Around the heavy bier

Our God in heaven, whose name
Is life and love and peace,
Who is eternally same,
Our comfort in death’s release,

Give hope, the surer sign
Of brighter, heavenly things,
Where you gloriously shine,
And the throng of angels sings,

Where joy’s unmixed with tears,
And wars forever ceased,
No counting of the years,
A glad unending feast.

Around the heavy bier,
Our sighs and sobs are weighed;
To clouded eyes come near,
Our souls be not afraid.

In death our loss is pain,
The threat to all we hold,
The devil’s curse made plain,
The body still and cold.

Before the curse, belief
That life may still be found,
When falls the brittle leaf:
A seed upon the ground.

Our days on earth are few
And full of burdened woe,
A morning’s fleeting dew,
A candle’s failing glow.

Beyond, beyond must lie
A greater world to see;
From here no human eye
Can know this certainty.

But One from there has come,
To there again returned,
To him our doubts succumb,
Who brought us grace unearned.

In you, our God, we trust,
Your word forever true,
O Lord both kind and just—
Kindle our faith anew.