Songs in Seasons by Carla Waterman, Advent Liturgist
A MIGHTY FORTRESS
Martin Luther, trans. Frederick Hedge
You can pick and choose verses on some hymns. The stanzas emphasize a different facet of the overarching theme, and some facets work better than others in any given service. Amazing Grace is like that. If you skip a verse or two, what you have sung will stand on its own.
But other hymns tell stories. If you drop a verse, the hymn makes little sense. Once you begin, you are committed to singing all the verses, because each verse builds on the last. The classic example of this kind of hymn is A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Let’s take a look.
1 A mighty fortress is our God,
a sword and shield victorious;
he breaks the cruel oppressor's rod
and wins salvation glorious.
The old satanic foe
has sworn to work us woe!
With craft and dreadful might
he arms himself to fight.
On earth he has no equal.
2 No strength of ours can match his might!
We would be lost, rejected.
But now a champion comes to fight,
whom God himself elected.
You ask who this may be?
The Lord of hosts is he!
Christ Jesus, mighty Lord,
God's only Son, adored.
He holds the field victorious.
3 Though hordes of devils fill the land
all threat'ning to devour us,
we tremble not, unmoved we stand;
they cannot overpow'r us.
Let this world's tyrant rage;
in battle we'll engage!
His might is doomed to fail;
God's judgment must prevail!
One little word subdues him.
4 God's Word forever shall abide,
no thanks to foes, who fear it;
for God himself fights by our side
with weapons of the Spirit.
Were they to take our house,
goods, honor, child, or spouse,
though life be wrenched away,
they cannot win the day.
The kingdom's ours forever!
This hymn tells the story of a conflict between the powers of darkness—“the old satanic foe” alongside all those who are“sworn to work us woe”—and God’s own champion, Christ Jesus, the Lord of hosts (imagine an army of angels with Christ Jesus at their head). Our lives are the battleground for these two powers amid the “world’s tyrant” that “threatening to devour us." The enemy’s arrows can pierce our unguarded hearts with paralyzing fear, our lives with disease and death, but in God alone we stand. Here we have the weapons of the Spirit. We are strengthened to love truth over lies, faith over fear, God’s kingdom over the kingdom of self.
The “craft and dreadful might” of evil is very strong, but the “foes” will not ultimately prevail. “One little word subdues him.” If we stop at verse 3, we are stuck looking for the secret word. What word could win the battle? Are we in a story like the fantasies where there is a secret word that only the high and mighty know? No, this is the “In the beginning” Word. The “Word was with God” word. That Word that is the name above every name. That Word to whom every knee shall bow.
That Word, Jesus, the Son of God, triumphs through us. In the end, A Mighty Fortress is not so much about a place we run to, but about the person who stands in us, with us, and fights the darkness through us.
