Bach's Quinquagesima Cantata BWV23

Bach's Cantata for Quinqugesima (the last Sunday before Lent) reflects on the proper Gospel for this day, beginning at Luke 18.31, in which a blind man at Jericho persistently cries out to the Son of David, whom he hears passing by with a great crowd.

The cantata, which would have been performed in part just before and in part just after the Sermon during the Eucharist, is an expansion of the beggar's cry, as in this first aria (the beautiful soprano-alto duet):

You true God and Son of David,

who already from distant eternity

have looked upon my heartache

and the pain of my body, have mercy on me!

And grant through Your wondrous hand,

that has turned aside so much evil,

that aid and comfort occur for me as well.

The cantata transforms his cry into our cry, his blindness into an image of our darkness, his persistence an allegory of the disciplines of Lent.

Hear how the beggar's cry is so poignantly expanded by the poet in the recitative,

Ah! do not pass by;

You, the salvation of all mankind,

have indeed appeared,

to serve the invalid and not the healthy.

Therefore even I take my portion of Your power;

I behold You upon this path,

upon which I was meant

to be placed,

even in my blindness.

I seize You

and release You

not without Your blessing.

There's an echo in the last bit of Jacob, wrestling with God, refusing to let him go until he blesses him -- God, of course, in kindness condescending to be almost bested by the persistent deceiver, does bless him, and reaffirm his covenant, and rename him Israel. Another image of the Church in her Lenten fasting, wrestling with God, persistent, insistent: "Son of David, have mercy on me."

The choral, making the allegory abundantly clear, turns the beggar's cry into the Agnus Dei, the words sung just before the faithful commune with Christ at his Table:

Christ, Lamb of God,

You who bear the sin of the world,

have mercy on us!

Christ, Lamb of God,

You who bear the sin of the world,

have mercy on us!

Christ, Lamb of God,

You who bear the sin of the world,

grant us Your peace. Amen.

Bach would use this music again, in the second version of his St. John's Passion. The music doesn't depict Christ's answer to the blind beggar. But, remember the Cantata was written specifically for the context of the Eucharist. The Lord's answer and healing, the true response to or even conclusion of the Cantata is in receiving the Holy Communion. There the answer is clearly heard: "Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee."