I was putting together a liturgical Evening Prayer service—following the designs of what are in Hymnal Supplement 98 (ISBN 0-570-01212-0) and Lutheran Worship (ISBN 0-570-04221-6)—for use during mid-week Lenten services at both of my churches, and I needed a Hymn of Light. Now, my churches have The Lutheran Hymnal (ISBN 0-570-01001-2) in the pews, and there is hymn number 101 (which is a Phos Hilaron), but I knew I could do something different.

I started writing the first version thinking that 8.7.8.7. was Common Meter. I really like what I ended up writing, but as I started looking at Common Meter tunes, I quickly (like with the first tune) realized that I had one too many syllables in the second and fourth phrases. So, I looked for 8.7.8.7. tunes, and there weren't many that worked well with this text; most of them were Trochaic and this hymn is Iambic. Anyway, I found a couple then proceeded to write a Common Meter version of the hymn and found a large number of tunes that worked with it. I have supplied to two best tunes.

I guess these hymns could use a tune of their own. If you know the story of the Phos Hilaron and can write hymn tunes, please take a crack at writing a tune for these hymns. Let me know if you come up with anything, and let me post it!