J.S. Bach’s Sunday Canata: Exaudi
Johann Sebastian Bach (aged 61) in a portrait by Elias Gottlob Haussmann, second version of his 1746 canvas. Bach is holding a copy of the six-part canon BWV 1076.
Johann Sebastian Bach composed weekly cantatas to accompany the Sundays and feast days of the Historic Lectionary—a cycle of Scripture readings used by Christians for centuries. This lectionary shaped the worship life of the Western Church, including Roman Catholics until the reforms of Vatican II, and remains in use today among many Lutheran congregations, including our own here at St. Thomas.
These cantatas are not merely concerts—they are sermons in music. Each one beautifully unites Scripture, sacred poetry, and hymnody, often incorporating chorales that are still sung in our services today. Bach’s music proclaims the Word of God with emotional depth and theological clarity, offering both comfort and exhortation to the faithful.
The English translation and textual notes for this week’s cantata are drawn from bachcantatatexts.org. We pray that the Word of Christ, communicated through this sacred music, strengthens your faith and prepares your heart to hear God’s Word preached this Exaudi Sunday.
Readings for Exaudi Sunday
The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 1 Peter 4:7-14
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.” John 15:26-16:4
Performance Recording
English Translation
They [the Jews] will place you [followers of Jesus] under the ban.2
But the time is coming that whoever [of the Jews] kills you will suppose he thereby does God a service.1
Christians must on earth
Be Christ’s true disciples.
For them await at every hour—
Until, in the blessed hereafter,3 they have overcome [this world]4—
Torment, ban, and great pain.Ah God, how much heartache
Meets me in this time [on earth].
Full of tribulation is the narrow6 path
That I am to journey to heaven.4The Antichrist,7
That great monster,
Seeks with sword and fire
To persecute the members of Christ,8
Because their teaching is abhorrent to him.
He doubtless imagines thereby
That his actions must be pleasing to God.9
But Christians are like those palm branches
That only rise all the higher by being weighted down.10It is and remains the consolation of Christians
That God watches11 over his church.
For even though12 tempests may tower,
Soon after storms of tribulation
The sun of joy has indeed smiled.So be now, soul, yours,14
And trust only in the one
Who has created you.
Let things be, as they may;15
Your father on high,
He knows counsel in all matters.13
(transl. Michael Marissen & Daniel R. Melamed)
Textual Notes
1 John 16:2.
2 According to John 9:22, “the Jews” excommunicated believers in Jesus as God’s messiah from the synagogue. The underlying word in John’s Greek that Luther rendered as “place under the ban,” aposynagogos, would more literally be “put out of the synagogue”; Luther translated the term in a more general way to allow its ready application also to the pope, who was called a metaphorical “Jew” for banning proper (Lutheran) Christians from the church; see also fn. 7, below, regarding the “Antichrist.”
3 There is no one word in English for the specific way that “selig” is being used here, and so it has been translated not with the adverb “blessedly” but the adverbial phrase, “in the blessed hereafter.” The “true disciples” of line 2 have overcome “blessedly” here, in that they will have gone to heaven. “Seligkeit” is one of the words for God’s salvation that becomes, at a person’s death, the blessedness specifically of being in heaven, where one is eternally free of torment and pain.
4 This line derives its language from 1 John 5:4, “Alles, was von Gott geboren ist, überwindet die Welt; und unser Glaube ist der Sieg, der die Welt überwunden hat” (“All that is born of God overcomes the world; and our [Christian] faith is the victory that has overcome the world”).
5 The first stanza of this hymn.
6 In Luther’s New Testament, technically, the gate to heaven is said to be “narrow” and the path “strait” (i.e., extremely narrow). Matthew 7:14 reads “die Pforte ist eng, und der Weg ist schmal, der zum Leben führt” (“the gate is narrow and the path is strait [or, ‘constricted’] that leads to [eternal] life”). The modern expression “the straight and narrow [path],” insofar as it takes “straight” to mean “not crooked,” stems historically from a misunderstanding of the renderings “strait gate” and “narrow way” found in Matthew 7 in older English Bibles.
7 The antichristos is a mysterious, violent apocalyptic figure mentioned several times in the Epistles of John. In Lutheran teaching, “the Antichrist” was the pope, whom it regularly accused of acting, in essence, like the Jews of the Gospel of John; see also fn. 2, above.
8 The New Testament continually refers to the Christian community, or the church, as the “members” of “the body of Christ” (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12:27). The Lutherans of Bach’s day and earlier considered themselves to be the proper Christian community, subject to continual persecution by the pope.
9 It may seem odd that “the Antichrist” (the final enemy of God’s messiah and thus of God) imagines his action could be pleasing to God. It made sense in the Lutheran communities of Bach’s day, however, as they held that the head of the Roman Catholic church, the pope, was the antichristos prophesied in the New Testament (see also fn. 7, above); Lutherans believed that Roman Catholics and actual or metaphorical Jews delusionally sought to please God.
