In a sermon at Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, Gary Wilburn said:

"In 1636, amid the darkness of the Thirty Years' War, a German pastor, Martin Rinkart, is said to have buried five thousand of his parishioners in one year, an average of fifteen a day. His parish was ravaged by war, death, and economic disaster. In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this table grace for his children:

'Now thank we all our God / With heart and hands and voices; / Who wondrous things hath done, / In whom his world rejoices. / Who, from our mother's arms, / Hath led us on our way / With countless gifts of love / And still is ours today.'