Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee (Part 1)

Charles Spurgeon. This is The Bright Forever. The Bright Forever. Hello, and welcome to The Bright Forever. My name is Andy Peavyhouse, and I am your host as we discover the richness of some of the greatest hymns of the church. We are three weeks in, and I don't know about you, but I'm having a blast with this. I ask myself, why didn't I start this sooner? As I've said before, we want to hear from you, your stories, how this podcast is speaking to you. If there's a hymn that you would like for us to talk about, whatever you want to talk about, we want to hear it. Send us a message by going to thebrightforever.com and fill out the message form in the contact us section or email us at podcast at thebrightforever.com. That's podcast at thebrightforever.com. We really do want to hear from you. All right, so I have a confession to make. I get really excited as I start researching and planning for these episodes. I'm kind of a geek that way. I find some interesting tidbit about a hymn and I get all excited and I can't wait to share it. And my family really loves it when I start spouting off random hymn facts that nobody cares about except me in the middle of dinner or other conversations. But I really do. I get so excited about getting to share with you every week. Now, this episode that we're currently in the middle of was actually planned to be next week's episode. But I needed to make some arrangements to my schedule to have some special guests on with me next time. So we made some changes, we made some adjustments, and here we are at episode three with a hymn that should bring you a great amount of joy. If not, there may be something wrong because it's literally all about joy. This week we will be diving into a hymn that was originally entitled Hymn of Joy. A poem by Henry Van Dyck. The music comes from a little bit different composer than you may have heard of before. His name is Beethoven. Yes, that Beethoven. Specifically, his hymn finds its tune in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony, entitled Ode to Joy. The hymn today is known as Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. So let's begin with a little bit different version of the song than you may be used to hearing.

Happy feeling joyful God of glory, Lord of love. Flowery meadow, flashing sea

So that was Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee from the EDM Influenced Hymns Collection from TheHymnalProject.com. That's electronic dance music if you're curious what EDM stands for. If you're ever wondering, I use many different resources for research into the hymns that we talk about here on The Bright Forever. There's not enough time to go into every single one of them, but we do have a great list of some of the ones that I use online. under the resources tab on www.thebrightforever.com. I have tons of books about hymns. I have a myriad of websites devoted to hymns and hymn writers. One amazingly scholarly one that I love is called hymnologyarchive.com. If you ever want to become a hymn geek and get down into like the scholarship of hymnody, this site will immerse you in hymn knowledge. But today I want to talk to you about one in particular called thehymnalproject.com. I want to highlight this site for multiple reasons, but mainly because we just listened to one of their songs. And we're going to be listening to a few other things that they do over the course of the time that we have together. And it's a great site. They're not a sponsor. They're not an affiliate or an advertiser. A few months ago, while I was preparing for this podcast, I came across this website called The Hymnal Project. I love this site because it's a completely free resource to anyone who wants to use it. It has chord charts for every hymn in both male and female vocal keys. It has reference vocals so you can hear the song sung, and it's all free. This is an amazing resource for churches, and I wish more worship leaders knew about sites like this. Well, all that said... I sent them a message and asked if I could use their recordings on the podcast. And they said yes. And for that, I am truly grateful. Again, if you are looking for familiar hymn tunes, but updated arrangements and instrumentation, this is a great site and a great resource to check out. We'll talk more about the hymnal project, I'm sure, as we continue through this journey. I just wanted to give them credit for doing some great work with some great hymns. And the EDM-influenced version of Joyful Joyful came from that site. So let's start with Beethoven. Yes, that Beethoven. But not that symphony. Ode to Joy was composed in 1824. In the fourth and final movement of his last, and one could argue most famous, symphony. Symphony No. 9. I found this on a classical music post I came across while I was researching. And I thought it was interesting. At the end of the performance, so it premiered in Vienna