Lord, Let Your Servant Now Depart

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Composer: Ellen Koehler

Arrangement Samples - Click pdf link(s) below to view

Lead Sheet

PDF icon lord_let_your_servant_now_depart-lead-sample.pdf

Piano Accompaniment

PDF icon lord_let_your_servant_now_depart-piano-and-voice-sample.pdf

Sheet Music Category:

Available Arrangements:

  • Song
  • Lead Sheet
  • Piano and Voice
Lord, Let Your Servant Now Depart
 
Lord, let your servant now depart
Into your gracious promised rest.
Since eager eyes, which you have made,
Have been with your salvation blest.

Which all this time your favored saints
And holy prophets only knew.
Long since prepared, but now revealed,
For all creation now to view.

Bridge/Ending:
To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
The glorious God whom we adore.
Be glory as it was before,
Is now, and shall be evermore.

And now You’ve shown a fallen world
The only way to saving grace.
And how that Light is glory now
Of ev’ry tribe and tongue and race!

Lord, let your servant now depart
Into your gracious promis’d rest.
Since eager eyes, which you have made,
Have been with your salvation blest.

Bridge/Ending:
To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
The glorious God whom we adore.
Be glory as it was before,
Is now, and shall be evermore.

Based on the classic text. Nunc Dimittis (Canticle of Simeon)
Words: Chris Alford. Music: Ellen Koehler.
Copyright ©2013 Chris Alford and Ellen Koehler.
All Rights Reserved.
 

Commentary -
 

The lyrics of Lord, Let Your Servant Now Depart are a beautiful versified rendering of the traditional prayer Nunc Dimittis (The Canticle, or Song, of Simeon), taken from Luke 2:29-32. Here, the aged and righteous Simeon, to whom the Holy Spirit had revealed that he would not depart this life before he had seen the Lord’s Christ, responded in joyful praise and thanksgiving to God when he saw Mary and Joseph bringing the infant Jesus into the temple in Jerusalem for His ceremonial consecration. The Nunc Dimittis is the traditional canticle sung at evening services such as Evensong, Compline, and Vespers.

Lord, Let Your Servant Now Depart is a lovely and fitting closing song. It is a sung acknowledgement that we have worshiped in an understanding of the whole story of God; a soaring doxology of praise; and a call to go forth into the world in peace and joy to serve the Lord we love.

Key: C major

Liturgical year season: all year, but especially during the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany.

Lord, Let Your Servant Now Depart is available as a lead sheet and arranged with accompaniment for piano.

 

Sample arrangements are not for reproduction.
Copyright ©2016 Ellen Koehler.  All Rights Reserved.