10 The underlying notion of the Christian as a growing palm tree draws on Psalm 92:13, which in the Luther Bibles of Bach’s day reads “der Gerechte wird grünen wie ein Palmbaum, er wird wachsen wie ein Ceder auf Libanon” (“the righteous one will thrive like a palm tree; he will rise like a cedar on [the mountain range called] Lebanon”); Luther assumed that the unspecified tree in Psalm 1 was also a palm tree and noted, significantly, that the palm is the only tree that grows upward against every weight and pressure put upon it.
11 “Vor/für etwas wachen” (“to take watchful care for something”) is apparently an alternative expression for “über etwas wachen” (“to watch over something”). There is no real difference in meaning, and presumably “vor” was chosen here to accommodate the scansion.
12 “Wenngleich” (“even though”), ordinarily given in modern German as one word, was expressed in Bach’s day as two words, “wenn gleich.”
13 A stanza of “In allen meinen Taten.”
14 The meaning of this line is unclear. Eighteenth-century commentary on this hymn explains and paraphrases it as “do not let your even temper be disturbed.” Some printed versions attempted to make sense of it by changing the last word to “seine,” yielding “So be now, soul, his [God’s].”
15 Literally, “Let it go, how it may go.” This was one of several renderings in German of the classical phrase “quocunque res cadent.” A more straightforward version was “es geht wie es mag” (“it will go as it may”). There is an apparently related sentiment in Ecclesiastes 3:19, “Denn es geht dem Menschen wie dem Vieh” (“For it goes with the person as with cattle”); i.e., both await the same fate (namely, death).
Scripture References
John 16:2
"They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service."
Quoted directly in: “They [the Jews] will place you [followers of Jesus] under the ban. But the time is coming that whoever [of the Jews] kills you will suppose he thereby does God a service.”
Luke 14:27
"And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple."
Reflected in: “Christians must on earth be Christ’s true disciples. For them await at every hour… torment, ban, and great pain.”
Acts 14:22
“We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God.”
Echoed in: “For them await at every hour—until, in the blessed hereafter, they have overcome [this world]—torment, ban, and great pain.”
Matthew 7:14
"Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."
Quoted in: “Full of tribulation is the narrow path that I am to journey to heaven.”
1 John 5:4
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”
Referenced in: “Until, in the blessed hereafter, they have overcome [this world]…”
2 Thessalonians 2:3–4
"The man of sin… the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God…"
Referenced in: “The Antichrist, that great monster, seeks with sword and fire to persecute the members of Christ…”
John 15:20
"If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you."
Echoed in: “Seeks with sword and fire to persecute the members of Christ…”
Isaiah 5:20
"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil…"
Implied in: “He doubtless imagines thereby that his actions must be pleasing to God.”
Psalm 92:12
"The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree…"
Reflected in: “Christians are like those palm branches that only rise all the higher by being weighted down.”
Psalm 121:4
"Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep."
Referenced in: “It is and remains the consolation of Christians that God watches over his church.”
Romans 8:28
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God…"
Implied in: “Your father on high, He knows counsel in all matters.”
Matthew 6:25–26
"Do not worry about your life… your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
Echoed in: “So be now, soul, yours, and trust only in the one who has created you. Let things be, as they may…”
Hymns We Still Sing
Walther’s Hymnal 352, “O God, My Days Are Dark Indeed”
Tune: Herr Jesu Christ, meins Lebens Licht. 11. [TLH 288; LW 262; LSB 704]
O God, my days are dark indeed,
How oft this aching heart must bleed;
The narrow way,—how filled with pain,
That I must pass ere heav’n I gain!“My yoke is mild, My burden light,
And all who bear its easy weight,
Release from hell are given.
I’ll give them strength when theirs would fail,
And by My strength they shall prevail
And so inherit heaven.“All I have done and suffered here
From womb to cross, do ye revere,
And emulate in measure.
What you may think or say or do
Is neither safe nor good nor true,
But as it seeks My pleasure.”The world may wish the bliss to gain
Without the cross, reproach, and pain,
Of which they hear the warning:
It cannot be! The cross is there,
And they must choose its shame to bear,
Or endless shame and mourning.Lo, all creation testifies
That all that is decays and dies—
Earth, sky, and water languish.
Who then despises God’s high name
Shall be the devil’s own to claim,
And death shall be his anguish.Man flaunts today the pomps that please,
Tomorrow sickens with disease,
And next, behold, he’s dying!
Then, like the blossom’s fading bloom,
To him earth’s glory sinks in gloom,
Its hopes in ruin lying.No wealth can buy an hour’s delay,
Youth pleads in vain for longer stay,
His joys and he must sever.
Though eyes around with pity flow,
Death has no pity to bestow—
Farewell to earth forever!The wise their wondrous skill disdain,
For worldly splendor is but vain
And e’er to dust is tending.