on May 7, 1824, with Beethoven conducting. It was said that Beethoven continued conducting even though the music had ended. One of his soloists had to tap him on the shoulder and turn him around to accept the applause. The audience was well aware of Beethoven's health and hearing loss. By this time, he had all but lost every bit of hearing. So in addition to clapping, the crowd was throwing their hats and scarves in the air so that he could see their overwhelming approval. Despite its unpracticed and unrehearsed presentation, the audience was ecstatic. It was the first time Beethoven had appeared on stage in 12 years. And he died just a few years later in 1827 at the age of 56. Beethoven's medley was first adapted as a hymn tune in the Mozart collection of sacred music by Paine and Burgess in 1846. In this collection, the tune appeared three times under the name Bonn. That's B-O-N-N, all caps, which was the place Beethoven was born. So to distinguish the tune from others, it would say the tune B-O-N-N, Bonn, and everyone would know, oh, we sing this to Ode to Joy by Beethoven. Now it would probably appear as either hymn to joy or just to the tune of joy. I don't know if you're familiar with or if you've ever looked closely at a hymnal, but you'll usually see, at least in the Baptist hymnal, you'll see the metrical index like 8787D and the tune. It may say sung to the tune of hymn to joy or Bradbury or Heiferdahl. or any other myriad of names. The metrical index is a collection of numbers and letters that indicate the meter of a text. All right, now we're going to head back to high school English class for just a moment here. The meter is the rhythm and syllabic structure of poetry. The numbers like eight, seven, eight, seven indicate the number of syllables in each line of text. Each line is usually separated by a period. So, for instance, 8.7.8.7d is the meter for joyful, joyful, we adore thee. Count with me. Joyful, joyful, we adore thee. Eight. God of glory, Lord of love. Seven. Hearts unfold like flowers before thee. Eight. Opening to the sun above. Seven. The D means the eight, seven, eight, seven is repeated. The second half of the hymn follows the same structure. So instead of writing eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, eight, seven, over and over again, you shorten it to eight dot seven dot eight dot seven D, which stands for double. So you have four lines of eight, seven, eight, seven, and then you repeat it again. Now I realize as soon as I said high school English, I lost half of my audience. And when I started counting syllables and explaining 8787, I lost the other half. So for the one or two of you who are still listening to this podcast, there is a reason I'm talking about this. Most of this you would probably not even care about. But here's why it's important in the realm of hymns. In the 1800s and earlier, and I would even say into the early 1900s, it was expensive to print. It was especially expensive to print music. There was so much more ink involved. So songbooks for churches were usually just printed with the words of the songs, not the music. In order to sing the hymn, you would need to know what tune you were going to sing it with. If you wanted another tune that would work with the text, you could use the metrical index to look up all the different tunes that would fit to an 8787D meter. One of those that does work with this is another hymn called Love Divine, All Love's Excelling. It's usually sung to the tune Heifredahl, which is also an 8-7-8-7 tune. It goes like this. Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down. Fix in us thy humble dwelling, all thy faithful mercies crown. Now, you may actually recognize it as the tune of Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, which is true because it also uses the tune Heiferdahl. As a matter of fact, check this out. So you can sing Joyful Joyful to that same tune. because it fits into the 8-7-8-7. So I can sing, I can still sing those words with a different tune. The interchanging of tunes with hymns was common practice. Beethoven's tune wasn't the first of its kind to be used like this, and it certainly wasn't the last. It still happens even today, as artists and worship leaders try to modernize the tunes of well-known hymns. And even though Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee can be sung to different tunes, its author only had one tune in mind for his words, and that was Beethoven's Ode to Joy. This hymn is generally considered by hymologists to be one of the most joyous expressions of hymn lyrics in the English language. And that is completely owed to its author, Henry Van Dyck. Van Dyck was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 10, 1852. Van Dyck graduated from Princeton University in 1873 and from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1877, and served as a professor of English literature at Princeton between 1899 and 1923. In 