May 8, 2011
Our Gospel for the day will be Luke 24:13-35, where we will hear about those two followers of Jesus that encountered Him on the Emmaus road. How lucky they were! They did not know the identity of their traveling companion, but He had a friendly and caring manner. He listened to their experiences of the last few days as they lamented their dashed hopes and discouragement. When He did speak, He helped them understand about the scriptures and the prophecy about the Messiah. His words and presence were so powerful that they later exclaimed, “Were not our hearts burning within us?” They invited Him to stay and, to their joy, He accepted. He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Their eyes were opened and He vanished from their sight.
How fortunate to be in the presence of the resurrected Christ—to hear His teachings and words of acceptance, to share a meal with Him and feel the amazement upon realizing in whose presence they found themselves. How fortunate we are, for the same happens to us each time we gather for worship. This passage from Luke’s Gospel, affirms our encounters with Christ in worship. The two central features of the Emmaus story are the same as the two major parts of liturgical worship services—teaching and sharing, feeding of the mind and feeding of the body, scriptures and sacraments, word and Eucharist.
In doing research on the music that will be sung Sunday at Grace Anglican Church, I found an interesting common thread that the Lofty Pew Singers fit right in to, without realizing the significance. I’ll save that for the end.
Our Processional Hymn will be He is Risen, He is Risen! Cecil Frances Alexander, the English nineteenth-century author of many poems for children, is the creator of this text, which has been used continually since its first appearance in the Hymnal of 1871. The text was the Easter hymn in Alexander’s Verses for Holy Seasons; with Questions for Examinations (London, 1846). That volume, as the preface states, was a “Christian Year for Children, in which the attempt … is to provide the young with verses which they may readily understand.”
Shepherd of Souls, Refresh and Bless is our Sequence Hymn. The authorship of the first two stanzas of this hymn was anonymous but more recently the words have been attributed to James Montgomery, the acknowledged author of stanzas 3 &4. The hymn was first found in the Moravian hymnal in 1826 - one of two by Montgomery in that hymnal.
I found the history of the Recessional Hymn very interesting. The contemporary hymn, We Know That Christ is Raised and Dies No More is a hymn that helps satisfy the Church’s need for baptismal hymnody created by the restoration of this sacramental rite to its historic and central position in the life of a congregation. It is the work of John Geyer, a British Congregational minister and New Testament scholar. Geyer writes:
‘We know that Christ is raised’ was written in 1967, when I was a tutor at Chestnut College, Cambridge, UK. At that time a good deal of work was going on round the corner (involving a number of American research students) producing living cells (‘the baby in the test tube’). The hymn attempted to illustrate the Christian doctrine of baptism in relation to those experiments. Originally intended as a hymn for the Sacrament of baptism, it has become popular as an Easter hymn.
(The use of scientific terms in the original form of the text [~see below~], shows how deeply the poet was influenced by the circumstances of his life at the time this text was written.)
Based on Rom.6:9 – not one of our texts for the day – and rich in imagery of the baptismal rite, this text sheds new light on old truths. One of the stanzas presents the ancient Trinitarian formula in strong, vigorous ways. Congregations are thus enabled to see the relationship of Father and Son vividly expressed, to sense the Spirit as a dynamic force and to discover anew their own unity with the Triune God through baptism. The final stanza places our rebirth through this sacrament in spiritual terms, thus putting in proper perspective the attempts of scientists to create life in test tubes. As new creatures, we, through Baptism, become part of Christ’s new body. We the Church in flesh and blood, with the universe “restored and whole,” sing “Alleluia!” The editors based their work on the original form of the text, where the first line read “We know that Christ is raised.” Other alterations are:
~embraced by futile death He broke its hold
~this union brings to being one new cell
~a living and organic part of Christ
~As living and organic parts of Christ
~The Spirit’s fission (the original form of this line in the stanza)
Psalm 116:1-3,10-17 will be chanted in Anglican chant by the Ladies in the Lofty Pews. The Antiphon will be sung to the hymntune, “Middlebury” or “Come Away to the Skies”#213 in our hymnal – join in if you like. You will hear the young voice of Avianna , one of the little girls in the choir at Easter. She is a neighbor of Sharon Helppie’s and a regular attender in our practices on Thursday evenings.
Fairest Lord Jesus and the tune, ST ELIZABETH has also been known as CRUSADER’S HYMN but had no connection whatsoever with the Crusades. The ladies in the Loft will sing this familiar hymn as the Eucharist Anthem with the young voice of Avianna singing with us. I found the story of this hymn intriguing.
The hymn came from RC Jesuits in Germany and originally had six verses. It first appeared in 1677 in a Jesuit hymnbook, but the text of the hymn was in existence at least fifteen years earlier, for it has been found in a manuscript dating back to 1662 - about the time of the restoration of the Commonwealth when the monarchy reinstituted the use of the BCP in the Anglican Church. Yet the origin of the words remains a mystery.
Who translated it into English? That, too, is largely a mystery. The first three stanzas are the work of an anonymous translator, the fourth stanza was by Joseph Seiss, first appearing in a Lutheran Sunday School book in 1873. This hymn also has Moravian history.
How appropriate that no human author draws attention from the great theme of this song. There is no source to distract from the subject, no story to detract from the Savior.
The hymn emphasizes the beauty and wonder of Christ, and it alludes to His dual nature, that He was both human and divine, God made flesh, the God-Man; O Thou of God and man the Son….Son of God and Son of Man….
It brings to mind one of the greatest observations ever made about Christ by the preacher of Antioch, John Chrysostom, in a fourth-century sermon: “I do not think of Christ as God alone, or man alone, but both together. For I know He was hungry, and I know that with five loaves He fed five thousand. I know He was thirsty, and I know that He turned the water into wine. I know He was carried in a ship, and I know that He walked on the sea. I know that He died, and I know that He raised the dead. I know that He was set before Pilate, and I know that He sits with the Father on His throne. I know that He was worshiped by angels, and I know that He was stoned by the Jews. And truly some of these I ascribe to the human, and others to the divine nature. For by reason of this He is said to have been both God and man.”
So, the bit of common thread is how the history of some of these hymns involved children. You may take note that the choir has some young voices being raised to the glory of God. Today, it will be Avianna joining us and we have plans to include several others in the near future. Stay tuned! How blessed we are to have these young people in our midst….from babies to teenagers and in between!
May the Holy Spirit assist and open our eyes to see how fortunate we are to be in the presence of the resurrected Christ.
LJ
Sources:
Hymnal Companion to the Lutheran Book of Worship
Hymnal Companion to the 82 Hymnal
Hymnal Companion the the SDA Hymnal
Then Sings My Soul
Tune My Heart to Sing
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