Why do we love and honor and cherish and worship Jesus? Is it just because all that the Bible says about Him is true and makes such good sense to us, and therefore the only logical, reasonable thing to do is for us to hold Him in such high esteem? Is it just because of gratitude for the marvelous benefits we receive in our salvation from trusting Him as our Redeemer, everything from the full forgiveness of our sins to the promise of eternal life in the glories of the new heaven and new earth? Is it just because of our dependence on His constant watchful protection and guidance through all the difficulties of life, knowing that without Him, we would be overwhelmed in weakness and despair and helplessness?
All these things are true and are essential parts of the reason we love and honor and cherish and worship Him. But though they are true, if we step back and consider them, they are noticeably self-centered, aren’t they? Do we only love Jesus for what we get out of it, for what He does for us and gives to us? That doesn’t seem right, does it? Even our first question in the Westminster Shorter Catechism should challenge us here. “What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” First is the God-focused aim to glorify Him, then comes the self-focused enjoyment of Him. Recall Paul’s challenge in 1 Corinthians 10:31 that whether we eat or drink, we are to do all to the glory of God. And how about Psalm 23:3, where we read that He restores my soul and leads me in the paths of righteousness … why? “For His name’s sake!” Think too of Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:33 that we are to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and only then will all these things be added to us.
How about loving Jesus because He is beautiful? Isn’t that what we find to be so powerfully evident in the book of Revelation. While His beauty is not described in a way that could be translated into a painting (the closest we get to that is that He appears as a Lamb that had been slain), the one who is seated at the right hand of the Father is described in terms that focus on his awe-inspiring beauty, His stunning loveliness, His gorgeous splendor. And that impression is compounded when we read the descriptions in chapters 4 and 5 of the concentric circles of heavenly worshippers, bowing and rejoicing before the throne and before the Lamb, singing …
Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!
So I repeat, shouldn’t the primary reason we love and honor and cherish and worship Him be that He is a beautiful Savior? That’s why the angels worship Him. That’s why the 24 elders worship Him. That’s why we will worship Him forever in glory. So shouldn’t that be the primary reason we do so now? The answer is obvious. But that requires that we re-examine our motivation when we gather for corporate worship. Are we coming together for what we’ll get out of it, or because of what He’ll get out of it? Are we coming for what we’ll enjoy in our singing, or revel in our fellowship with friends, or learn in our study of His Word? Or are we coming to celebrate Him, to exalt His majesty, to be thrilled by His beauty?
And what is beauty? Is it something so subjective that it exists only “in the eye of the beholder?” In Western civilization history, going back to the writings of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, these “three transcendentals” of truth, beauty, and goodness have attracted considerable attention. The desire has been not merely to recognize and appreciate them, but to define them and explain their origin as matters of interest for human beings in every culture.
All three of these, including beauty, have been important in a Christian world and life view. So when we think about Jesus as beautiful, we are not reflecting on His physical appearance. That’s true in part because we have no idea what his physical appearance was. But we know that beauty is a major part of God’s creation. He has built into us, creatures made in His image, the capacity to recognize and appreciate beauty in His creation. We respond to beauty in sight when we look at purple, snow- capped mountain ranges. We respond to beauty in sound great music in worship. We respond to beauty in emotion when we are with our loved ones in our family. And we legitimately create things that are beautiful in all those spheres, including stained glass windows in a church sanctuary and well-cultivated flowers in the landscaping around our home.
But what about the spiritual dimension that would lead us to sing of a beautiful Savior? For example, we read in Psalm 29:2 that we are to worship the Lord in the beauty of His holiness. Doesn’t it make sense that when we think of beauty as Christians, we should think of the character of God in the sum total of all His attributes? His love and kindness and grace and faithfulness and kindness and generosity. The things that promoted Jonathan Edward to write of “the inexpressible sweetness” of the Lord Jesus, the joy of contemplating that divine beauty. That’s what holiness is, and that’s what we mean when we sing of a beautiful Savior.
Of the many hymns in our repertoire of praise that focus on Him, there is one that lauds Him specifically because He is a beautiful Savior. That’s the essence of what we sing in the hymn, “Fairest Lord Jesus.” If there’s a any doubt, just look at how the final stanza begins … “Beautiful Savior.” Is there anything or anyone, the sight of which should bring tears of joy and admiration to our faces, as richly as looking with the eyes of the heart on Jesus? Recall the longing of the soul in Psalm 27:4.
One thing have I asked of the Lord,
that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord
and to inquire in His temple.
This is the one thing a believer should desire above all things … “to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord,” our beautiful Savior. Thus we sing today, “Fairest Lord Jesus.”
One legend traces the hymn back to the 12th century as a Teutonic Knights’ anthem from Prussia in the Holy Roman Empire. Others find its origin as an 18th century song from the Germanic region of Silesia. These explain how the tune came to have the name CRUSADER’S HYMN. Part of the reason for this is that piano prodigy and famous Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and famous composer used this tune in his 1862 oratorio, “The Legend of St. Elizabeth.” There it was the battle march for costumed crusaders on the way to war.
