In Passion-Book, Friedrich Lochner includes a few hymn stanzas at the beginning and ending of each of sixty-six devotions on the different stages of the Passion History. Musical settings appended by Lochner for less common tunes (in his context) are also included in the book, engraved by Lutheran musician David Schotte.

We have recently been made aware of Schotte’s YouTube channel, The Lutheran Kantor Project, which “aims to provide recordings of the great Lutheran chorales which are lesser known among English-speaking Lutherans. These recordings are designed to increase familiarity with tune and text.”

You can listen to David Schotte play the setting on organ and then sing acapella one of the hymns found in Passion-Book: “Christus, der us selig macht,” or “Christ, Who Saves Us by His Cross.” In the book, the melody and Stanza 8 of the hymn are included in Devotions 5 and 59 while the melody is suggested for the hymn stanza in Devotion 13.

Here is a PDF of the hymn with additional information below from The Lutheran Kantor Project:

Text: Michael Weiße, 1531; tr. composite, sts. 1–7, alt.; st. 8 Moravian Hymn-Book, 1819, st. 8, alt.
Tune: Michael Weiße, 1531.

Based on Patris sapientia, an ancient Latin office hymn traditionally sung on Good Friday, this hymn, originating in Weiße’s Bohemia, became popular in Lutheran Germany. It is most famous for its use by Bach in the St. John Passion, though Bach was only following the lead of Heinrich Schütz in his own Johannespassion from the century before.

This hymn is also notable for its references to the events of Christ’s passion at specific hours of the day, following Scripture’s own record of them. Here, they are translated as the names of the canonical prayer offices, as shown below:

Terce = third hour = 9:00 a.m.
Sext = sixth hour = 12:00 p.m.
Nones = ninth hour = 3:00 p.m.
Vespers = evening = 6:00 p.m.
Compline = bedtime = 9:00 p.m.

For those who want to learn more about why we do what we do in the Divine Service, we always recommend Ceremony and Celebration and The Conduct of the Service. Additionally, we want to call your attention to resources found on the YouTube channel of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Along with recorded services and Bible classes, there is a series of videos from 2018 in which Pr. David Petersen describes historic practices and ceremony within the context of Divine Service 3. The videos combine parts of a recorded service with his commentary. As Pr. Petersen states, “All Lutheran rubrics, in a sense, are ‘may’ rubrics. That is to say, everything in this is adiaphora.” His helpful explanation of these “ceremonies, particularly how they’ve been modified and in practice at Redeemer,” will be of interest both to pastors, who are the primary audience, and also to parishioners, who will benefit from deeper knowledge of the reverence and history of ceremony in the Divine Service.

*Watch the series on YouTube: Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six.

In the latter half of the 1800s, Friedrich Lochner was pastor at Trinity Lutheran in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he also helped to start the Synod’s teacher training program. Harvey Peters, a vicar from Concordia Theological Seminary – Fort Wayne serving in Iowa, has been a member at Trinity, Milwaukee, since 2019 when his own father was installed as pastor there. It was around that time that Matthew Carver’s translations of Lochner’s works began to be published (including Apostolic Agenda, EP, 2020), which sparked in Harvey a particular interest in Lochner’s life and work. His endorsement follows:

“Pastor Friedrich Lochner’s Passion-Book is a magnificent resource and guide for faithful Christian meditation on the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Drawing upon the treasures that he had found in the devotionals of Lutheran orthodoxy, Pastor Lochner brought the clarity, depth, and piety of our fathers in the faith into his age; thanks to this translation by Matthew Carver, his work has now found new life in our day as well.

“The reader will find a thorough exposition of Christ’s Passion, accompanied by the richest of hymnody and prayer from the Lutheran tradition. You will see the Scriptures find their complete fulfillment in the crucified Lamb of God, and learn of the countless benefits which are now bestowed upon those who seek solace in the sacred wounds of Christ. While we cannot fully exhaust the rich bounty of God’s wisdom and grace found in the cross of Christ, this Passion-Book from Pastor Lochner will serve any Christian reader well as you begin to ponder the depths contained in our Lord’s holy Passion.”
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PDFs are now available of the Table of Contents and the entirety of Devotion 12: Jesus Reveals His Betrayer.

