Thanks?

Martin Rinkart should have felt God-forsaken. Rinkart lived in Saxony between 1586 and 1649 and was the Lutheran minister in a little village called Eilenburg. During the 30 Year War, which occurred in Europe during that time, this walled town of Eilenburg was surrounded and besieged by the Swedish army. No one was allowed in, no one could get out. Food ran out very quickly. People started dying, disease spread as the Swedish army fired their cannons randomly into the town. Over 800 homes were destroyed. The ministers of the town were under enormous strain as they had to conduct dozens of funerals daily for the poor perishing people of Eilenburg. Eventually Rinkart was the only surviving minister in the town. For about a month he conducted an average of 50 funerals a day and did his best to care for those who lost the ones they loved. This was very familiar for Rinkart because, as part of the siege, one of the people he buried from disease was his own beloved wife.

Eventually the Swedes demanded an enormous ransom, in exchange for sparing the lives of the remaining residents of the town. Rinkart left the safety of the walls to plead for mercy. The Swedish commander, so impressed by the faith, courage and dignity of this minister, reduced his demand to one twentieth of his original figure. The city paid and the siege was lifted. In all, he had buried 4480 people.

If anyone deserved to feel God-forsaken, Martin Rinkart did. Yet when he sat down to reflect on what he’d experienced, he pondered the fact that nearly his entire life had been marked by blessing, love and provision. And he questioned the tendency he found in himself to abandon his own love for God because circumstances didn’t fit with his expectations. He tried to step back and look at the big picture, not only of this life, but of this life in the context of the next life and the promise of God to continue the process of righting wrongs and healing pain and correcting injustices and restoring souls beyond the brief limitations of however many years we spend on this planet.

Rinkart turned these thoughts and reflections into poetry, which in turn became a hymn. In the face of such suffering and misery, Rinkart wrote these words:

Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices
Who wonderous 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