Lina Sandell: De Profundis

Although the name of Lina Sandell (1832 - 1903) is largely unfamiliar to English-speaking audiences, at least some of you will likely be acquainted with a tune or two of the beautiful hymns of this "Fanny Crosby of Sweden." Two that are particularly well-known in some English-speaking circles are "Day by Day" and "Children of the Heavenly Father" (audio samples at end of post).

Born Karolina Wilhelmina Sandell, from childhood the nickname "Lina" stuck. From the age of 12, she was paralyzed and confined to her bed, and given no hope of healing by physicians. A child of simple piety and product of a prayerful family, while her parents were at church, she read the Scripture about Jesus raising Jairus' daughter and reasoned that if Jesus could heal a girl then, He could heal her now. Praying accordingly, she miraculously got up, dressed herself and walked to church, brimming with wonder and joy.

Yet tragedy stalked Sandell. At the age of 26, she accompanied her father Jonas, a Lutheran pastor, on a boat trip across Lake Vättern to Göteborg. During the passage, the boat lurched, and he fell overboard and drowned as she helplessly watched. The tragedy moved Lina deeply, yet through the mysteries of divine providence, she did not become embittered. Instead, the crucible of suffering became, through the grace of a deep faith, the animus that inspired her hymn writing. Thereafter, from her broken heart there poured forth a seemingly endless stream of powerful hymns.

Two years after her father's death, her mother died, and she went to live with her widowed brother-in-law in Jonkoping. During those years, she met the king's sister, Princess Eugenia, and a number of other prominent people, and many people of great faith.

Then in 1867, Lina married C.O. Berg, a wealthy Stockholm businessman, and became Lina Sandell-Berg, though she continued to initial her hymns "L.S." On October 4, of the following year, their baby son died in childbirth.

While Sandell's health was frail, she lived to 71 years. She died on July 27, 1903 in Stockholm, Sweden, and is buried in Solna Kyrkogård - Cemetery, Solna, Stockholmn Län, Sweden. She wrote 650 hymns.

In 1953, 10,000 people in her home town of Froderyd, Sweden, attended the dedication of a bronze statue erected as a memorial to her. The little cottage where she lived is now a national museum. Each year on Transfiguration Sunday, the people of the local parish hold a festive service honoring Lina and her father.

In her own lifetime, her hymns were publicly performed and popularized by a number of notable individuals. The pietist troubadour of Sweden, Oskar Ahnfelt, sang Lina's hymns throughout Scandinavia, accompanying himself famously on his 10-string guitar, so that Lina once said that he sang her songs "into the hearts of the people." The state church authorities did not like pietist hymns, and expecting a royal ban of Sandell's songs, ordered Ahnfelt to perform them before King Karl XV, who, after hearing them, declared to Ahnfelt: "You may sing as much as you desire in both my kingdoms" (Sweden and Norway). Jenny Lind, the internationally famous opera singer, also sang Sandel's hymns.

Some fifteen years ago, a good friend of mine, now a Finnish minister at the European Parliament, Eija-Riitta Korhola, presented me with a gift of a CD of Lina Sandell's hymns sung by Carola Maria Häggkvist. More popularly known simply as Carola, she is among the most popular Swedish vocalists and celebrities in Scandinavia since the 1980s, talking openly about her Christian faith, and persecuted for declaring that homosexuality would always remain "unnatural" to her.

The CD of Sandell's hymns that was given to me is entitled: Carola: Blott En Dag. Every time I have listened to it over the last 15 years, I have been moved by these hymns, and my gratitude for the gift of this album has never left me. While I do not understand Swedish any more than most of you, I do recognize most of these hymns by their tunes and know the words to some of them in English, as some of you may find. In any case, one thing is certain: I have never heard Sandell's hymns sung with such depth of feeling as by Carola on this album. Here are some samples, beginning with the title hymn of the album:

• Blott en dag (Day by day)
• Tryggare kan ingen vara (Children of the Heavenly Father)
• O Jesu, öppna du mitt öga (O Jesus, open my eyes)
• Bred dina vida vingar, o Jesus, över meg (Spread your wings wide, O Jesus, over me)
• Herrens nåd är var morgon ny! (The Lord's mercy is new every morning)

What continues to touch me in Sandell's hymns is a combination of spiritual depth, the beauty of their simple and singable melodies, and -- above all -- a quality of joy deeply rooted in an experience that does not paper over the reality of suffering but recognizes it as a means of grace. This is the musical equivalent of what I see in the face of Michelangelo's Pieta. It is not despair. It is not happy-clappy silliness. But a profund and quiet trust in Providence. And that is joy.