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Archive for December 31, 2013

What cheer? Good cheer!

December 31, 2013 / Awc / Comments Off

What cheer? What cheer?
Good cheer! Good cheer!
Be merry and glad this good New Year!

Lift up your hearts and be glad
In Christ’s birth,’ the angel bade.
‘Say each to other, if any be sad:
What cheer?’

Now the King of heav’n his birth hath take,
Joy and mirth we ought to make;
Say each to other, for his sake:
‘What cheer?’

I tell you all with heart so free:
Right welcome, welcome ye be to me;
Be glad and merry, for charity!
What cheer?

Music by William Walton
Lyrics (from Richard Hill’s Commonplace Book, early 16th century)

Category: angels, joy, New Year / Tags: carols, Richard Hill, William Walton

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world–he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Rejoice then, O heaven and you that dwell therein! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

Revelation 12:1-11

A story that has fascinated people for centuries: struggling bodies, tangled, and falling. Warfare the metaphor we know too well. We sense the mighty power of God. Perhaps in Advent we also sense the devil’s fear: desperate evil thrown down to earth, whose wrath is great because his time is short.

Fall of the Rebel Angels
Master of the Rebel Angels, 14th c.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_The_Fall_of_the_Rebel_Angels

Fall of the Rebel Angels
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1562
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

durer-albrecht-engravings-st-michael-fighting-the-dragon-1089

St Michael Fighting the Dragon
Albrecht Durer, 1498

Frans_Floris_-_The_Fall_of_the_Rebellious_Angels_-_WGA7947

Fall of the Rebellious Angels
Frans Floris, 1554
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Michael fights rebel angels
Sebastian Ricci, 1720
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

441px-Luca_Giordano_-_St_Michael_-_WGA9023

St. Michael
Luca Giordano, c.1663
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The Rebel Angels
from Paradise Lost, Book VI
Gustave Doré, 1866
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Triumph in heaven
from Paradise Lost, Book VI
Gustave Doré, 1866
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Category: Advent, angels, art /

What then did you go out to see?

December 23, 2013 / Awc / Comments Off

When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind?

What then did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.

What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way before you.’

Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Matthew 11:2-11

“What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? What then did you go out to see?“

I’ve had lots of thoughts this Advent, but this phrase is the one that I have pondered most. And while I haven’t gotten to the bottom of it, I’m almost out of Advent, so I guess it’s time to share.

There are things in life you just want to see for yourself. For one reason or another, a picture or an eye witness account is not enough, so you make the effort and you make the trek and you go out. And as you go, your journey is fueled by hopes and expectations–hopes for something wondrous, and expectations that temper your hope and keep your heart from being broken.

Expectations are born of experience. They are hard, rigid things. They’ll keep you standing upright when you take a hit.

Hope, on the other hand, “is the thing with feathers.” Hope will lift you up and carry you some place beyond your experience.

So I ask myself as Christmas nears, what hope will get me up and out? What hope would lead or drive me into the wilderness to see God’s grace for myself? And would my expectations keep me from recognizing a prophet if I saw one? Could I accept camel hair if I was expecting a suit? An infant if I was expecting a warrior king?

Why leave the hillside and go to the stable? Why follow the star?

If Advent is a journey, what do I go out to see?

Category: Advent, John the Baptist /

Lessons and Carols with the Ghent Altarpiece

December 21, 2013 / Awc / One comment

If you want a picture of Advent to hold in your mind, the Ghent Altarpiece is about as good as it gets. Painted by Jan van Eyck in the 15th century, the altarpiece is one of the most extraordinary things a human being has ever created. Consequently it’s been the victim of crime and theft, but it’s also been photographed and analyzed in astonishing detail by the Getty Foundation. Their website “Closer to Van Eyck” is your Advent devotional for today. Spend some time exploring–macrophotography will let you zoom in to ponder every flower and angel’s wing.

Like a Lessons and Carols service, the Ghent Altarpiece moves through the history of God’s relationship with humanity: from Adam to the Annunciation to the Adoration of the Lamb.

There are prophets proclaiming. There’s music and singing

and sumptuous beauty everywhere you look.

And like Lessons and Carols, the painting leads us on a journey from Creation and the Fall to triumph and worship:

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

Take some time to inhabit salvation’s story. Look closely at Van Eyck’s masterpiece. Wonder and marvel–because that’s what we need to feel as we draw near to Christmas.

Category: Advent, art, Lessons and Carols, worship / Tags: adoration, Van Eyck

Someone else’s servant

December 17, 2013 / Awc / Comments Off

sculpture by Michael Grab

Accept those whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat everything, but another person, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted that person. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master they stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.

