December 20th,
2011; Katharina von Bora Luther, renewer of the church, 1552
Dear <>,
Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year! At this time last year, our family had the pleasure of
taking the month to move into our home, and visit worship each Sunday at area congregations.
The freedom of that month planted many seeds for ecumenical and interfaith
engagement, and allowed us to see how other Christian communities in
Fayetteville prepared for the birth of their Savior. It was an expectant
time—waiting for Christmas, waiting to begin work and life at Good Shepherd,
waiting for the birth of our third child.
Thank you to
each of you for the warm and wonderful reception we have had into this
community and congregation. We are so blessed to be here. It is hard to believe
an entire year has passed, and we are preparing to celebrate our first
Christmas together. It has been an eventful, and Spirit-filled year.
I still remember
the congregational interview we conducted last summer. It was the feast of
Mary, so the text for the day was Mary’s Magnificat. I have been mindful ever
since of that text as a guiding text for us. We, like Mary, in this holiday
season, are invited to respond with an unqualified “Yes!” to God’s announcement
that Christ will be born in us.
One of the
ways we do this is in our singing. We are a congregation that knows how to
sing. We have so many great musicians in our congregation. And I truly believe
that we focus on Christmas carols and singing during this holiday season
because of their importance in helping us connect to God through the gospel of
Christ.
Hymns mean
something. Often, they mean much more than we can put into words, which is why
they are set to music, and sung, not simply discussed. St. Augustine of Hippo
is credited with saying, “Those who sing, pray twice.” Why twice? First,
because when a prayer is set to music, it is more easily memorized, and so the
prayer lives on in the voice and mind of the prayer. But even more, the music
itself, especially if matched well with the text, does something in the brain
and heart that does not come about through reading the text alone. Music, like
math, is its own language, and close to the heart of God.
Many of us
cannot articulate precisely why certain songs and music mean so much to us, or
why we desire to sing them at special occasions and times. Instead, we simply
break into song. In fact, to talk too much about it is, like explaining a joke,
to ruin the effect. So as you prepare to gather with your brothers and sisters
in Christ singing Christmas carols in praise of our Savior Jesus Christ this
coming Christmas Eve and Day, spend the last moments of this week doing that
which those who wait in faith find themselves doing gustily and freely: sing!
Singing together
in Christ,
Pastor Clint +
while it is no surprise that people are so deeply imitative, it is confounding and troubling that the things so readily imitated are often things in opposition to what we would desire them to imitate!
ReplyDeletethe power of marketing! do we want to be sold? or are we just extremely vulnerable to it?
Hi P Shannon. Did you intend this as a reply to my post about Elf on the Shelf?
ReplyDelete