Category Archives: Worship

Come, Emmanuel (#2) [2022]

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As the anticipation, the “Watching and waiting, looking above” continues, we move (backward) to the first verse of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”  Perhaps, this is the most poignant of this hymns litany of verses, with its begging and pleading for Messiah to come…little did they know just what that Messiah would look like.

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 thee,
O, Israel.

O-Come-EmmanuelAs I stated in last week’s blog, each verses gives us a glimpse into a different prophecy, a different Name identified in scripture.  “Emmanuel” meaning “God is With Us” (or even better translated “God is With us Now”, we know well from the prophecy of Isaiah which is reiterated in Matthew & Luke’s account of the birth narrative. (Is. 7:14, Mt 1:23)

 

Musically speaking, this hymn, and namely this opening verse and its significance is inextricably tied to its role in the great “O” Antiphons.  Hymnologist J.R. Watson provides a context for the antiphons included on the second page after the hymn in the most recent printing of the United Methodist Hymnal: “The antiphons, sometimes called the ‘O antiphons’ or ‘The Great O’s’, were designated to concentrate the mind on the coming Christmas, enriching the meaning of the Incarnation with a complex series of references from the Old and New Testaments.”

Each antiphon begins as follows:

O Sapentia (Wisdom)
O Adonai (Hebrew word for God)
O Radix Jesse (stem or root of Jesse)
O Clavis David (key of David)
O Oriens (dayspring)
O Rex genitium (King of the Gentiles)
O Emmanuel

If one were to look at the first letter of the second word of these titles, each with verses translated by John Mason Neale in various hymnals of our time, you’d find an acrostic, SARCORE.  When spelled backward, and this is where the interesting-ness continues, you get “ero cras,” which in the Latin means “I will be present tomorrow.” Every one of the Latin titles anticipating the coming Messiah, Jesus are from the Old Testament except “Emmanuel,” which is found both in Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23, as mentioned above. Matthew quotes Isaiah virtually verbatim—“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel”—with the exception that Matthew adds the phrase: “which being interpreted is, God with us.”

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 thee,
O, Israel.

I love the longing in the words of this prayer…like Israel amidst it’s waiting for liberation…like those in the 400-year period of silence, waiting for Messiah to come…we too are longing, waiting to be ransomed out of this earthly captivity.  So we wait…but we rejoice, because, like the writer who penned the “rejoice” chorus, we know how the story ends.  Messiah did come…and will come again. IN the meantime, “Maranatha…Lord, come quickly…and thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

Singing, COVID-19, and Church…

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So, some stream of consciousness thoughts that have been percolating for some time now.

hedley lamarr

 

As the great theologian Hedley Lamarr once said:

“My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thought careening thru a cosmic vapor of invention.”

 

I’ve been thinking, almost constantly now for several weeks, about the implications of COVID on our church and the church as a whole’s re-assembling…and about the numerous reports and stories regarding how singing can, did, does, and could be a significant factor in transmission of airborne germs that could carry the virus.

I don’t want to think about an assembly WITHOUT SINGING. The thought of that even being an option on the table saddens me deeply. If we can’t sing together, then it’s hard to think that it’s right to come back together quite yet.
[You can read an earlier post I shared last week about the wisdom in choosing not to assemble together quite yet from a perspective of preventing risk as opposed to creating risk…]

Yes, there are ways we can sing with masks on, tools, technology, things we can use to help us still worship in song even if we can’t sing full-heartedly and spirit-filled without masks.

As I was sharing with my bro Nathan Tillotson a little while ago, one of the take aways I hope to see as a result of this quarantine is that the church more fully embraces the communal and spiritually formative nature of congregational singing.

Each week, what I miss the most in our season of live streamed worship, is singing with my church family. For some time now, the church has seen in its present pendulum swing with regard to worship music, a leaning toward a return to more congregation-friendly, participation-initiating, more hymnic style songs (i.e., Getty/Townend – Sovereign Grace – Bob Kauflin – Indellible Grace – Kevin Twit – Audrey Asaad and others writing them and helping to lead the church in such a direction!).

But as the church processes just how much it has missed being together, I hope and pray that it will recapture and appreciate the incredible power and witness of congregational song again…it’s long overdue.

 

Love for All…yes, ALL.

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“The vilest offender who truly believes, will surely, from Jesus, a pardon receive.”

That is a lyric I’ve known all my life…and sung time after time, as I do so many, without it sinking in.

A few weeks ago, I attended something called a HYMNINAR, where I and 10-15 new friends joined together to explore the craft of hymn text writing and what an incredible week it was. That’s a post for another time.