We also recommend this article released by the LCMS in 2022 in honor of the Synod’s 175th anniversary. It highlights the course of Lochner’s life from Germany to America: “Motivated by reports of spiritual conditions in America and especially by hearing a lecture of F.C.D. Wyneken, a missionary on furlough from the States and a future founder of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Lochner resolved to go to America and preach the Gospel.”

One of the highlights of The Brotherhood Prayer Book is the Beichtspiegel (confessional mirror), which is available as a free download here on our website. It is a helpful tool for reflection and self-examination in preparation for private confession and absolution or for the Divine Service. Dr. Benjamin Mayes and Pr. Michael Frese compiled this Beichtspiegel from the writings of the best American and German Lutheran father-confessors.

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Introduction to the Beichtspiegel (confession mirror): Luther describes God as that to which we look for the greatest and highest good. From the time of the fall in the Garden of Eden, people have been constantly tempted to look inward for that good. Our selfish search for good within ourselves is the temptation of the old Adam in us. The Ten Commandments address this “self”-ish issue directly. We do not fear, love, and trust God above all things. On this earth we struggle against looking inward toward ourselves. In the questions below the common theme of selfishness is interwoven throughout. This constant breaking of the first commandment is a life-long struggle for Christians. No matter which of commandments 2-10 that you break, it is always an assault on having none other than God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the center of our trust (faith). In the Ten Commandments there is a vertical relationship (we and God) and there is a horizontal relationship (we and our neighbors). The first table (Commandments 1-3) shows the vertical relationship, and the second table (Commandments 4-10) shows the horizontal. Even in the breaking of the horizontal relationships we are offending against the vertical because God has called us to live in harmony and love with our neighbor.

The Small Catechism urges us to consider our place in life according to the Ten Commandments. The Commandments act as a mirror to reflect our sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. This honest reflection, on account of God’s holy Word working in us, will bear the fruit of repentance.

Passion-Book by Friedrich Lochner is the latest offering in translator Matthew Carver’s impressive catalog of historic Lutheran titles available for the first time in English. Lochner’s deep knowledge of the Church’s liturgical treasures and hymnology manifests itself in this collection of Passion devotions, which he first developed for his own private use to meditate upon the sufferings and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Find a description and detailed information here.

In 2023 we published Carver’s translation of Lochner’s Liturgical Forms, which shows the liturgical life of the early Missouri Synod and particularly the interest in and desire for suitable and historically justifiable rites drawn from old, orthodox Lutheran sources. We are delighted to add Passion-Book to our collection as we at Emmanuel Press continue to make works essential to confessional Lutheran theology available worldwide.
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An endorsement from Pr. Shawn Barnett of Redeemer Lutheran Church – Fort Wayne: 
“If it only satisfied a niche antiquarian interest, Matthew Carver’s translation of Friedrich Lochner’s Passion-Book would still be a significant contribution, revealing the reception in 19th-century American Lutheranism of relatively unknown devotional literature from the age of Lutheran Orthodoxy. But in rendering Lochner’s work into elegant, readable English, Carver has done for our time what Lochner did for his: provide a rich store of devotion that sets forth Christ before our eyes as the Crucified.

“Lochner’s passional is a composite work, an arrangement into daily devotions with hymn stanzas and prayers appended, compiled from the works of various authors from the 16th through 18th centuries, especially from the works of Simon Gediccus and Georg Renaul, names unknown to all save specialists in the arcane. In his private devotion and reading, Lochner had discovered what Carver has now made available to us, namely that ‘the manner and language of the earlier Passion preachers, finally, [gives]…more satisfaction and blessing than the more recent ones.’ Lochner himself read and prayed one of these 66 devotions morning and evening throughout Lent. Anyone who takes hold of this dear book and follows Lochner in this Lenten discipline will find himself transported in spirit to Golgotha where he will find ‘so many doctrines and comforts,’ ‘betimes precious golden grains of the bloody and salutary merit of Christ, now rich veins of the silver of His most holy innocence.'”