In the cool of the evening, God walked in the Garden of Eden, and Adam hid from him. The man was ashamed, for he had fallen into sin.

In the cool of the evening, Jesus died upon the cross, accomplishing the salvation of the world. He crushed the Old Adam and brought peace between God and man.

In Bach’s St. Matthew Passion this recitative contemplates and praises the evening hour:

O schöne Zeit! O Abendstunde! Der Friedensschluß isn nun mit Gott gemacht, Denn Jesus hat sein Kreuz vollbracht.

O lovely time! O evening hour! The peace treaty is now made with God, for Jesus has accomplished his [Godly aims in dying on the] cross. (Marissen 70)

“Bach sets the words of institution as a love song,” writes Markus Rathey (134).

This initially sounds strange to us. After all, we are not used to categorizing Jesus’ words as “love songs”. That seems more in the realm of secular musicians, especially pop singers. I encourage you, though, to listen to this movement of the St. Matthew Passion; the video is helpful in guiding you along. This is the moment Christ institutes the Lord’s Supper on the evening of Maundy Thursday, the moment he speaks the words of institution. The movement begins a little earlier, however, when Jesus tells his disciples that the man who dips his hand in the bowl with him will betray him.

As you listen to the Evangelist narrate the action and listen to Jesus sing his words, note the difference between the accompaniments. As the Evangelist sings, we hear sparse accompaniment from the instruments, mostly a few chords. This “secco” (dry) recitative characterizes much of the biblical text in the passion. Jesus’ words, on the other hand, are always accompanied by string instruments, creating, as Rathey puts it, “the impression of a halo around his words” (114). There is only one exception to this: the words “Eli, Eli, lama asabthani” (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?).

The opening chorus of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion immediately presents the theme of Jesus’ human suffering and divine love as Jesus is described not only as the Bridegroom, a comparison used throughout Scripture, but also as a Lamb.

Kommt, ihr Tröchter, helft mir klagen, Sehet—Wen?—den Bräutigam, Seht ihn—Wie?—als wie ein Lamm!

Come, you Daughters [of Zion], help me lament; look—At whom?—at the Bridegroom; look at him—As how?—just like a lamb! (Marissen 29-30)

Christ’s divine love is evident as he is called the “Bridegroom”; who but a husband would suffer so much for his beloved? This divine “marriage” between Christ and the Church is a Scriptural comparison. As the chorus continues, it describes the Lamb as carrying his cross—an introduction to Jesus’ suffering. The Lamb himself is carrying his own sacrificial wood. The text here is a poetic introduction to the passion rather than the exact words of Scripture itself. At this point in the text—"just like a lamb!”—we find the first chorale: “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy” (LSB 434:1).

Famed musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber announced last week that he would be playing one of his musicals on his YouTube channel every Friday afternoon during the COVID-19 quarantine. The first musical up was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a dramatic and humorous take on the story of the Old Testament Joseph, son of Jacob, who was sold into slavery by his brothers, eventually rose to significance as Pharaoh’s right-hand man, and finally reunited with his brothers, granting them forgiveness for their cruelty. The movie is flashy, the songs are clever and catchy, the acting is comical, and the story is heartwarming.

Unfortunately, Andrew Lloyd Webber is no biblical scholar.

“Erbarm dich unser, o Jesu!” “Have mercy on us, O Jesus!”

So ends the first chorale in Johann Sebastian Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. We know this chorale better as “Lamb of God, Pure and Holy” (LSB 434), and at Immanuel, we sing this every Good Friday. Like modern day Lutherans, Bach’s congregation at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany considered this a hymn in their repertoire. Indeed, Bach draws on the people’s knowledge of chorales to show a communal response to Christ’s suffering in the St. Matthew Passion.

The word “passion” in this case refers to its Latin root pati, meaing “suffering”. In the Christian Church, we follow the tradition of calling the period of Christ’s suffering and death his “Passion”. In music, a passion is, according to The Harvard Dictionary of Music, “a musical setting of Jesus’ sufferings and death as related by one of the four Evangelists”. Bach, then, is drawing on the account of Jesus’ suffering and death as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew.