LBW 278, “All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night”
Devotion
Unlike George Herbert, Thomas Ken (b. 1637) is not remembered as a great poet. But in the LBW, Ken’s hymns outnumber Herbert’s four to one. Apparently, sing-ability bests poetry in hymnody.
In Ken’s hymn for today, it is Verse 3 that always strikes me: “Teach me to live, that I may dread/The grave as little as my bed.” This line, set to the fine tune of another Thomas (Tallis, that is) reveals the purpose of faith in Christ: to live so fearlessly that death and sleep share the comforting and refreshing implication of new life – the one for the day to come, the other for the life to come. Such fearlessness allows us to gladly give ourselves away. There is always the promise of more life in Christ.
Pastors and music directors, teach your congregations to sing this hymn as a canon. That’s how Tallis intended it and how Ken adopted it.
Prayer
O God, teach us to live that we may dread the grave as little as our bed. Amen.