1908-1909, Dr. Van Dyck was an American lecturer at the University of Paris. Henry Van Dyck was a friend of Helen Keller. As a matter of fact, Keller once wrote, Dr. Van Dyke is the kind of friend to have when one is up against a difficult problem. He will take trouble, days and nights of trouble, if it is for somebody else or for some cause he believes in. He even officiated at the funeral of Mark Twain at the Brick Presbyterian Church on April 23rd of 1910. By appointment of President Wilson, he became minister to the Netherlands and Luxembourg in 1913. Shortly after his appointment, World War I threw Europe into dismay. Americans all around Europe rushed to Holland as a place of refuge. And although inexperienced as an ambassador, Van Dyck conducted himself with the skill of a trained diplomat. maintaining the rights of Americans in Europe, and organizing work for their relief. Van Dyck resigned as ambassador at the beginning of December 1916 and returned to the United States. Upon his return, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and received many other honors. This man was a writer. A prolific writer. Not necessarily all of hymns, As a matter of fact, not a whole lot were hymns. He chaired the committee that wrote the first Presbyterian printed liturgy, the Book of Common Worship of 1906. Among his popular writings are two Christmas stories, The Other Wise Men from 1896 and The First Christmas Tree in 1897. Many of the religious themes of his work are also expressed in his poetry, his hymns, and the essays collected in Little Rivers in 1895 and Fisherman's Luck in 1899. So by 1907, Henry Van Dyck was well-established as a professor of English literature at Princeton University when he visited the president of William College in western Massachusetts. As he sat in awe and amazement at the beauty of the Berkshires, he picked up his pen and wrote the words of the hymn that we know of today as Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. According to the story, he handed the poem to his friend. And Van Dyck said, Here is a hymn for you. Your mountains were my inspiration. It must be sung to the music of Beethoven's Hymn to Joy. Joyful, joyful, we adore thee, God of glory, Lord of love. Hearts unfold like flowers before thee, opening to the sun above. Melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the dark of doubt away. Giver of immortal gladness, fill us with the light of day. All thy works with joy surround thee. Earth and heaven reflect thy rays. Stars and angels sing around thee, center of unbroken praise. Field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea, chanting bird and flowing fountain, call us to rejoice in thee. Thou art giving and forgiving, ever blessing, ever blessed. Wellspring of the joy of living, ocean depth of happy rest. Thou our Father, Christ our brother, all who live in love are thine. Teach us how to love each other, lift us to the joy divine. Mortals join the happy chorus, which the morning stars began. Father love is reigning o'er us, brother love binds man to man. Ever singing march we onward, victors in the midst of strife. Joyful music leads us sunward in the triumph song of life. Thank you for listening to this podcast. What is it calling us? How is it calling us to rejoice? Because that's, I think, something, just like the quote said at the beginning, we groan a lot, we complain a lot, but very few of us as Christians can really say we rejoice a lot. This world throws a lot of junk at us. What does it mean to say, I'm going to rejoice in God? What does that mean? What does that mean for our lives and for our hearts? And so we're going to talk about that next week. Please take a moment and follow us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, whatever site works for you. You can also find us at www.thebrightforever.com. We would love to hear from you as well. You can email us at podcast at thebrightforever.com. That's podcast at thebrightforever.com. Or go to our Contact Us section on our website, and you can fill out that form and send it in. We would love to hear your stories, hear what God is doing in your heart. I've already heard from so many people, and it really is humbling to hear how this podcast is already touching the hearts of so many people. And so thank you for that. As a matter of fact, I posted the other day on Facebook the fact that I'm actually getting to see Ephesians 3, 20 and 21 lived out. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine. To Him be the glory forever and ever. And I just, I am just... in awe sometimes of what God does in our lives. And so thank you for listening. Thank you for making this podcast a reality. And thank you for tuning in every week to hear it. Let me leave you with this benediction. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May he turn his face toward you and give you peace. Have a great week. I'll see you back here next week. We're out.

Thank you.