Some consider one day more sacred than another; others consider every day alike. Everyone should be fully convinced in their own mind. Those who regard one day as special do so to the Lord. Those who eat meat do so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and those who abstain do so to the Lord and give thanks to God. For we do not live to ourselves alone and we do not die to ourselves alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat your brother or sister with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.

Romans 14: 1-10, Today’s New International Version

Denominational wisdom from Romans.

Category: Bible, community, diversity /

Overflowing joy

December 14, 2013 / Awc / Comments Off

God does not give his joy to us for ourselves alone, and if we could possess him for ourselves alone we would not possess him at all. Any joy that does not overflow from our souls and help other men to rejoice in God does not come to us from God. (But do not think that you have to see how it overflows into the souls of others. In the economy of his grace, you may be sharing his gifts with someone you will never know until you get to heaven.)

If we experience God in contemplation, we experience Him not for ourselves alone but also for others.

Thomas Merton from New Seeds of Contemplation, I-5, quoted in The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism, Bernard McGinn, ed.

Category: community, contemplation, joy /

The hungry sheep

December 11, 2013 / Awc / Comments Off

Feed my lambs
painting by Kathryn Trotter

A very quick note:

Today’s Daily Office reading included this passage from Revelation 2:

“‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear evil men but have tested those who call themselves apostles but are not, and found them to be false; I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen, repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have, you hate the works of the Nicola′itans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

Time Magazine, naming Pope Francis Person of the Year, writes:

…what makes this Pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church at all. People weary of the endless parsing of sexual ethics, the buck-passing infighting over lines of authority when all the while (to borrow from Milton), “the hungry Sheep look up, and are not fed.” In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church—the church as servant and comforter of hurting people in an often harsh world—above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors.

And from John:

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

Category: Advent, Lectionary, love, Pope /

Laetentur coeli – May the heavens rejoice!

December 7, 2013 / Awc / Comments Off

Laetentur coeli, May the heavens rejoice
exultet terra, and the earth be glad,
a facie Domini quia venit, before the Lord
quia venit! who is coming!

From Psalm 96:11-13

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;
let the sea roar, and all that fills it;
let the field exult, and everything in it.
Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy
before the Lord; for he is coming,
for he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with his truth.

Category: Advent, hymns, music, Taizé /

Advent in-between

December 5, 2013 / Awc / 2 comments

I find myself at a strange, in-between place this Advent. We’ve moved to a new town, and a new job, and we haven’t yet settled into a church home. We’re still exploring. Still visitors. Not yet family.

Of course, there are wonderful services to attend with terrific music and stirring messages, but I have to admit it feels a little less-than-satisfying without familiar faces in nearby pews. I think about those folks who only come to church at Christmastime. Do they feel unknown and unnoticed as they sing the hymns, and take communion, and seek some kind of joy or healing? Do they walk out of church and say to themselves, “Now, it feels like Christmas!” or does it fall a little short of memory and expectation? I wonder.

It’s an odd thing to celebrate a season when you don’t feel grounded. It reminds me how much strength I draw from my worship community even at times when I’m not an especially active participant in the life of the church. And it also reminds me of that verse in Deuteronomy: “love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Ah, well. Whatever our circumstances, the King is coming and we have to get ready. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Advent hymns. The tune is the very popular Psalm 42 from the Geneva Psalter (1551), setting by Claude Goudimel. These lyrics were written about a century later by Johann Olearius.

People seem to have a little trouble deciding on a tempo for this one, but if you hit the sweet spot and keep it light–and especially if you add some Renaissance percussion–you can dance your way to the joy of Christ’s coming. Even the feel of the words in my mouth brings delight (“speak ye to Jerusalem/ of the peace that waits for them”), and oh, how I wish we could speak peace to Jerusalem.

You can listen to a choral arrangement with slightly different words from the hymnal, or go for period instruments in the arrangement for lute and viols. Either way, let’s get going and make the rougher places plain.

~~~~~~

Comfort, comfort ye my people,
speak ye peace, thus saith our God;
comfort those who sit in darkness,
mourning ‘neath their sorrow’s load;
speak ye to Jerusalem
of the peace that waits for them;
tell her that her sins I cover,
and her warfare now is over.

For the herald’s voice is crying
in the desert far and near,
bidding all men to repentance,
since the kingdom now is here.
O that warning cry obey!
Now prepare for God a way!
Let the valleys rise to meet him,
and the hills bow down to greet him.

Make ye straight what long was crooked,
make the rougher places plain:
let your hearts be true and humble,
as befits his holy reign,
For the glory of the Lord
now o’er earth is shed abroad,
and all flesh shall see the token
that his word is never broken.

Words: Johann G. Olearius, 1671;
trans. Catherine Winkworth, 1863