Alas for them who have not found
While there is time, in Christ their ground:
Their death is woe unending.The worldly are afraid of death,
And only when they gasp for breath
Are mindful of devotion.
One toiled for this and one for that,
But each his own poor soul forgot,
In all of earth’s commotion.At last, when he must surely die,
He lifts to God an anxious cry,
And makes a forced surrender:—
I sadly fear, God’s slighted grace,
Which long with scorn he did efface,
Will scarce a pardon tender.Dear children, ye your God who own
And piety in heart have shown,
Let not your souls be troubled!
Confide in Jesus’ holy Word,
The greatest Refuge ever heard,
So shall your joys be doubled.Requite not evil deeds in wrath,
Pursue in love the narrow path,
Heed not the world’s seduction;
Revenge and glory yield to God,
Stray not to byways lush and broad—
For there is all destruction.Could but the flesh indulge its mood
In pleasure, pomp, and worldly good,
Your trust full soon would waver:
In mercy sending earthly cares,
By chast’ning God the soul prepares
To greet His endless favor.But seems your cross too much to bear?
Then think of hell—its dark despair—
To which the world is hasting:
Its flame eternally supplies
Each man with torment, groans, and sighs—
Its fuèl never wasting.But ye, beyond this world’s annoy,
In Christ shall find your endless joy—
Which ye do well to ponder;
No mortal tongue can realize
What pleasures and eternal prize
Shall swell you with their wonder.For, what the God of changeless truth
Confirms by Spirit and by oath,
Must come, and ye shall see it.
Whoso will trust His proffered grace
Shall in His kingdom find a place
Through Jesus Christ. So be it!
Text: M. Moller, 1587/K. Hojer, 1597; tr., C. Winkworth, 1863, alt.; st. 8, M. Carver.
Walther’s Hymnal 329, “In All My Plans, Thou Highest”
Tune: O Welt, ich muß dich lassen. 30. [TLH 126; LW 85; LSB 880]
In all my plans, Thou Highest,
If counsel Thou suppliest,
My efforts may succeed:
But ev’ry best endeavor,
Without Thy smile of favor,
Can but to surest failure lead.What God did in His Law demand
And none to Him could render
Caused wrath and woe on ev’ry hand
For man, the vile offender.
Our flesh has not those pure desires
The spirit of the Law requires,
And lost is our condition.It was a false, misleading dream
That God His Law had given
That sinners could themselves redeem
And by their works gain heaven.
The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light
That lurks within our nature.From sin our flesh could not abstain,
Sin held its sway unceasing;
The task was useless and in vain,
Our guilt was e’er increasing.
None can remove sin’s poisoned dart
Or purify our guileful heart—
So deep is our corruption.Yet as the Law must be fulfilled
Or we must die despairing,
Christ came and has God’s anger stilled,
Our human nature sharing.
He has for us the Law obeyed
And thus the Father’s vengeance stayed
Which over us impended.Since Christ has full atonement made
And brought to us salvation,
Each Christian therefore may be glad
And build on this foundation
Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead,
Your death is now my life indeed,
For You have paid my ransom.Let me not doubt, but truly see
Your Word cannot be broken;
Your call rings out, “Come unto Me!”
No falsehood have You spoken.
Baptized into Your precious name,
My faith cannot be put to shame,
And I shall never perish.The just is he—and he alone—
Who by this faith is living,
The faith that by good works is shown,
To God the glory giving;
Faith gives thee peace with God above,
But thou thy neighbor, too, must love,
If thou art new created.The Law reveals the guilt of sin
And makes us conscience-stricken;
But then the Gospel enters in
The sinful soul to quicken.
Come to the cross, trust Christ, and live;
The Law no peace can ever give,
No comfort and no blessing.Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone
And rests in Him unceasing;
And by its fruits true faith is known,
With love and hope increasing.
For faith alone can justify;
Works serve our neighbor and supply
The proof that faith is living.Hope waits for the accepted hour—
Till God give joy for mourning,
When He displays His healing pow’r,
Thy sighs to songs are turning;
Thy needs are known unto thy Lord,
And He is faithful to His word,
This is our hope’s foundation.Though it may seem, He hears thee not,
Count not thyself forsaken;
Thy wants are ne’er by Him forgot,
Let this thy hope awaken;
His word is sure, here is thy stay.
And though thy flesh say only nay,
Let not thy faith be shaken.All blessing, honor, thanks, and praise
To Father, Son, and Spirit,
The God who saved us by His grace;
All glory to His merit.
O triune God in heav’n above,
You have revealed Your saving love;
Your blessèd name we hallow.Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
On earth, as ‘tis in heaven:
Keep us in life, by grace led on,
Forgiving and forgiven;
Save Thou us in temptation’s hour,
And from all ills; Thine is the pow’r,
Your blessèd name we hallow.
Text: P. Fleming, 1633; tr., composite.
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