Hymn of the Day: “Thine the Amen” ELW 826
Text: Herbert F. Brokering (1926)
Tune: Thine, Carl F. S chalk, (1929)

Herbert Brokering wrote this hymn text at Holden Village, the retreat center for renewal in the Cascade Mountains near Chelan, Washington. It was the tenth hymn he wrote in as many days in the summer of 1981. Each morning Walter Bouman led a Bible study, and on the following morning it was reviewed through the singing of a hymn by Brokering, who said, "We sang each study the following morning. This hymn is on the great eucharistic theology in Revelation. It was to be a then to the now."'The "Now" refers to Jaroslav Vajdas "Now the silence" (#460). The hymn comes to Evangelical Lutheran Worship through With One Voice (1995).

At this same Holden Village summer session in 1981, Carl Schalk was the composer for Brokering's hymns. He remembers the schedule like this. "After each morning's Bible study by Walter Bouman, Herb Brokering would fashion a new text, which he had to have finished by about noon that day. I had to write a tune and accompaniment by about three in the afternoon since I had to get it to the print shop, which closed at four in the afternoon, for duplication so we could use it the following morning. This pattern continued each day for two weeks.” One day Schalk mentioned to Brokering that since he (Schalk) had set a text by Jaroslav Vajda called “Now" that Brokering might write one called "Then." Within a day or so Brokering "had written a text in which almost each line began with 'Thine. Thus the idea of Then' became ‘Thine.' The tune was published with this text as an anthem in 1983 and in Christians, Awake! A Hymn Supplement (1989). It appeared in the same year in The Carl Schalk Hymnary
(1989), where it was called THEN. The name was subsequently changed to THINE.

Opening Voluntary: Reflection on Savannah, David Blackwell (1961)

David Blackwell is an award-winning composer and freelance arranger, writer and editor. Undoubtedly one of our finest educational writers, his music is published in the UK and US and performed worldwide. We begin the final service of the Easter season with his setting of the hymn tune “Savannah,” or “Love’s Redeeming Work Is Done.”

The original tunne was composed by Johannes Thommen, (1711-1783). Born in Switzerland, Johannes Thommen was a pietist. He traveled through Scandinavia singing hymns and accompanying himself on his 10-string guitar. He contributed to the Zion's Harp, a collection of hymns and songs.

Sending Voluntary: VICTORY (The Strife Is O'er, the Battle Done), Michael Helman (1956)

To close the Easter season I’ve chosen a setting of “The Strife Is O'er, the Battle Done.” Its tune, VICTORY, comes from the choral mass Magnificat Tertii Toni by the Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, specifically from the “Gloria Patri.” The opening phrases of the Gloria were adapted by William Monk into the tune we sing now. He also added the final “alleluias” to this very popular hymn.

Michael Helman is currently Director of Music/Organist at Faith Presbyterian Church in Cape Coral, Florida. Prior to moving to Florida in 2006, Michael was Director of Music/Organist for fifteen years at St. Paul’s United Methodist in Wilmington, Delaware.