Early in the twentieth century Luther D. Reed, a leader of the General Council of the Lutheran Church in North America, challenged his colleagues to remedy the scarcity of English hymns that confessed the real presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar without hedging. His fellow professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, Henry Eyster Jacobs (1844-1932), answered in 1910 with this hymn. It first appeared in the Common Service Book of 1917, which Reed compiled, and it passed into The Lutheran Hymnal, Lutheran Book of Worship, and Lutheran Worship, which revised the text substantially; LSB keeps that revision. Lawrence Rast calls it "a theology of the Sacrament in sung form," and its five stanzas move through the true presence of Christ's body and blood, the forgiveness the Sacrament gives, the faith that clings to His Word, the unity of those who proclaim His death until He comes, and the heavenly feast to which it points. Since 1910 it has become a favorite for singing during the distribution. The tune is the seventeenth-century German melody of "Lord Jesus Christ, Be Present Now" (LSB 902).
Sung at Our Saviour
2026