Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Bring It All

While I did not create this blog to be a platform for promoting my preaching, I thought that I would share this Christmas Eve message as a gift to my readers. If you weren't in a place to hear a sermon this Christmas, I hope that you find this encouraging and inspiring. It clocks in at just 11 minutes, including the reading from Luke 2:1-20. We celebrated Holy Communion right after the sermon, so the message concludes with the Invitation to the Table.

Note to fact-checkers: If I got the info wrong about the King's College Cambridge soloist, post any corrections to the comments here.

Merry Christmas!


Saturday, December 20, 2014

What Child Is This

During this Advent season I have been preaching from four traditional hymns that anticipate and celebrate the incarnation. This is the fourth of four blog entries about these songs.

The tune to this hymn, GREENSLEEVES, is very old -- probably composed when the first Queen Elizabeth reigned in England. Shakespeare mentions it in Merry Wives of Windsor, and the song has appeared in books of carols since 1642.


People had already been setting Christmas-related words to this tune for hundreds of years before William Dix penned What Child Is This in 1865. The tune has undergone a few modifications to make it easier for modern singers -- such as changing the mode from Dorian to minor. 

The focus of the three stanzas is the adoration of the shepherds on the night of Jesus' birth (from Luke 2:6-20). But the reference to "incense, gold, and myrrh" also draws in the visit of the Magi (Matthew 2:1-12). These two scenes are told in separate gospels, and they probably happened at two different times. Even so, most nativity scenes show the shepherds and the wise men together. Even if this isn't accurate historically, there is a good theological reason for putting these two groups of guests together: they both represent King David -- the shepherd who became a king.

Indeed, David looms large over the nativity. The gospel reading for week 4 of Advent this year is the annunciation to Mary in Luke 1:26-38. David's name is mentioned twice in that short section of scripture: Joseph is a descendant of the ancient king, and Jesus will take up his ancestor's throne. So bringing these two parts of David's legacy together -- his humble roots, and his royalty -- is a very appropriate move. What Child Is This reminds us that God will magnify this poor child, born in a stable. Who is he? The son of David, and of Mary. Our Messiah is the descendant of an impulsive king who founded an empire, and he is the child of a humble peasant woman who yielded to God's difficult assignment for her life.




Saturday, December 13, 2014

Hark! the Herald Angels Sing

During this Advent season I will be preaching from four traditional hymns that anticipate and celebrate the incarnation. This is the third of four blog entries about these songs.

Hark! the Herald Angels Sing is my favorite Advent/Christmas hymn. In fact, thanks to Charles Wesley's insightful and meaningful words, this may be simply one of our best English-language worship songs, period. Wesley wrote his original version in 1739, but he had some help along the way. For example, "Hark the herald angels sing" was originally "Hark, how all the welkin rings." (Thanks to George Whitefield for that significant alteration in 1753.)


Charles Wesley
Like many hymns of that vintage, the pairing of the tune and text is a more recent development. In the beginning these words were sung to the hymn tune that we now sing as Christ the Lord is Risen Today. In wasn't until 1878 that the current tune, known as MENDELSSOHN, appeared in a hymnal in its present form. The renown composer Felix Mendelssohn had composed this tune for a cantata in 1840 which celebrated the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg's moveable-type printing press. Mendelssohn's tune, like Wesley's words, underwent some modifications from its original setting. Mendelssohn composed this piece for male voices and brass, so it took the work of others to get us the current hymn setting for all four voice parts.

The tune by Mendelssohn is wonderful, but it is Wesley's profound theology of the incarnation that makes this hymn so rich and enduring. The reference to angels makes us think of the scene in the shepherds' fields from Luke 2:8-14. But Wesley's description of the incarnation--that is, how God became a human being--seems to borrow more from John 1:1-14. Stanza three contains my favorite phrase, which is straight from John 1:4: "Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings." The idea that God became one of us is by itself too wonderful to comprehend. But the truth that this was done for our benefit, so that death itself could be defeated, is almost more than I can handle. A baby born so that we could be re-born: "born that we may no more may die." I can't do anything but sing when confronted with this profound realization. This hymn provides the best way I know of to do just that.


Here's one of the best performances ever:




Saturday, December 6, 2014

Angels from the Realms of Glory

During this Advent season I will be preaching from four traditional hymns that anticipate and celebrate the incarnation. This is the second of four blog entries about these Advent songs.

The words to the hymn Angels from the Realms of Glory first appeared in 1816, published in a newspaper that was edited by the author, James Montgomery. The tune Regent Square was composed in 1867 by Henry T. Smart, and this melody is matched with Montgomery's words in the United Methodist Hymnal (#220).

Angels, from the realms of glory,
Wing your flight o'er all the earth;
Ye who sang creation's story,
Now proclaim Messiah's birth:
Refrain: Come and worship, come and worship
Worship Christ, the newborn King.

Shepherds, in the fields abiding,
Watching o'er your flocks by night,
God with man is now residing,
Yonder shines the infant light:
Refrain

Sages, leave your contemplations,
Brighter visions beam afar;
Seek the great Desire of nations,
Ye have seen his natal star:
Refrain

Saints, before the altar bending,
watching long in hope and fear;
suddenly the Lord, descending,
in his temple shall appear:
Refrain

This hymn appears to be about angels. Indeed, that's the first word of the first stanza. But each of the four stanzas addresses a different group, moving from angels to two other witnesses of the Nativity: shepherds and sages (wise men). Then the fourth stanza is about all of us: the saints. This progression makes a pretty important theological statement. Yes, the angels were there to proclaim the birth of Jesus, but they were created for one main purpose: to deliver messages from God. After the angels deliver God's messages (whether to the shepherds, or to Mary, or Joseph, or Zechariah), they exit the scene. The work of carrying out God's directions remains with the people who received the message. Angels appear throughout the scriptures, but only briefly. Once the angels do their job, then you and I are expected to get on with the work of obeying God's Word.

The hymn's meter (grouping of syllables) of 87.87.87 makes it easy to switch with other tunes, and in the UK it is most commonly sung to a traditional French carol named Iris. In that setting the original refrain of "Come and worship" is often replaced with "Gloria in excelsis deo." Here is a performance from King's College Cambridge (sorry about the ad):


Here is a church worship service in the US that uses Smart's tune as the choir processes into the sanctuary:


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