A Sunday Hymn

Nobody gets away with anything. Not even the ones who look like they did.

Come

A man named Simeon lived in Jerusalem... waiting for the time 
when God would come to help Israel, (Luke 2.25).

O come, O come, Emmanuel, 

And ransom captive Israel, 

That mourns in lonely exile here 

Until the Son of God appear. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! 

Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel! 

O come, now Wisdom from on high,

Who orders all things mightily; 

To us the path of knowledge show, 

And teach us in her ways to go. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! 

Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel! 

O come, O come, now Lord of might, 

Who to your tribes on Sinai’s height 

In ancient times you gave the law, 

In cloud, and majesty, and awe. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! 

Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!

O come, thou Rod of Jesse,
Free thine own from Satan's tyranny;
From depths of hell thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.

Rejoice! Rejoice! 

Emmanuel Shall come to you, O Israel!

God of the Pit

<< Read the first part of this series
On Tuesday I told you about a blunt, obscure sentence in the Bible's most pessimistic book that speaks to me like nothing else when I'm depressed. It helps somehow that the book Jesus taught from is quite open about the fact that life stinks and seems utterly meaningless sometimes.

'Job's Despair'
by William Blake

Actually, Scripture is full of depressed and depressing people, stories, and poems. The 42nd psalm (psalms are just poems and song-lyrics) is a real downer. In the Book of Job one man's utter depression over losing everything leads into one of the world's great epic poems about why people suffer. Even God shows up at the end but gives no real answer other than, "It's way, way over your head, but ultimately I'm in control."

This could be an intensely frustrating response, but oddly many people find it comforting. Abraham Lincoln for one is known to have read Job through several times during the Civil War and somehow it strengthened him. Sometimes you're way beyond the point where an explanation would help. But knowing you're not alone, that this is in some awful way 'normal,' that God fully acknowledges what you're going through and neither condemns it nor tries to pull you out of it with platitudes and happy-talk -- you may not be beyond that.

The Depressed God

One of the most mind-blowing things about the Christian Movement, if we can disengage our minds from two millennia of fairy tales and idealized pictures that have built up around it, is that we are worshiping a man who was tortured to death. The records tell us that Jesus did it willingly, the way you might willingly die to save your child. But they also tell us that he did not do it easily.

Mark's rough-n-ready, just-the-facts-ma'am gospel says that in the hours before his arrest he, "became very troubled and distressed. He said to [Peter, James, and John] “My soul is deeply grieved, even to the point of death." Then he proceeded to beg God not to make him do the thing preachers often say was the very reason Jesus was born -- die. The Saviour of the World did not walk evenly and impassibly to his cross. He was depressed and didn't really want to go. (What he did want to do right down to the end was to obey God, but that's another topic for another post).

Co-Sufferer

The thing about the Christian Movement, the thing about the Holy Scriptures, the thing about Jesus of Nazareth that gives me a ledge to hang onto when I'm deep down in "the hole," is their utter realism. They don't deny or demean anything I'm going through, they don't tell me to cheer up or grow up.

When I cry out, "'Futile! Futile! Absolutely futile! Everything is futile!'" (Ecclesiastes 1.2) I say it -- even when it seems for all the world that I'm alone -- to a God who's yelled something similar,  and can look me straight in the face and say, "Yeah, I know. I wrote that."

Next Job

Well-Used Tools

Photo by Biser Todorov

Today in church we sang a song called Be Still, My Soul, and this line really impressed me -- or more to the point, God really impressed me with this line:

Be still, my soul,

your God will undertake to guide the future,

as in ages past...

To me "your God will undertake" makes the lyrics much more solid and real. Katharine von Schlegel, who wrote them back in 1752, doesn't say, "Don't worry because God is always guiding the future from eternity," like many hymn writers would. No, she says, "Don't worry Christian, because God is rolling up his sleeves, getting out his tools, spitting in his hands and rubbing them together, and 'undertaking' his next job -- guiding the future." He is a worker (John 5.17); God gets dirty hands and splinters while he constructs this future.

Just like he has dependably done for "ages past."

"...A place in Your Paradise..."

Meditation for a Sunday Morning



(Here are two more of the early (AD 100 - 150) Christian hymns known as the Odes of Solomon that I posted for you last Sunday. Incidentally, they probably weren't credited to Solomon when they were written. Instead, they were usually bound together with a Jewish book called Psalms of Solomon and picked up the name by association.

In the first hymn the singer spreads their arms in worship to honor Christ's cross. In the catacombs Christians are frequently shown doing precisely this. The second ode celebrates a member of the Christian Movement entering Paradise after living a holy life. I like this one especially because it gives a window into how Jesus' early followers pictured the Paradise he had promised, [Gospel of Luke 23.43 & Book of Revelation 2.7])

Ode 27 

I extended my hands and hallowed my Lord, 

For the expansion of my hands is His sign. 

And my extension is the upright cross. 

 Hallelujah.

Ode 11 

My heart was pruned and its flower appeared, then grace sprang up in it, 

And my heart produced fruits for the Lord. 

For the Most High circumcised me by His Holy Spirit, then He uncovered my inward being towards Him, And filled me with His love. 

