Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams, Saint George’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia , August 31st, 2025
It is such a joy to be together today on this Labor Day week-end, as we mark the end of the summer season, and look forward to the fall and all that God has in store for us. We celebrate this morning, with a new song in our hearts.
One of the things that I most appreciate about this time of the year, as summer draws to a close and we start getting glimpses of cooler fall days, is that we can appreciate the beauty of creation more fully. As those of you who have been at Saint George’s for a while know, my favorite way of experiencing the gift that God gives us in creation is by hiking in the mountains. I love everything about it- the trees, the running streams, the wildflowers along the way, and then finally getting to the pinnacle and looking out on the vast expanse of all that God has done and continues to do in God’s infinite creativity.
It is little wonder that the author of the text of one of the most popular hymns ever was a hiker too. The Reverend Henry Van Dyke wrote a poem entitled “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” in 1907 when he was visiting Williams College in Massachusetts. He was there to preach a series of sermons and one morning at breakfast he gave the president of the college his poem with a note that said, “Here is a hymn for you. Your mountains (the Berkshires) were my inspiration. It must be sung to the tune of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” It is easy to see how Van Dyke heard Beethoven’s music playing in his imagination as he gazed upon the Berkshires and contemplated the beautiful mystery of God’s work in creation. This poem was the result.
All thy works with joy surround Thee, Earth and heav’n reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee, Center of unbroken praise.
Field and forest, vale and mountain, Flow’ry meadow, flashing sea,
Singing bird and flowing fountain, call us to rejoice in Thee.
Today we think of these words and the music as being inseparable. But it was not always so. Ludwig van Beethoven composed the music in 1824, 83 years before the poem was written. Beethoven died just three years later, and interestingly, Beethoven had another poem moving around in his imagination when he wrote his music. “Ode to Joy” was a poem written by Fredrich Schiiler 40 years earlier, in 1785. Beethoven took Schiller’s words and rearranged them to correspond to the music for the final movement of this Ninth Symphony. It’s amazing to think about how the artistic process works. God creates the astonishing beauty of the earth, a poet is inspired by it, and then his poem inspires another creative genius to set it to music years later, and then another poet writes a different poem set to that music. And as if that wasn’t enough, Edward Hodges, the organist at Trinity Episcopal Church in New York City, adapted it to become the hymn as we know it today. People loved Beethoven’s music and Van Dyke’s words so much that they clamored to have it become part of the Church’s canon of hymnody. First Schiller, then Beethoven, Van Dyke, and finally Hodges, all of these men using their gifts for our inspiration and God’s glory. Many iterations of the creative process, inspired by the Creator of the mountains and sunlight and trees and the Creator of each one of us, who are all given gifts to be used to praise God and to serve the human family.
And just as Beethoven made this music the finale of his Ninth Symphony, Joyful, Joyful, we adore Thee” will be the finale of our service today. We will sing it right before we go out into the world to love God and serve others.
Joyful, Joyful is the ultimate in inspiration. It touches us at a very deep level, beyond thoughts and beyond feelings. It touches us at a spirit level. It gives voice to a foundational joy that cannot be shaken, a joy that cannot be taken away from us because it is a gift from God. It is the joy in knowing that God’s intention for all of creation, including humankind, is love and harmony, no matter what kind of strife we are experiencing, personally or communally. Today we very aware of all of the chaos and turmoil in our government and around the globe, and yet “Joyful, Joyful “makes our spirits sing.
A few years ago, a man who felt that his life had been transformed by this work created a film entitled “Following the Ninth: In the Footsteps of Beethoven’s Final Symphony”. In an interview with NPR’s Melissa Block, Kerry Candaele described how he had studied and documented the effect that “Ode to Joy” has had on people around the world. Every year in Japan, 10,000 people practice it all year in German, and then sing it together in December to ground them in hopefulness as the new year begins. In Chile, protestors sang it during the 1970s outside of prisons where people had been tortured to let them know that a community was waiting to welcome them when they were released. One of the men who had been tortured said that hearing all of those people singing outside the prison was “like having a colorful butterfly in his heart” to give him hope. In Tiananmen Square, in the early 1980s, protestors played “Ode to Joy” through loudspeakers to drown out government propaganda. Yesterday, I watched a video of a flash mob in a European city square a few years ago that started out with an elementary age girl in tennis shoes playing her school-issued recorder. Then she was joined by a cellist in a tuxedo, then an oboist in street clothes, violinists, on and on, and finally a choir. More and more people of all kinds stopped to marvel at what was happening as the music grew and grew, and for a few moments, a few beautiful moments, everyone got a glimpse of eternal glory and how things can be in the here and now.
“Ode to Joy” takes on even more meaning when we know that Beethoven wrote this profoundly inspiring music when he was in the depths of despair about his deafness. Here, this incredible genius had lost his hearing, and yet was able to create some of the loveliest music in the world, music that he could only hear in his imagination. This exquisite composition came out of his intense suffering, his spirit working with God’s Spirit, bringing light out of darkness. And Beethoven only knew how much people loved it by watching their applause after it was performed.
“Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” is an enduring gift to us, an expression of God’s desire for all of us to live as one human family. And it is particularly meaningful to sing it as part of worship as Christians. We sing it to remind us of who we are, created in God’s image, and called to be reconcilers in this broken world, never despairing and ever hopeful.
Beethoven’s Ninth was his greatest work and it came out of great suffering. Christ’s greatest work was giving us life through his suffering. As followers of Jesus, we sing “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” with a very particular and profound gratitude for all that has been done for us, the cross and the Resurrection, a gift freely and graciously offered, so that we can live in joy, even in the darkest of times.
Thou art giving and forgiving, Ever blessing, ever blest,
Wellspring of the joy of living, Ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Father, Christ our Brother, All who live in love are Thine;
Teach us how to love each other, Lift us to the joy divine.
Sources:
The Hymnal Companion, Volume A, Hymns 1 to 384, Ed. Raymond Glover, New York: The Church Hymnal Corporation, 1994, pp. 375-376
Kavanaugh, Patrick, Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing, 1992. Pp. 55-62
NPR.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/ 2014/ode-to-joy-as-a-call-to-action
