Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-13-21

Certain holiday songs are appropriate on certain holidays, naturally; and others seem inappropriate at any other times of the year. “I’m Dreaming Of a White Christmas” might soon be labeled as Politically Incorrect, but in the meantime would be out of tune, so to speak, if sung in the middle of August. But… we always can dream.

Similarly odd, or anomalous, is the incidence of songs that are relevant at any time of the year but are relegated to one season only. Shoved into the storage closet, as it were. Handel’s The Messiah is an oratorio about the entire life of Jesus, from prophesies 700 years previous to His birth (in Isaiah) to His Incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and Ascension. Its performance is appropriate at any, and all, times during the year. But it is consigned to the Christmas season, and seldom heard otherwise, even in parts.

And some holiday music, church hymnody, shifts outside its logical boxes.

One of the most significant musical pieces (and indeed, sermon topic or cited prayer) is what has come to be called, from its Latin name, the Magnificat. It is the very simple, very brief prayer offered by Mary concerning one of the most profound events in the history of humankind: the Incarnation. God became man to dwell among us.

The angel Gabriel visited Mary and told her she was chosen to to bear the Savior, who would be conceived as a miracle by the Holy Spirit. Overwhelmed, humbled, and full of Grace, she knew the prophesy that a virgin would conceive, and… her prayer was a reaction that the Messiah would be her son.

Her cousin Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the future John the Baptist, visited her. As recorded in the first chapter of Luke:

When Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, [her] babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit… “As soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.”

And Mary said:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, And holy is His name.
And His mercy is on those who fear Him From generation to generation.
He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, And the rich He has sent away empty.
He has helped His servant Israel, In remembrance of His mercy,
As He spoke to our fathers, To Abraham and to his seed forever.”

Many thoughts and blessings and lessons can be inspired by that simple but profound prayer. Imagine her thoughts… her humility… her responsibility… her coming sorrow (for she knew the whole of prophecy, from Scripture)… the favor of God Almighty.

One aspect we might note is how the unborn child in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy at the mention of the coming Messiah. A lesson, surely, to those who deny the humanity of the unborn.

I mentioned the “shifting” days of observance in church and holiday music; surely Mary had nine months until the birth of Jesus; yet Advent, properly named for what is profitable to contemplate, is an appropriate time to think about the Magnificat – how Mary confessed that her soul “magnified” the Lord.

Just as deceptively simple but utterly profound – in a musical context – is the Magnificat by Johann Sebastian Bach. If you are not familiar with it, and if you have ever listened to Handel’s The Messiah, I really urge you to open the video performance linked below. Very much shorter than Handel’s oratorio – surely an “oasis” you can find amid holiday busyness – it is a miracle composed by the greatest of humankind’s music masters.

I devoted attention to its multiple aspects in my biography of Bach (who has been called “the Fifth Evangelist,” and, had he been Catholic, would have been declared a saint). And I spoke about this work at the magnificent 150-year-old St Paul’s Episcopal Church in Flint MI at their Bach Festival some years ago.

As a musical genius but also as a Bible scholar, Bach’s exegesis of Mary’s prayer, employing no other text, sometimes focuses on one word (e.g., “Magnificat”) or two; “Omnes Generationes” takes Mary’s awe-struck realization that “all generations” will call her blessed. Groups within the choir sing “all generations” over and over, high and low, over each other, in tender harmony… and one has the impression of the hosts of Heaven raining down praises.

Any mere description is unworthy: it must be heard. Bach composed it in 1723, shortly after his appointment to St Thomas Church in Leipzig. Our video features a performance in an old church, and on period instruments of Bach’s day.

May I suggest, in this Advent season, assisted by the supernal music of Johann Sebastian Bach, that we pause to contemplate the miracle – and God’s miracle plan – of this season. The Creator of the Universe emptied Himself to become human, to remind us that He knows our sorrows and joys and hurts and hopes; and that He offered this Son as a sacrifice against the price justly required for our rebellion and sins.

No, I don’t fully understand it either. But God is LOVE, after all.

And when I hear it, I leap for joy too.

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Click: Magnificat

Easter 2016

An early Easter message. Appropriate, because I would like us to wrap Good Friday, the “world’s three darkest days,” the Easter Resurrection, and the Ascension all in one meditation. Besides, the Easter story was foretold many years before Jesus’s Passion – throughout the Old Testament, most comprehensively and accurately in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. That’s an even earlier telling.

The essentials of Jesus’s life on earth are scarcely questioned any more, except by the intentionally scornful: which means that some people do not doubt, but rather reject. The fact of His Resurrection, on the other hand, is a dubiety to some. It is interesting to consider that people saw the risen Christ after the tomb, and yet not everyone believed. They believe Jesus somehow came back to life, but not that He was divine.

