Musical preaching

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For sermon-prep help, I frequently look at hymns, paintings, novels, poems, etc. Also Bach cantatas. Meinen Jesus laß ich nicht, written for the first Sunday after Epiphany, has intrigued me with its interpretation of Luke 2:41-52.

As I was reading through and listening to the cantata on Youtube—I recommend the Nicolaus Harnoncourt performance—I whiled away some time looking at the text of the chorale that Bach uses as the beginning and ending of the cantata. I remembered that the hymn (in English, “I shall not let my Jesus go”) is one of those anagram hymns that so interested the writers of the Baroque age—and that leave us somewhat baffled or at least unimpressed, partly because we are romantics and think such structures inhibit creativity rather than spur it on.