Johann Rist, one of the most prolific Lutheran hymn writers of the seventeenth century, published this text in 1654. Its distinctive contribution to Lutheran eucharistic hymnody is a meditative quality: where earlier communion hymns taught doctrine objectively, Rist invites the communicant into the interior life of a penitent soul approaching the altar. The heart of the hymn is a meditation on Psalm 23—coming to the Sacrament is depicted as being led to green pastures and still waters, where the Lord personally prepares the table. The original German calls Christ Lebensbrot (“bread of life”), and a later stanza clothes the communicant in a Glaubensrock (“robe of faith”). The English text has been revised so thoroughly across three hymnals that of its twenty-eight lines, only two survive unchanged from Arthur Russell’s 1851 original.
Sung at Our Saviour
2026