I would have never guessed that I would associate the word Neanderthal with the hymn that we will sing this Sunday. Our foundation hymn for January 6, 2013 is “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”. A fifth generation preacher named Joachim wrote this hymn. When He was 20 years old Joachim and his friends would scoff and ridicule the worshippers at St. Martin’s Church in Bremen, Germany. God used the sermon of Rev. Theodore Under-Eyck to capture Joachim’s heart. Soon Joachim became a preacher like his great-great- grandfather, his great grandfather, his grandfather and his father before him.
Joachim liked to take what he called “Worship Walks” in a valley near Dusseldorf. It was on one of these walks that he wrote the words, “Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of creation. O my soul praise Him for He is thy health and salvation”.
The valley was eventually named after Joachim. Joachim’s last name is Neander. So the place where Joachim Neander wrote this hymn about creation became known as Neander Valley. In German the word valley is “Thal”. So in German it is called the Neanderthal.
Fast-forward two hundred years to 1856. Herr von Beckersdorf owned and mined the Neander Valley. The minors discovered caves that contained bones. Beckersdorf took the bones to a professor of anatomy, William King. King studied the bones claimed that they were proof of evolution, the missing link. The Neanderthal fossils cemented Joachim’s family name in history. For years they were used as proof of Darwin’s theory of evolution. We now know that these bones are completely human.
I can’t imagine that Joachim would have ever guessed that his name would be famous because of a theory about human evolution. A theory that we know he would have totally rejected. He knew the Creator, the Almighty, the King of Creation.
Now whenever you hear someone mention the Neanderthals you can think of Joachim Neander walking thru a beautiful valley created by God and penning the words to this great hymn. Praise To The Lord The Almighty!

Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of creation
O my soul praise Him
For He is thy health and salvation
All ye who hear now to His temple draw near
Praise Him in glad adoration

Joachim Neander
Public Domain

Our others songs for this Sunday include:
Holy Holy Holy
You Are Holy
His Name is Wonderful