Many did come to faith. But even the Jewish historian Jospehus recorded the facts of Jesus’s life and ministry and miracles and resurrection – that Jesus mingled with people for 40 days – yet never came to belief himself. It is not unusual, frankly, to imagine people, even ourselves, to hear about a miracle, possibly witness one, and yet… shrug. Or consider it “one of those things we can’t explain.”

This happens, and it says less about a Resurrected Savior than it does about our stubborn, contrary, or lazy human nature.

Yet there were many records of That Week.

Jesus not only performed miracles, He was a miracle. Everything about His birth, life, and ministry were prophesied. He did amazing things; random things, sometimes, to bring blessings or to prove His divinity. He spoke amazing words, unassailable lessons. He was God incarnate; fully God and fully man, who loved and sorrowed, laughed and wept, ate and drank and traveled. He read minds, calmed storms, and healed the sick.

Yet vulnerability proved to be His major miracle. During His last week, He emptied Himself of divine prerogatives.

He went to Jerusalem, knowing death awaited. And more: scorn, insults, lies, torture, painful crucifixion. It is said that death on the cross is the most excruciating of slow deaths. Myself, I believe that the betrayal, denial, and abandonment of His friends was more painful than His physical end.

As a man, he prayed fervently, we know not all. As God, He willingly bore the humiliation and death, speaking only words like “It is finished” – it being the plan established before the foundations of the world: that this holy Incarnation would satisfy the substitutionary death we all deserve. If we believe and confess this belief, we are saved. Another miracle.

Our contemporary world wants us to believe strange things… strange lies. Not only that there is no God, but that there are no sins. Only mistakes and bad choices. And that medicines, or therapy, or education, or the government will make everything OK. Humankind has asserted mastery of our own souls for several centuries, ever more intensely, inventing reasons to reject God and deny His fingerprints on creation. Lo and behold, the past century was the bloodiest freaking 100 years in history, starring the most savage monsters a secular world could imagine.

Were the events of Holy Week in vain? Christ, with calm determination, fulfilled His destiny. He entered Jerusalem to public acclaim, preserving His humility. By the end of the week the Jewish zealots and the puppets of the Roman government caused people to scream for His murder. It happened… after what we mentioned: humiliation, injustice, abandonment, torture, and death that, perhaps, no mortal among us ever has endured.

He hung on the cross for three hours, comforted, at least, by His beloved mother who did not leave Him. He died; a spear was thrust in His side; the centurions affirmed His death; He was taken to a tomb, washed and prepared for burial, wrapped in cloths. A large stone sealed the tomb, guarded by Roman soldiers with special instructions.

Then, the three darkest days of humankind. What were those like, in Jerusalem? His enemies were satisfied that Jesus, the major troublemaker, celebrity, pretender in their eyes, was finally gone from the scene. But His followers – who should have known better, since they knew scripture and His prophesies – nevertheless despaired. They went into hiding: perhaps His fate would be theirs?

There are records of an earthquake, of stormy skies – of nature groaning – of the veil in the temple spontaneously ripping in two. Could His followers been more despondent and terror-stricken? What days they must have been!

But… Easter dawned. Jesus rose. He lived. He lives. Mary, having met Jesus in the garden, became the world’s first evangelist of the Good News when she ran and told the cowering Disciples.

The rest, to coin a phrase, is history. But it is not quite history as we know it. His story, literally. Mary and her friends saw, and believed. The Disciples, first scared and skeptical, believed, and saw, and believed in ever greater numbers. Jesus, in a transformed body, preached and blessed and taught and performed miracles. More people believed. Within a generation there were churches, gatherings of devout believers, not only in faraway Rome, but in pagan outposts like the island of Britain.

And after 40 days, the final prophecy fulfilled – more than a miracle, but the confirmation of His divinity – the bodily Ascension of the Christ into Heaven. “It is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Holy Spirit cannot come. If I do go away, then I will send the Advocate, the Comforter, to you.” Thus, Christ in us.

But remember That Week. If you are ever tempted to think that your faith would be stronger “if you only could have seen the things of that week,” or if you hear others say that… remember that His Disciples, who lived every day with Him for three years, scattered like autumn leaves. Remember that people who had witnessed miracles wound up demanding His death. Remember that many who saw Him after the tomb still were skeptical.

You can believe in miracles – or not – but believing in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God; confessing His Resurrection; and inviting Him to live in your heart and life, is the summation of This Week, and the Gospel itself.

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Have you listened to Handel’s Messiah at Christmastime? Even if you have not, I invite you to listen to an equally great masterpiece. The St Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach tells the story of Easter week. On (coincidentally) this week of Bach’s birthday, number 331, I offer a link to one its greatest performances, conducted by Karl Richter. The art direction is stark! Appropriate, but note the changing backgrounds, the over-arching cross, the mood reflecting the spiritual import. With English subtitles. Three hours, 22 movements. Be prepared!

Click: Bach: St Matthew Passion