A Sweet Moment

You will have to wait for more details about my recent trip to Central Europe, but I wanted to share a great moment.  On the last day of our trip we were enjoying the train ride on the Deutsche Bahn from Prague to Berlin.  For probably 50 miles the train ran along the Elbe River through the "Czech Alps", a region near the Czech and German border.  There really aren't mountains to speak of, but wooded bluffs that rise up from the river and are crowned with craggy rock.  I was following the mood and listening to some classical music.  This is after all the land of the famous classical composers.  Mozart wrote in Salzburg, Beethoven and Brahms in Vienna, and Bach (who I was listening to) barely a hundred miles away in Leipzig.  The vistas unfurled before me as I sat facing backwards in the train.  The spring green leaves were a relief to my nature-starved soul.  "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" came on and I had a few moments of deep and spontaneous worship.  I was captured by the goodness of the Creator that made the hills streaming past me.  I felt a powerful desire for the Christ, the One who gave Himself for an insignificant and sinful person like me.  It as a great moment of meeting with the Lord, one in which no one could tell me that God isn't real and doesn't want to be with us.

I've looked up Bach's original words (translated from German to English).  I think He's right on.  I wonder what inspired him to write this.

Jesu, joy of man's desiring,
Holy Wisdom, Love most bright;
Drawn by Thee, our souls, aspiring,
Soar to uncreated light.
Word of God, our flesh that fashion'd,
With the fire of life impassion'd,
Striving still to truth unknown,
Soaring, dying, round Thy throne.