05-4 Theology of the..

REFLECTIONS ON LUTHERAN WORSHIP, CLASSICS, AND THE TE DEUM 39
every believer (not just us here and now), coupled with the story
of his judgment, past finding out, on individuals (“He searches the
hearts and the reins”), as well as nations (“Behold, the nations are
as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance”).
Our individual histories are inextricably woven into this
great tapestry of the history of God’s mercy and judgment.
The second major section of the Te Deum (beginning Tu rex
gloriae, Christe) is time-bound. It is essentially the second article.
What exactly happened when the fullness of time was come
What did God do about our human dilemma One of the most
thrilling lines in this hymn is: “when Thou hadst overcome the
sharpness of death.” This, I would suggest, is the climax of the Te
Deum. This is why we can praise our holy God and pray to him.
His Son did not stay in the heavenly stratosphere, but instead
became man and entered the womb of a virgin. He died in order
to overcome death, and he opened the kingdom of heaven to
those who believe, and now sits at the right hand of the Father.
This Christological section of the Te Deum is undoubtedly also
the most controversial. Praising God is common to religions
other than Christianity. And even atheists start praying when
they are in the foxholes. But to confess that our salvation centers
around Jesus Christ, that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,
and that no man cometh to the Father but by our Lord—this is
foolishness to some and a rock of stumbling to others. But to
those who believe, it is the power of God unto salvation. Our
Lord’s vicarious death and his victory over sin and the devil is the
reason we can praise God and pray to him.
If the Te Deum was originally dedicated to a victor whose
name was not explicitly mentioned, as suggested above, who is a
more likely candidate than the Savior Our Lord is often assigned
this epithet in early Christian literature. Augustine describes
Jesus’ crucifixion as a victoria in Tract. in Joh. 51, 2, while the cross
itself is described in victorious terms by Peter Chrysologus in
Sermo CL, 9: victoriossimum vexillum crucis. Christ is also portrayed
as a victor in early Christian art, as, for instance, in the catacomb
of Cosmas and Damian, where he is shown with a crown
on his head. Already in the New Testament, the verb nika'n is
applied to Christ, as in John 16:33: “In the world ye shall have
tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome [nenivkhka] the
world.” and Revelation 17:14: “These shall make war with the
Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome [nikhvsei] them: for he is
Lord of lords, and King of kings.” Such a dedication would certainly
help to clarify the appositional accusative in the first line.
The word Deum in Te Deum laudamus is not, according to such a
reading, a reference to the Triune God, or to God the Father, but
specifically to Christ, who is (perhaps polemically) declared to be
God: “We praise you who are God.” 34 We know from a letter that
Pliny wrote to Trajan (x. 96) that hymns were addressed “to
Christ as God” in the early second century. It was this bold confession
that caused problems for the early Christians, both with
their Jewish neighbors and the Roman authorities.
IX.
The Te Deum reserves petitions for our own needs till last. 36
There is no doubt a reason why Jesus answered as he did the
question about the greatest commandment. We are to love the
Lord our God first and foremost, and then, second, we are to love
our neighbor, and only in the third place—and this is simply
taken for granted—ourselves. How sadly astray we have gone
from this fundamental ordering of priorities: God first, neighbors
second, ourselves last. Such a concept runs counter to human
nature, but it is especially alien to Baby-Boomers. Our selfabsorbed
generation takes seriously all kinds of therapists, educators,
even pastors who urge us to take care of “the wounded child
within,” to cultivate our own self-esteem, to look out for “number
one.” We have succeeded in turning “self-denial” into a completely
negative category. That we have adopted a kind of idolatry
of self is nowhere more manifest than in a popular commercial
that features an attractively slim model declaring that she imbibes
a certain kind of soft drink because, as she says, “I believe in me.”
Everything else, whether it be obligations to the state, family
responsibilities, or even one’s own children (born and unborn),
must be sacrificed on the altar of “me,” our modern equivalent of
the insatiable Moloch.
This last section (beginning Te ergo quaesumus) reminds us of
the Holy Spirit and his daily work in us and among us in the
church militant, until at the last day he will raise the dead and give
all believers in Christ eternal life. For the time being, however, we
are still bound in time, and our daily prayers reflect this limitation.
“Day by day.” The Te Deum takes us from the eternal and the historical
to the every day. Our daily life, our daily routine: getting up
in the morning, going to bed at night, Sunday through Saturday,
January through December. The eternal God does care about us,
even though we are no more permanent than grass, and he
responds with his tender love to our daily worries and problems
and fears, just as he cares for the sparrow. And just as our daily
concerns are fresh and new and urgent for us “this day” and every
day, so, too, are his mercies new to us every morning.
Much of the focus of Christianity in
this century has been concentrated
on making the world we now live
in a better place.
nb
“Have mercy on us” (Miserere nostri). Here is the essential petition,
the prayer of prayers, an appeal to the other side of God’s
holiness, namely, his desire to forgive. He did not stay in heaven,
aloof and remote from us, but was made flesh and dwelt among
us. He is not just the holy and mighty God, but also the God who
is with us, who saves his people and blesses his inheritance. What a
comforting preposition “with” is! “Immanuel, that is, God with
us.” “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me,” the familiar words of the
Twenty-Third Psalm remind us. “O Lord, in Thee have I trusted;
let me never be confounded.” We are so easily confounded. The
final petition in the Te Deum is for divine assistance on our pilgrimage
through this world to the next, because we have an adversary
who walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour. We should remember that our worship of God never takes