Seite - 75 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Band 04/02

74 | Benedikt Bauer www.jrfm.eu 2018, 4/2, 67–79 therefore the community as well are fundamentally depicted as sinners – the most common naming for the individual’s soul in the Kleines Brüdergesangbuch. The insight into the corruption of the immanent sphere by sin and the realiza- tion that God’s tender loving care in the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrec- tion of his son Jesus Christ is the only solution to this desolate state of existence relegate the individual to Jesus. This realization has a processual character that once initiated irrevocably binds to Christ: “Who once recognizes the wound in his side as the cause of his beatitude; who once lays eyes on the stigmata [Nägel=maal] at the hands and feet: he will have to say, my Lord, my God!”28 This first encounter with the divine leads ultimately to complete devotion to Jesus Christ, even to the extent of self-abandonment: “Body and strength I will retain, if it may serve Christ, body and life I will abandon for the true husband of souls [Seelen=Mann].”29 The self-presentation of the singing individual can be described as seman- tic self-humiliation: the individual is small, a worm, poor, (like) dust, “a bad maggot, a rotten wood, worth nothing but to burn”.30 But, in fact, this self- humiliation does not seem to be a product of any outward pressure but rather a desired status, an inner longing, that allows intimacy with Jesus Christ – the self-humiliation of the individual takes places only in contrast to Christ’s glory and redemptive act and thus the individual can constitute himself or herself – and therefore be assured of salvation: You lacerated wounds! how sweet are thou to me, in thou I have found a little spot [plätzgen, diminutive of place] for me: how gladly am I only dust, if nevertheless I am the spoils of the lamb! … My heart seethes out of love to you, my dearest lamb, and all my urges are to live [for] the bridegroom, the one who conciliated me and was given to the cross out of love.31 The wounds are the desired place to be, everything inside the singer prompts the singer to be in intimate and “daily interaction with the savior”.32 But the in- dividual isn’t depicted just by self-humiliation. Through the transformatio mys­ tica that cumulates in the motif of the wounds, the individual is released from 28 “Wer einmal die Wunde in seiner Seit kennt, als die ursach der seligkeit; wer die Nä-gel=maale, an Händ und Füssen, einmal erblikt: der wird sagen müssen, Mein HErr, mein GOtt!”, Beyreuther 1978, 7–8. 29 “Leib und kraft will ich bewahren, wenn es Christo dienen kan, leib und leben lass ich fahren für den treuen Seelen=mann”, Beyreuther 1978, Hirten-Lieder, 92. 30 “[E]ine schlechte mad‘, ein faules holz, nichts werth, als zu verbrennen”, Beyreuther 1978, Vom Wan- del im Licht, 23. 31 “Ihr aufgerissnen Wunden! wie lieblich seyd ihr mir, ich hab in euch gefunden ein plätzgen für und für: wie gerne bin ich nur ein staub, wenn ich nichts desto wenger auch bin des Lammes raub! … Mein herze wallt vor liebe nach dir, mein liebstes Lamm, und alle meine triebe sind, um dem Bräutigam zu leben, Dem, der mich versöhnt und ward für mich aus liebe ans creutz hinan gedehnt”, Beyreuther 1978, Hirten-Lieder, 89. 32 See Beyreuther 1978, Gebetlein, 12; Vom Wandel im Licht, 6.24; Hirten-Lieder, 32; Anhang, 8.10. For Meyer this is the leitmotiv of mysticism; see Meyer 1983, 93.