Each Sunday, the regular rhythm of worship includes singing the Hymn of the Day. It helps guide you and other Christians through our beautiful Church Year in song. Do you know how the Hymn of the Day came to be part of our worship services? Read an excerpt from Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Services to learn how Martin Luther saw value in having this and how Lutherans encouraged the practice through robust hymn writing.
The development of congregational hymnody has been examined extensively in other places; thus, only a few brief comments are necessary here. While the old adage that Martin Luther invented congregational singing has been supplanted over the years with a much more nuanced understanding of its development, it is certainly true that Luther and others following his lead can be credited with establishing congregational song as an integral feature of Christian worship. We know that some form of hymnody already existed in the earliest centuries of the Church. Even during the Middle Ages, when services were conducted entirely in Latin, there is evidence of hymnody in the vernacular, even if it was mostly sung outside of the mass.
With his call for services in the vernacular, Luther came to the realization that congregational singing offered a unique opportunity to inculcate the faith through word and song. Unlike the Reformed churches, which limited singing primarily to paraphrases of the psalms, Luther drew upon a variety of sources. Choosing among the best of those existing vernacular hymns with which the people were already familiar, Luther “improved” (gebessert) them, usually by adding additional stanzas. Drawing on his years of praying the Daily Office in the monastery, he also identified key hymns from the Church’s ancient repertoire and provided translations. He led the way in using the psalms as a source for hymnody. Drawing on various models and examples, Luther wrote hymns that supplemented the teaching of the catechism.
It is significant to note that of Luther’s three dozen or so hymns, two-thirds of them were written within the years 1523 and 1524; the other third would appear in dribs and drabs over the next two decades. The intensity of Luther’s initial output would suggest that he was content to provide a model for how to write good hymns and then stepped aside to allow others to add their contributions.
One outcome of the flowering of hymn writing early in the Reformation was the formation of a schedule of hymns that were appointed for each Sunday and festival in the Church Year. While this practice existed prior to the Reformation in Latin hymnody that was sung by the choir, the Hymn of the Day (de tempore) became the means of promoting the regular singing of the finest hymns, both translations of the ancient examples and newly written hymns by Luther and others. Many of the church orders followed the lead of Luther’s German Mass in locating this chief hymn in the service between the Epistle and Holy Gospel, giving it the title Graduallied. The regular use of this cycle of appointed hymns elevated the chief hymn to the status of one of the propers alongside the readings, Introit, Collect of the Day, and so on.
During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these annual cycles of appointed hymns fell out of favor. It was through the rise of hymnological research beginning in the late nineteenth century that their recovery commenced. Within the LCMS, such proponents as Walter Buszin, Edward Klammer, and Carl Schalk promoted their use. That recovery has continued in Lutheran Service Book with separate Hymn of the Day lists for both the three- and one-year lectionaries.
Lutherans rightly treasure their hymnody as the sung confession of the faith. While each congregation’s repertoire of hymnody is unique, the Hymn of the Day provides congregations sharing a common confession the opportunity to unite around a shared core hymnody that is generally sung on a regular basis. While few congregations will know and be able to sing all of the hymns on the appointed lists, their attempt to sing many of those hymns becomes a visible and audible demonstration of the very first words of the Lutheran Church’s primary confession: “Our churches teach with common consent …” (Augsburg Confession, Article 1, paragraph 1).
There is no single function that one can ascribe to the Hymn of the Day. In many cases, the hymn directly expounds one or more of the readings for the day. In other cases, the hymn functions more as a seasonal hymn that echoes a number of themes for the season. Sometimes the appointed hymn is rather general in nature or encompasses so many themes itself that it has a general applicability. In this case, the Sunday to which it is appointed may seem rather arbitrary, and it could, arguably, be just as fitting a choice on any number of Sundays. The genius of an appointed hymn for each Sunday ensures that these most significant of our Lutheran treasures are sung at least annually.
Common parlance often refers to the hymn situated at this point in the service
as the “sermon hymn.” While the Hymn of the Day may, in fact, contain a high
degree of correspondence with the preaching of the day, it is best not to link the two together. Just as the Introit or the Collect of the Day is not subservient to
the sermon, neither is the Hymn of the Day. It stands on its own, reflecting the
readings of the day or the general tone of the season, affording the congregation the opportunity to sing the very best of the Church’s hymnody from every age. Studiously avoiding any suggestion that this hymn is dependent upon the sermon will best serve the congregation as it strives for a sung confession that is both broad and sturdy.
Blog post adapted from Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Services, pp. 541–43 © 2022 Concordia Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Read more about hymnody and the rich history of worship in Lutheran Service Book: Companion to the Services