Time&Eternity

28 chapter 1
Qualitative Analysis
“Die Zukunft ist sein Land” 93 —The History of
the Future as Surrendering and Grasping
Even if my quantitative analysis of the hymnals clearly indicated that explicit
mention of the future is relatively rare, these passages nevertheless tell
their own history of human expectation regarding the future. I propose to
define this history with the words surrendering and grasping. In this context,
surrendering means confidently entrusting the future to God. Grasping, on
the other hand, involves the active attempt to ensure that, in the face of a
threatening and threatened future, one can still believe that a livable future
is possible. A classical example of surrendering is found in the following
lines:
Be still, my soul: your God will undertake
to guide the future as he has the past.
Your hope, your confidence let nothing shake,
all now mysterious shall be clear at last.
Be still, my soul: the tempests still obey
his voice, who ruled them once on Galilee. 94
The future is not at the disposal of human beings. One can possess the
past, but, conversely, the future is the “great unknown.” 95 In light of this,
trusting surrender to a God who has been experienced as powerful in the
past is recommended as the appropriate human response. It even appears
that it would not be beneficial for human beings to concern themselves further
with the future that is beyond their range of action. In any case, one
can understand the devout desire in this way:
Lead, kindly light .l.l. lead thou me on.
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
the distant scene—one step enough for me. 96
At any rate, the thought of a future that includes an imminent judgment
can encourage moral improvement. In 1653, Paul Gerhardt provided
such an exhortation:
Richt unsre Herzen, dass wir ja nicht scherzen
mit deinen Strafen, sondern fromm zu werden
vor deiner Zukunft uns bemühn auf Erden.
Lobet den Herren! 97
With this single use of the word Zukunft (future), Gerhardt is an exception
among hymn writers from past centuries. Particularly in the German