Vær velkommen Herrens Aar og velkommen herhid!

Abstract

Vær velkommen Herrens Aar og velkommen herhid!

[Be welcomed Year of the Lord and be welcomed hither!]

By Jette Holm

Grundtvig’s two hymns entitled Vær velkommen Herrens Aar og velkommen herhid!, for Advent and the New Year, respectively, were written for the First Sunday of Advent 1849 and New Year’s Day 1850 and sung at Vartov. Grundtvig’s son Svend Grundtvig, a scholar and a collector of folksongs, had published an old manuscript in Dansk Kirketidende on 2 December 1849: Wer welkommen, Herrens Aar, och wellkommen herre! An old text for the New Year, with the same beginning, was mentioned as well.

N. F. S. Grundtvig was so delighted with the expression “Vær velkommen Herrens Aar og velkommen herhid” that in his sermon on the First Sunday of Advent 1849 he called it “ret et ægte Dansk Hosianna, hvor Munden taler af Hjertets Overflødighed” (“indeed a true Danish Hosianna in which the mouth speaks from the heart’s plenty”). (Fasc. 41).

The sermons on the First Sunday of Advent 1849 and on New Year’s Day
1850, in which Grundtvig preaches on his two new hymns, have never been
published and therefore have been transcribed for Grundtvig-Studier from his
manuscript in Fasc. 41.

In his sermon on the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity 1849, Grundtvig
had realized for the first time that the old texts, i.e. the old lectionary authorized for use in the Sunday services of the Danish Lutheran Church, form a unity, created by the Holy Spirit. It is this “Herrens Aar” (Year of the Lord) with
“Herrens Dag” (the Day of the Lord), with texts and sacraments that Grundtvig
welcomes in his hymns. At Advent just like the crowd in Jerusalem shouting
Hosianna!

In his sermon on the First Sunday of Advent, 1849, Grundtvig reminds
the congregation that the Year of the Lord brings Mercy, Peace and Joy for
Christians. His hymn for Advent has four stanzas, one for Christmas, one for
Easter and one for Pentecost, while the fourth sums up the whole Year of the
Lord with the Days of the Lord.

In his sermon on New Year’s Day 1850, Grundtvig quotes the four new
stanzas of his second hymn Vær velkommen Herrens Aar and clarifies the
differences between the New Year of the Church and the civil New Year. How
can Christians pray for the civil community and their home country? Denmark
was at war 1848-51.

For Christians the Kingdom of God is Justice, Peace and Joy in the Holy
Spirit. But God is also the Father and Creator of all men, the Lord of Truth,
Mercy and Peace. Consequently, He delights in truthfulness, mildness and love of peace; and the Danish people in spite of its worldly poverty and weakness, embodies these values.