‘Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming’: A Hymnwriter Shares His Favorite Christmas Hymn

by Stephen P. Starke

This article was originally published in the December 2017 issue of The Lutheran Witness.

Of the Father’s Love Begotten, From Heaven Above to Earth I Come, All My Heart Again Rejoices, Once in Royal David’s City, Silent Night, Joy to the World…

How does one begin to choose a favorite from the treasure trove of Christmas hymns and carols?

We are blessed with enough good Christmas songs to keep us singing merrily throughout all the 12 days of Christmas, but for me, there is one hymn that must always be sung on December 24 for it to feel like Christmas: “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.”

The title of this lovely hymn (LSB 359) grows out of a prophecy from the 11th chapter of Isaiah: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (11:1). In this passage, Isaiah presents us with a graphic image: from a seemingly lifeless stump springs a tender shoot. The prophet’s words are a wonderful foreshadowing of the work of Christ, who comes to bring life out of death.

The hymn was first published with 23 stanzas under the German title “Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen” in Alte catholische geistliche Kirchengeslinge (Cologne, 1599). Originally, the “rose” in stanza 2 was interpreted as Mary, until Michael Praetorius in Musae Sionae (1609) changed the interpretation to point instead to Christ as the rose, thus placing the hymn even more fully in harmony with biblical imagery.

A bit of regional flavor is incorporated into this hymn: The words “amid the cold of winter” reflect more of a Germanic northern hemisphere experience of Christmas, while the words “when half-spent was the night” attempt to pinpoint the hour of Jesus’ birth, a time which is unknown to us. Do these intrusions ruin this hymn? Not for me. It may have been cold that Judean night of the first Christmas, and Jesus could very well have been born at the darkest hour of night as the dawning Light of the world. Here, I believe, is where poetry offers us something different from strict prose and straight-up dogma. The hymn writer uses words to paint a picture for the worshiper. The poet can use words of tenderness — “With Mary we behold it / The virgin mother kind” — and yet the gentle words bring us right back to Scripture (IS. 7:14). Carefully chosen words call upon our senses of smell and sight — “This flow’r whose fragrance tender / With sweetness fills the air, / Dispels with glorious splendor / The darkness everywhere” — to make the image grow more vivid in our minds.

Since Jesus comes as Savior, and since the manger ought never be too far removed from the cross, this hymn, like any good hymn, continues to lay out a faithful telling of Christ’s Person and work: “True man, yet very God, / From sin and death He saves us / And lightens ev’ry load.” One wouldn’t expect to stumble upon the two natures of Christ in a hymn like this, but with five simple words the hymn writer and faithful translator plainly lay out this creedal truth. What has Jesus done? He has saved us from sin and death. What does Jesus continue to do? He makes every load and burden lighter (Matt. 11:28-29).

A good hymn is never made up of words alone. It is a true marriage of text and tune. In the case of this hymn ES IST EIN ROS (Rhythmic) is a tune that well supports its underlying message that Christ was born to die. How so? The tune has a slightly melancholy character to it. Phrases one and three of the tune end with the tonic chord of D minor, which is the relative minor key to F major, the key in which the tune appears in Lutheran Service Book. Then a change occurs. Phrase six ends with a D major chord, changing the F natural to an F sharp, thus removing that melancholy chord from the tune.

ES IST EIN ROS is a rounded bar form tune (AABA) and has the characteristics of a Renaissance madrigal. Since the meter (the number of syllables in each line of text) of the hymn is 76 76 6 76, the tune allows that single 6-syllable line to have its own unique set of notes: 76=A, 76=A, 6=B, 76=A. The tune sounds wonderful when sung by an unaccompanied choir, allowing the rhythmic subtleties and fine part writing to be more clearly heard. It can certainly be sung ac-companied as well, but such an accompaniment ought to be delicate and not bombastic.

The text comes to a wonderful conclusion in the final stanza with a prayer to the newborn Christ Child, beautifully evoking the mystery of the Incarnation that we celebrate each Christmas:

O Savior, child of Mary, (true man)
Who felt our human woe; (human nature) O Savior, King of Glory, (true God)
Who dost our weakness know: (divine nature) Bring us at length we pray (our petition)
To the bright courts of heaven,
And to the endless day.

Image: “A Wreath of Flowers for the Baby Jesus,” Carl Rahl, 1812–1865. Public domain.