腓力·尼可莱（Philipp Nicolai，1556-1608）. Explore “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme”: song information and official sources.
Hope for the end of the age · The Lord's return
The parable of the ten virgins becomes this hymn directly, with “But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold! The bridegroom is coming! Come out to meet him!’” (Matthew 25:6). Behind its writing stands an epidemic. Between July 1597 and January 1598, about 1,300–1,400 people died in Unna, where Nicolai ministered. He recorded seeing the nearby churchyard from his home, sometimes with twenty or thirty burials in a day. Knowing that, the midnight cry becomes more than a detail in a parable. Three stanzas move through the call, the welcome and heaven's wedding feast; the structure itself is a path towards fulfilment. Bach based Cantata 140 on its tune, making it one of Western church music's most significant Advent works.
Advent, Sundays on the last things and remembrance; teaching on Matthew 25's ten virgins.