Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 395)
1 Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord,
with all your graces now outpoured
on each believer’s mind and heart;
your fervent love to them impart.
Lord, by the brightness of your light
in holy faith your church unite;
from ev’ry land and ev’ry tongue,
this to your praise, O Lord, our God, be sung.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
2 Come, holy Light, guide divine,
now cause the word of life to shine.
Teach us to know our God aright
as loving Father, our delight.
From ev’ry error keep us free;
let none but Christ our teacher be,
that we in living faith abide,
in him, our Lord, with all our might confide.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
3 Come, holy Fire, comfort true,
grant us the will your work to do
and in your service to abide;
let trials turn us not aside.
Lord, by your pow’r prepare each heart
and to our weakness strength impart,
that bravely here we may contend,
through life and death to you, our Lord, ascend.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Text: German Hymn, 15th cent. St. 1; Martin Luther, sts. 2-3; Music: Enchiridion, Erfurt; Public Domain
Devotion
In 1524, Martin Luther revised the liturgy and wrote hymns including this Pentecost hymn. He expressed his crucial insights about faith in verse one. He saw faith as personal trust in God. He reiterated this belief in his Small Catechism as he explained the third article of the Creed, “the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel.” With this personal emphasis he has been called a forerunner of modern individualism. Yet in both the Creed and this hymn he marries that faith to the Spirit working in and through the Christian community. In his catechism he says, “just as he calls… the whole Christian church … and keeps it in the one, true faith.” In this hymn he says, “in holy faith your church unite” so faith is not just what we believe, but what the Spirit reveals in and through the church. He kept those two beliefs together and we Americans need to also.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for loving each of us sinners. May your Holy Spirit work in and through our church so that we relate to you as you have revealed yourself to be, so we do not follow the imaginings of our mind and base our belief on what we see and experience instead of what your Spirit reveals. Amen.