From the Dedication Anniversary primer: Hymn of the Day: “Built on the Rock” (LSB 645) In 1807 the British fleet bombarded Copenhagen, and the Church of Our Lady burned with its great spire collapsing into the ruins. The cathedral lay wrecked for years. Hymnologists suspect that sight is behind this text, written in 1837 by N. F. S. Grundtvig (1783–1872), who had fought his way back through the Rationalism of his day to a Christianity centered on Christ present in Word and Sacrament. His Danish first line is not ours: he wrote “The Church, it is an old house,” an old house that stands even when its towers fall and sink into the ground. The translator supplied “Built on the Rock,” fairly enough, since Matthew 7 and 16 stand behind the thought. The second stanza is the one for a dedication anniversary: God is not enclosed in any building, He “chooses to live with us in love,” and He makes our bodies His temple. Grundtvig wrote nine stanzas, cut two himself, and our hymnal prints five. Ludvig Lindeman of Norway gave it the tune in 1840, and Carl Døving brought it into English for the Lutheran Hymnary of 1913.