And His circumcising became my salvation, and I ran in the Way, in His peace, in the way of truth. 

From the beginning until the end I received His knowledge. 

And I was established upon the rock of truth, where He had set me. 

And speaking waters touched my lips from the fountain of the Lord generously. 

And so I drank and became intoxicated, from the living water that does not die. 

And my intoxication did not cause ignorance, but I abandoned vanity, 

And turned toward the Most High, my God, and was enriched by His favors. 

And I rejected the folly cast upon the earth, and stripped it off and cast it from me. 

And the Lord renewed me with His garment, and possessed me by His light. 

And from above He gave me immortal rest, and I became like the land that blossoms,

And rejoices in its fruits. 

And the Lord is like the sun upon the face of the land. 

My eyes were enlightened, and my face received the dew, 

And my breath was refreshed by the pleasant fragrance of the Lord. 

And He took me to His Paradise, wherein is the wealth of the Lord's pleasure. 

I beheld blooming and fruit-bearing trees, 

And self-grown was their crown. 

Their branches were sprouting and their fruits were shining. 

 From an immortal land were their roots. 

And a river of gladness was irrigating them, 

And round about them in the land of eternal life. 

Then I worshiped the Lord because of His magnificence. 

And I said, Blessed, O Lord, are they who are planted in Your land, 

And who have a place in Your Paradise, 

And who grow in the growth of Your trees, and have passed from darkness into light. 

Behold, all Your laborers are fair, they who work good works, 

And turn from wickedness to your pleasantness. 

For the pungent odor of the trees is changed in Your land, 

And everything becomes a remnant of Yourself. 

Blessed are the workers of Your waters, 

And eternal memorials of Your faithful servants. 

Indeed, there is much room in Your Paradise! 

And there is nothing in it which is barren, but everything is filled with fruit. 

Glory be to You, O God, the delight of Paradise for ever. 

Hallelujah.

"....I believed in the Lord's Messiah..."

Peter in the Catacombs (by Styka)

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

(Other than a few snatches of song in the New Testament (like this and this), the Odes of Solomon is probably our oldest collection of ancient Christian music. These lyrics were written between A.D. 100 - 150, probably closer to 100.

A Roman bureaucrat named Pliny who met up with some Christians at about the same time tells us that, "they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god," (Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96-97, "To Emperor Hadrian"). What were Jesus' early followers singing as they furtively gathered in the pre-dawn Sunday hours to worship? Probably something a little like these two songs.)

    Ode 29

        The Lord is my hope, I shall not be ashamed of Him.

        For according to His praise He made me, and according to His grace even so He gave to me.

        And according to His mercies He exalted me, and according to His great honor He lifted me up.

        And he caused me to ascend from the depths of Sheol, and from the mouth of death He drew me.

        And I humbled my enemies, and He justified me by His grace.

        For I believed in the Lord's Messiah, and considered that He is the Lord.

        And He revealed to me His sign, and He led me by His light.

        And He gave me the scepter of His power, that I might subdue the devices of the people, and humble the power of the mighty.

        To make war by His Word, and to take victory by His power.

        And the Lord overthrew my enemy by His Word, and he became like the dust 

which a breeze carries off.

        And I gave praise to the Most High, because He has magnified His servant

 and the son of His maidservant.

        Hallelujah. 

    

Ode 30

        Fill for yourselves water from the living fountain of the Lord, because it has been opened for you.

        And come all you thirsty and take a drink, and rest beside the fountain of the Lord.

        Because it is pleasing and sparkling, and perpetually refreshes the self.

        For much sweeter is its water than honey, and the honeycomb of bees is not to be compared with it;

        Because it flowed from the lips of the Lord, and it named from the heart of the Lord.

        And it came boundless and invisible, and until it was set in the middle they knew it not.

        Blessed are they who have drunk from it, and have refreshed themselves by it.

        

Hallelujah. 

Light From Light

Meditation for a Sunday Morning

(This is a very old song in the Christian Movement, going back at least to the AD 900s. No one knows who wrote it.)

NATA LUX DE LUMINE

(Light that from the light was born)

I

O Light that from the light was born,

Redeemer of the world forlorn,

In mercy now your suppliants spare,

Our praise accept, and hear our prayer.

II

You who wore our flesh below,

To save our souls from endless woe,

Of your blessed body, Lord, would we

Efficient members ever be.

III

More bright than sun your aspect gleamed,

As snowdrift white your garments seemed,

When on the mount your glory shone,

To faithful witnesses alone.

IV

There did the seers of old confer

With those who your disciples were;

And you on both did shed abroad

The glory of the eternal God.

V

From heaven the Father’s voice was heard

That you the eternal Son declared;

And faithful hearts now love to own

Your glory, King of heaven, alone.

VI

Grant us, we pray, to walk in light,

Clad in your virtues sparkling bright,

That, upward borne by deeds of love,

Our souls may win the bliss above.

VII

Loud praise to you our homage brings,

Eternal God and King of kings,

Who reigns as one, you one in three,

From age to age eternally.

(Hymns of the Early Church, Rev. John Bownlie. London : 1896)