While we don’t sing it today with any sense of marching into battle, there is an element of truth in that. The gospel actually does call us into battle against the world, the flesh, and the Devil. The same Psalm that speaks of gazing on the beauty of the Lord also promises us that He will be with us in these battles. “For He will conceal me in His shelter in the day of adversity; He will hide me under the cover of His tent; He will set me high on a rock.” (Psalm 27:5-6)
While these Crusader images are probably not based in fact, the hymn does have a strong history that has made it well-known and beloved for over three hundred years. What we do know is that it was copied from a six-stanza 1662 Jesuit manuscript produced in Münster, Westphalia, in northwest Germany, not far from the Netherlands. It then was included in the 1677 Roman Catholic hymnbook, “Münster Gesangbuch.” The five-stanza German text began with the phrase “Schönster Herr Jesu, Herrscher aller Erden,” and a tune of the same name.
In the early 1800’s, the story is told that as the song was being sung in a service at Glaz, a town in the district of Silesia, by a group of Silesian peasant followers of Jan Hus, one of the very earliest leaders of the Reformation, it was heard by a man named Heinrich August Hoffman von Fallerslebein (1789-1874). He copied down both words in five stanzas and music from this oral recitation and published the song in his collection, “Schlesische Volkslieder,” in 1842 at Leipzig.
The translation of three stanzas and the adaptation of the music with which we are most familiar is attributed to Richard Storrs Willis, who was born in Boston, MA, on February 10, 1819. Educated at Chauncey Hall, Boston Latin School, and Yale, from which he received his A. B. degree in 1841, he spent six years studying in Germany, and upon his return to the United States in 1848 became a professional music critic. In 1850 he published his “Church Chorals and Choir Studies,” which contained “Fairest Lord Jesus,” at New York City, NY. He renamed the tune CRUSADERS’ HYMN due to the false assumption that Byzantine soldiers sang it on their way to Jerusalem. That was the perspective that was behind Liszt’s use of the hymn in his oratorio. From 1852 to 1864 Willis worked as a music editor. After 1861 he made his home in Detroit, MI, except for four years in Nice, France, to educate his daughter there. He died in Detroit on May 7, 1900.
After that, the hymn has gone through a number of variants over the years. The hymn as we know it has come to us through two primary sources. One was from Lutheran pastor Joseph Augustus Seiss (1824-1904), a man who served congregations in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. He translated the text as “Beautiful Savior.” The second is from across the Atlantic where Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) included it in the influential British collection, “The English Hymnal” (1906), where he paired the translation “Fairest Lord Jesus” with his harmonization of the old hymn tune SCHÖNSTER HERR JESU.
It is perhaps best known today from the arrangement by F. Melius Christiansen (1871-1955), founder of the St. Olaf College Choirs. That anthem is still the ensemble’s signature piece. The 1982 Episcopal hymnal published “Fairest Lord Jesus” to the tune CRUSADERS’ HYMN, renaming the tune as ST. ELIZABETH. The new name harkens back to Liszt’s oratorio about St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, wife of German king Louis IV.
Keep the idea of Jesus’ beauty foremost in your mind, and translate it to your heart as you sing not only about Him, but to Him! This is one of those rich texts in which we actually address the Lord, who is present with is in worship to receive our praise.
In stanza1, we acknowledge Jesus as both God and man, and sing of His supremacy over the entire natural created order. It is impossible to read the Bible with honesty and fail to see that it presents Jesus in both His divine and human natures. And what a wonderful word to describe our devotion to Him: in addition to honoring Him we “cherish” Him!
Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and Man the Son,
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.
In stanza 2, we extol the beauty of the meadows and the woodlands with their springtime flowers. But as magnificent as are these sights that draw people by the millions to America’s national parks, places like Yosemite and the Grand Tetons and the Blue Ridge mountains, they are nothing compared to the beauty of the Lord Jesus. Not only is He fairer and purer in our eyes; only He can make “the woeful heart to sing.”
Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands,
robed in the blooming garb of spring:
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer
who makes the woeful heart to sing.
In stanza 3, we look up into the heavens to view the sun, moon, and stars. As magnificent and awe-inspiring as they are, especially today with the vastly increased field of vision we enjoy from modern telescopes that give us but a hint of the billions of stars in billions of galaxies, how much greater is the one who created all this for His glory and enjoyment. Not even angels can compete with His beauty!
Fair is the sunshine, fairer still the moonlight,
and all the twinkling starry host:
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
than all the angels heaven can boast.
In stanza 4, we focus on the greatest dimension of His beauty … the fact that He is the “Savior” who rules as “Lord of all the nations.” He is the one before whom every knee will bow, and whim every tongue will confess as Lord. As so He is worthy of “glory and honor, praise and adoration now and forevermore!” We appropriately conclude the hymn with what amounts to a final, eternal doxology.
Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
now and forevermore be thine.
Some hymnals include a fifth stanza.
All fairest beauty, Heavenly and earthly,
Wondrously, Jesus is found in Thee;
None can be nearer, fairer, or dearer,
Than Thou, my Savior art to me.
This is Conductor Emeritus Kenneth Jennings (1925-2015) leading over 900 choir alumni during the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the St. Olaf Choir in June of 2011.