Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren, BWV 154
| Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren | |
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| BWV 154 | |
| Church cantata by J. S. Bach | |
Thomaskirche, Leipzig
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| Occasion | First Sunday after Epiphany |
| Performed | 9 January 1724: Leipzig |
| Movements | 7 |
| Cantata text | anonymous |
| Bible text | |
| Chorale |
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| Vocal |
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| Instrumental |
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Mein liebster Jesus ist verloren (My dearest Jesus is lost),BWV 154, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it for the first Sunday after Epiphany and first performed it in Leipzig on 9 January 1724.
Bach performed the cantata in 1724, his first year in Leipzig on the First Sunday after Epiphany. The musicologist Alfred Dürr assumes that it was written already in Weimar, whereas John Eliot Gardiner shares this view only for movements 1, 4 and 7. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the Epistle to the Romans, speaking of the duties of a Christian (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the finding in the Temple (). The unknown poet takes the parents' search for the lost Jesus as the starting point to depict the general situation of man who lost Jesus. Movements 1 and 2 lament this loss. Movement 3 is a chorale, stanza 2 of Martin Jahn's "Jesu, meiner Seelen Wonne", asking Jesus to return. Movement 4 asks the same question in a personal aria. The answer is given by the bass, the vox Christi (voice of Christ), in the words of the Gospel "Wisset ihr nicht, daß ich sein muß in dem, das meines Vaters ist?" (Do you not know that I must be in that which is My Father's? ). The joy of the finding is expressed paraphrasing from the Song of Songs "The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping on the mountains, skipping on the hills"(). The cantata ends with stanza 6 of Christian Keymann's chorale "Meinen Jesum laß ich nicht".
Bach performed the cantata first year on 9 January 1724.
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