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Title: Christ the Life of All the Living Text: Ernst C. Homburg, 1659; tr. Catherine Winkworth, 1863 Tune: JESU, MEINES LEBENS LEBEN Darnstadt, 1687 From Lift Up Your Hearts, 2013 In case you thought that Lent was a season of doom and gloom, this hymn reminds that it is profound gratitude and joy that should flow from our lives if we have been received the "full and free" atonement that only comes from Christ. I'm not very long-winded today. I may have spent all of my wind on the harmonica on this track. Just click the link below, listen to the words, and reflect on all of the reasons you have to be thankful. Make a list - a thousand thousand would be a good number to shoot for! I think I'll get started now...
Christ, the life of all the living; Christ, the death of death our foe;
Christ, for us yourself once giving to the darkest depths of woe:
through your suffering, death and merit, life eternal we inherit;
Thousand, thousand thanks are due, dearest Jesus unto you!
You have suffered great affliction and have borne it patiently,
even death by crucifixion: our atonement full and free.
Lord, you chose to be tormented, that our doom should be prevented;
Thousand, thousand thanks are due, dearest Jesus unto you!
Lord, for all that bought our pardon, for the sorrows deep and sore,
for the anguish in the garden, we will thank you evermore.
For the victory of your dying - sinful nature mortifying -
Thousand, thousand thanks are due, dearest Jesus, unto you!