Lo! How a Rose E’re Blooming
Translated by Theodore Baker
I loved singing “Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming!” when I was in junior high choir in the church of my youth. I thought the melody so beautiful that many years later, when I married Bruce in mid-December, I chose that tune to be played during the prelude at our wedding, which seemed fitting, since our love was blooming like a rose, and it was, indeed, December. However, I had never made the connection to the full meaning of Advent as it is expressed in this German carol. I didn’t even know the German title: Es Ist Ein Ros. But today, when I examine the text of the carol, I can see direct references to the prophecy of the Virgin Birth as foretold in Isaiah and how it was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus, who is both fully God and fully human, born of the Virgin Mary. The carol reminds us that Jesus is the Light of the World who has come to destroy the darkness of sin, and to exemplify the magnificent love, grace and mercy that saves us from spiritual death. The rose is also a reference to the Rose of Sharon mentioned in Song of Songs as a symbol of a blossoming spiritual awareness and the eventual Second Advent when Christ returns to claim his Bride, The Church. On that day, darkness will be dispelled with “glorious splendor” because we will have “no need for sun or moon . . . for the Glory of God is its light,” and we will rejoice with all the Saints.
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