"Now Thank We All Our God"

Have you sung this hymn in church before? I must admit I never have.

But the story behind it is compelling.

Martin Rinckart (1586-1649) was a Lutheran minister in Eilenburg, Saxony, during the Thirty Years War. Refugees flooded the town as the Swedish army lay seize to its walls. Plague and famine became familiar bed fellows for the citizens. In the seize, over eight hundred homes were obliterated. People died in droves. In fact, over eight thousand perished. Dozens of funerals were performed, each day, putting a terrific physical and psychological strain on local pastors. As pestilence gnawed away at the population, so, too, did the clergy succumb.

All except Martin Rinckart. In the years 1636 and 1637, he was the only remaining pastor. During this time, he performed as many as fifty funerals a day--over four thousand funerals in total. In 1637, his wife became one of the victims, and he presided over her interment, as well.

The occupying general imposed a confiscatory tax on the remaining townfolk, one which they couldn't possibly muster. Rinckart left the relative safety of the city's walls and pled with the general for leniency. The Swedish commander ignored his plea, so Rinckart spoke to some of his followers who had accompanied him, saying: "Come, my children, we can find no mercy with men, let us take refuge with God." They began singing "When in the Hour of Utmost Need."

When the general witnessed this, his heart softened, and he lowered the tax to one-fifteenth of his original demand.

Soon after, in the midst of unremitting tragedy and grief, Martin Rinckart wrote the lyrics to the song "Now Thank We All Our God." It since has crossed denominational lines, and is sung at Thanksgiving, primarily. It was sung at the opening of the Cathedral of Cologne in 1880, at the cornerstone-laying of the Reichstag in Berlin in 1884, at the end of the Boer War in South Africa in 1902, and at other victory celebrations and national events.


Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.

O may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And free us from all ills, in this world and the next!

All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given;
The Son and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven;
The one eternal God, Whom earth and Heaven adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.