Losing a child to death is one of the most devastating events a parent can endure. Pastor Magnus Brostrup Landstad wrote the words of “I Know of a Sleep in Jesus’ Name” after facing such a devastating event.
Landstad composed this hymn on Easter morning, April 18, 1851. It was right after his son, Haakon, had died of typhus. As if the death of one child was not enough, Landstad had lost his little daughter, Maria Sophie, earlier that same year in January.
You can imagine that Landstad’s grief was overwhelming. Two lovely little children now in the grave. Yet, God moved Landstad to write this hymn, which became one of Landstad’s greatest.
Verse one: I know of a sleep in Jesus’ name, a rest from all toil and sorrow; earth folds in her arms my weary frame and shelters it till the morrow. My soul is at home with God in heav’n; my sorrows are past and over.
St. Paul writes about death to the Christians in Thessalonica: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you do not grieve in the same way as the others, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Scripture uses sleep as a metaphor for a Christian’s death. When Lazarus died, Jesus said, “Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going … to wake him up” (John 11:11). Just as we expect our nightly sleep to be temporary and refreshing, so also Christians know that when we die in faith in Jesus, death is temporary—and we will wake up refreshed in heaven. Our souls will be with God in heaven, so that means our sorrows of this earth will be past and over.
Verse two: I know of a morning, bright and fair when tidings of joy shall wake us, when songs from on high shall fill the air and God to his glory take us, when Jesus shall bid us rise from sleep; how joyous that hour of waking!
Landstad found that the best words for a hymn on death was to use the language of Scripture that calls death nothing more than a sleep. He used the language that Jesus used when he came to the house of Jairus whose 12-year-old daughter had died. When Jesus saw all the people outside Jairus’ home weeping and mourning for the little girl, he said, “Stop weeping, because she is not dead, but sleeping” (Luke 8:52). The girl’s soul had already separated from her body, but she was only sleeping, because Jesus would awaken her when he raised her from the dead. How joyous will be that time when Jesus wakes each of us from the slumber and sleep of death!
Verse three: God’s Son to our graves then makes his way; his voice hear all tribes and nations. The trumpet of God will sound the day and shake all the earth’s foundations. He calls out aloud, “O dead, come forth!” In glory we rise to meet him.
Landstad once again recalls the words of St. Paul to the Thessalonian Christians: “For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them, to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). One day – on the Last Day – Jesus will return in the clouds to call God’s children out of their graves. That great and glorious day will be like a parent calling his or her child out of bed in the morning. Then in glory we shall rise to meet him.
Verse four: O Jesus, draw near my dying bed and take me into your keeping and say when my spirit hence is fled, “This child is not dead, but sleeping.” And leave me not, Savior, till I rise to praise you in life eternal.
Life is filled with great sorrows and devastating tragedies. We all desire a rest from them. All that we have to hold onto in the face of these sorrows and tragedies is the resurrection comfort God gives us in his Word. Landstad fled to the Word so he could make it through the days following the tragic events that devastated his family. Fellow child of God, also flee to God’s Word. There you will hear the comforting voice of your Savior saying to you, “This child is not dead, but sleeping.”