After the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648, Lutheran Silesia was forcibly returned to Roman Catholicism. Lutheran worship survived in only three "Churches of Peace," at Jauer, Schweidnitz and Glogau, and each had to stand outside the city walls, be built only of timber and clay so that it would not last, and have neither tower nor bells. Two of them still stand. Benjamin Schmolck (1672-1737), crowned poet laureate at Leipzig in 1697 and the author of some nine hundred hymns, served the Church of Peace at Schweidnitz from 1702 until his death. He published this hymn there in 1732 in a book of prayers and songs for people traveling to church, under the heading "Appearance before God." The LSB companion notes that the gates of even those humble churches were truly "gates of beauty," where Christ's people gathered to hear Him speak through His pastors and to be fed with His body and blood. The hymn draws on Psalm 100:4 and Psalm 84:10, and it prays that the Word sown in us will take root and bear fruit. Catherine Winkworth translated it in 1863. The tune UNSER HERRSCHER is by Joachim Neander (1680), the author of "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty."
Sung at Our Saviour
2026