Day 2

Wild Rose – photo credit Nancy White

Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming

1599: Tune printed in the Speyer Hymnal1609: Tune harmonized by Michael Praetorius (1571–1621)1894: Translated into English by Theodore Baker (1851–1934)ca. 2010: Performed by the chorus of the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own”., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming
From tender stem hath sprung!
Of Jesse’s lineage coming
As men of old have sung.
It came, a floweret bright,
Amid the cold of winter
When half-spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it,
The Rose I have in mind:
With Mary we behold it,
The virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright
She bore to men a Savior
When half-spent was the night.

This “Twelfth Night” German carol combines the story of Luke 1-2 and Matthew 2 with Isaiah’s prophecies about the “rose” from the “stem of Jesse ” (Isa. 11:1; 35:1-2). Stanzas 1 and 2 are a combination of folklore (“amid the cold of winter”) and Christological interpretation of Isaiah 11:1 and 35: 1-2.

Just as, in the prophecies from *Isaiah, a “rose,” or stem, shoots up from the stump, so too do we celebrate Christ’s birth in the knowledge that He brings life out of death.

*(Isa. 11:1; 35:1-2).