Patterico's Pontifications

12/30/2018

Sunday Music: Bach Cantata BWV 154

Filed under: Bach Cantatas,General,Music — Patterico @ 12:01 am



It is the first Sunday after Christmas. The title of today’s Bach cantata is “Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren” (My dearest Jesus is lost).

Today’s Gospel reading is Luke 2:41-52:

The Boy Jesus at the Temple

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

The text of today’s piece is available here. It contains these words:

My beloved Jesus is missing:
O word which brings me despair,
O sword, which thrusts through my soul,
O word of thunder in my ears.

. . . .

You must go to Him
in His Father’s house, into his temple;
There He is visible in his Word,
there He will refresh you in the sacrament

Happy listening! Soli Deo gloria.

[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]

7 Responses to “Sunday Music: Bach Cantata BWV 154”

  1. Its about priorities as in colossians 1,

    Narciso (4ea712)

  2. You’re already celebrating His bar mitzvah? We don’t celebrate His briss for another two days.

    nk (dbc370)

  3. they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day.

    I confess I find that part a bit puzzling. Jerusalem would be packed with pilgrims, so it would be easy to lose a kid in all the crowds in the city and immediate environs–and needing to look three days before finding him would not be unreasonable. But not notice he was in the group with whom they were traveling back to Nazareth?

    kishnevi (bb03e6)

  4. He is God. He was always with them.

    nk (dbc370)

  5. Thank you again, Patterico.

    Simon Jester (984e98)

  6. Throughout this difficult year, and the difficult task of wading through political blogs that, as much as anything else, indicate that Americans are not yet mature enough for democracy, it has been good to know that I can find at least one post a week that is uplifting, bestowing hope for us all.

    Thank you.

    John B Boddie (73e5f3)

  7. Well politics has filled the vacuum that religion used to. Yeats sort of made that point

    Narciso (1a8e60)


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