.

 

Although Isaiah foretold that the Messiah would be born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), all of his prophesies point to the Messiah himself. The reference to the virgin who bore Him was a sign to identify the Messiah by, not a way to deify His mother.

Still, there is some discussion over whether the rose in the carol originally referred to Mary and was later “Protestantized” to make it refer to Jesus. It is clear to me, however, that the current version does not equate the rose with Mary. The English language has changed over the years, but even so the “it” in line three appears to refer back to the rose. Mary was unlikely to have beheld herself, but she did behold Jesus.

In spite of that controversy, the meaning of the stanza is clear. The Messiah was born of a virgin, and He came as our Savior.

Next week we’ll cover stanza three, which is the one that tells us most clearly that the prophesied Messiah is Jesus.

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"--Part I

 

This Advent season I’m doing a series about one of my favorite traditional Christmas carols, “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” The fifteenth century German carol tells the Christmas story in an unusual way by comparing Jesus to a rose.¹

The origin of the rose comparison is Biblically unclear. The carol seems to be combining Isaiah 11:1 and Isaiah 35:1.

Isaiah 11:1 clearly refers to the Messiah, who was to come from Jesse’s lineage. Here it is from the King James Version:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.

The verses that lead up to Isaiah 35, on the other hand, seem to indicate that Isaiah 35:1 refers to God’s kingdom rather than to the Messiah. Isaiah’s original audience may have assumed they would return from exile to rebuild the worldly Jerusalem. For most Christians today, however, the reference is to the heavenly Jerusalem. With that background to build on, here is Isaiah 35:1 from the King James Version:

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." 

To further complicate matters, the translations can’t even agree on the flower that the passage refers to. The NIV and the ESV translates it as crocus rather than rose, and Martin Luther’s German translation uses lily. According to my internet research, what we usually think of as a crocus comes from the iris family, not the rose family, although there is apparently a shrub called a crocus rose.

The carol was written before the King James Version of the Bible came out, so it didn’t get the rose reference from there. Still, the actual flower is not the point of these passages so, for purposes of these blog posts, I’ll accept the comparison.

The first stanza of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” was translated from the original German into English by Theodore Baker in 1894. Here are the words:

Lo, how a rose e’er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung!

Of Jesse’s lineage coming,

As men of old have sung.

It came a floweret bright,

Amid the cold of winter,

When half spent was the night.

 

Jesus probably wasn’t born in the winter, since the shepherds were unlikely to be watching their flocks in the fields at that time of year, but Christmas was firmly established in December by the time this carol was written. And even if the carol got the season wrong, the reference to the Messiah is clear, at least to me.

There are some people who believe the rose originally referred to Mary rather than to Jesus. Next week’s post on the second stanza will discuss what it means today.

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¹Although the carol is generally acknowledged to be from the 15^th century, the first printed text appeared in 1599. See https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/22/lo-how-a-rose-eer-blooming/.