"Worthy is Christ": a modern hymn and its apocalyptic pedigree

Currents in Theology and Mission, Dec, 2003 by John H. Elliott

In 1978, a new Lutheran Book of Worship was published, containing a new and in truth surprising innovation to the eucharistic liturgy of North American Lutherans. As an alternative to the Gloria Patri ("Glory be to the Father and to the Son ..."), a hymn of praise that formed part of the entrance rite with which the liturgy traditionally began, a hymn was offered that was quite startling in its concept and wording: "This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia. Worthy is Christ, the Lamb who was slain, whose blood set us free to be people of God. Power, riches, wisdom, and strength, honor and blessing and glory are his. This is the feast of victory for our God. Alleluia. Sing with all the people of God and join in the hymn of all creation: Blessing and honor and glory and might be to God and the Lamb forever. Amen. This is the feast of victory for our God, for the Lamb who was slain has begun his reign. Alleluia" (LBW, 81-82).

Alleluias frame the hymn at beginning and close, thus making it particularly appropriate for use in the Easter season when the Alleluias return to the liturgy, accompanying and greeting the announcement that "Christ has risen!"

Not only was this a spanking new hymn rather than an English translation of some previous text of earlier time. It also was fresh in its language and conceptuality, virtually all of which was taken from lines and phrases of the New Testament book of Revelation, alias the Apocalypse of John. That Lutherans should be singing stuff inspired by the book of Revelation is remarkable given the differences between the staid, middle-of-the-road sensibilities of Lutherans (consult Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion" for details) and the wild and wooly visions and auditions of John the Seer.

So, to honor my irony-loving friend Bob, I invite readers to linger a bit and relish this delicious piece of Lutheran liturgical irony. Not that Bob was ever a liturgy whiz or a "chancel prancer," as they were called in his day. But I suspect that his funny bone must have been tweaked more than once as he sang this new hymn and contemplated its biblical source. For here is a hymn recently incorporated into the regular liturgy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, but a text based on passages in a biblical book that Lutherans have tended to avoid like the Bubonic Plague or the writings of Karl Marx. Bob, as a great exception to conventional Lutheran exegetical practice, has taught and commented (1) on this politically most "extremist" of NT writings, though himself hardly a political extremist. I myself have taught a course on "The Apocalypse of John Then and Now" each year since the early 1980s. This was not only to assure that students at the University of San Francisco were introduced to the entire New Testament including this writing (in contrast to most Lutheran seminaries where Apocalyptic amnesia seems to reign), but also because I too have found this text endlessly challenging and fascinating. Because we both have been singing "Worthy is Christ" since the advent of the LBW in 1978, it seems to me that an appreciative look at this hymn and its biblical origins would be an appropriate way to honor Bob, the churchman and the exegete. In the midst of writing this essay I learned of the untimely death of our honoree's president at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Timothy Lull, on May 20, 2003. So while writing in tribute to Bob, I join him in remembering Tim and offering thanks to God for this good friend, engaging interpreter of Luther, and faithful servant of the church.

A surprising Lutheran creation

Lutherans in general have never warmed up to the Apocalypse of John. Placed last in the New Testament canon, it also comes in last among Lutheran canonical favorites. Perhaps this should not surprise. Luther himself admitted to not knowing what to make of this perplexing and alien writing. When facing the Apocalypse, Luther included it among his unnumbered NT documents, abandoned his normal historical-critical approach, and resorted to allegorizing the text in a blast against the papacy and the Muslims. Most of his followers tacitly seem to share his quandary. Its bizarre imagery, its uncompromising "us-versus-them" mentality, its supposedly vengeful spirit, its clutter with gore, blood and guts, its wallowing in war, destruction, and death, its cannibalism, for goodness sake!--none of this is appetitlich or salonfahig for nice, go-with-the program, respectable, middle-class Lutherans. No radicalism for us progeny of the good professor of Wittenberg. No extremism in our tent. We're the successors of Junker Jorg (Martin incognito), client of princes, not followers of Thomas Munzer, rouser of rabbles. We ensconce ourselves safely, as did blessed Martin, between the rigid authoritarian legalist Thomists on one extreme and the frenzied Anabaptist and feather-covered Enthusiasten on the other. For the most part we leave the text of Revelation to the "fundies" and millennarians and just hope that our parishioners are not taking too seriously the book itself or the bestsellers based on it. So it is nothing short of amazing that a hymn inspired by this bizarre writing should have made its way into a safe and comfortable hymnal, the Lutheran Book of Worship. Even more amazing is that this hymn is actually used and not ignored and even adopted in the hymnals and liturgies of other ecclesial communions.