But, over the course of that week, thinking intently and intensely about the lyrics of great hymns, we had a chance to sing a lot. One of the hymns which I don’t think I’d ever led, but had maybe sung a few times was the great hymn, Love for All. The text is by the lesser Longfellow, Samuel. The tune most often associated with it is HORTON (Schnyder) and is 7.7.7.7

While all of this hymn lyric is absolutely stunning, rich and deep with good theology, there’s a particular verse that really stunned me as I sang it. How often have I been the “prodigal” son? More often than I care to admit…but thanks be to God, the Father, waiting and willing, stands, waiting expectantly to receive me…to receive us…each and every time we stray and return.

     See! My Father waiting stands;
See! He reaches out His hands;
God is love, I know, I see,
Love for me, yes, even me.

Incredibly poignant to sing these words and let then sink into your heart.

This is GRACE…this is the GOSPEL.

AMEN.

––––– ––––– ––––– –––––

Here’s the entire lyric:

Love for all! and can it be?
Can I hope it is for me?
I, who strayed so long ago,
Strayed so far, and fell so low!

I, the disobedient child,
Wayward, passionate, and wild;
I, who left my Father’s home
In forbidden ways to roam!

I, who spurned his loving hold,
I, who would not be controlled;
I, who would not hear his call,
I, the willful prodigal!

I, who wasted and misspent
Every talent he had lent;
I, who sinned again, again,
Giving every passion reign!

To my Father can I go?
At his feet myself I’ll throw,
In his house there yet may be
Place, a servant’s place for me.

See, my Father waiting stands;
See, he reaches out his hands:
God is love! I know, I see,
Love for me–yes, even me.

(Love for All, hymnary.org)

It Happened Again

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I am still amazed at little, seemingly hidden verses that strike me from time to time. In recent years, it seems to always happen at Christmas. Last night was no different.

Our congregation travels to a local rehabilitation and nursing facility every other Wednesday night to sing and fellowship with a special group of residents. Last night was our final visit for 2017. So, we sang through the entire Christmas, er, I mean, “Special Themes” section of our hymnal. True, there are several important Christmas hymns and carols noticeably absent from this particular compilation (O Come, O Come Emmanuel, God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, Sing We Now of Christmas, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Infant holy, Infant Lowly, just to name a few).

We came to It Came Upon the Midnight Clear. And we started in, just like we’d sung it time and time again. But we came to the third verse, and there it was, and it hit me right between the eyes.

I must make a note here before going into that lyric: We in Churches of Christ have missed the boat on a LOT of the rich, broader Christian hymnody of Advent and Christmas. Not only that, but we’ve bred a culture of singing that skips stanzas. So many of our hymns and songs were constructed to tell a story…especially, this is the case in so many of these Christmas carols and songs…they tell of the full narrative, of the prophets foretelling the coming of Messiah, of Mary’s encounter with the angels, of the manger, and of the upside-down-ness of Jesus’ coming and our waiting for his second advent, his return…living in that in-between. We’d do well to sing all of these stanzas, and to broaden our choices to include hymns and carols with a rich heritage, while also looking to include new hymns such as Matt Boswell’s Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery which tell the Christ story in with a wonderful new tune and rich text. Listen to the original here, then you can buy the a cappella version here. One of my professors and friends, Dr. Scott Aniol of Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth offered good perspective on this in an interesting Baptist Press article as well.

midnight

I digress…
So often, these Christmas hymns include a story of how our world is doing anything but living in the reality of God’s world-changing love, as shown through Jesus. I’ve written before about hymns like O Come, O Come Emmanuel and O Holy Night and how they sing into just how we are to live out that love in the here and now. So often, these ignored stanzas speak of the sadness of war and the lack of love for brother and sister humankind…

This verse is no different. Consider these lyrics.
Edmund H. Sears (1810-1876)

3 Yet with the woes of sin and strife
the world has suffered long;
beneath the angel strain have rolled
two thousand years of wrong;
and warring humankind hears not
(Some hymnals use the original, “and man, at war with man hears not”)
the love song which they bring.
O hush the noise and cease your strife,
and hear the angels sing.

Considering this hymn was written over 140 years ago, the commentary on the warring between humankind and the plea with us to cease our strife is all the more powerful, and all the more relevant for us today.

And it sets up the closing stanza, now more important than ever to sing in light of stanza 3.

4 For lo, the days are hastening on,
By prophets seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years,
Shall come the time foretold.
When the new heaven and earth shall own
The Prince of Peace their King,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.

In our living and loving, may we send back heavenward, and to our brothers and sisters, the “song the angels sang.”

And may we sing these hymns and the rich stories they offer in their entirety…and may we be changed because of it.

Softly and Tenderly

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One of the hymnological tenets that I often examine concerns what contributions people with roots in Churches of Christ/Restoration Movement have made to broader “mainline” hymnody…read that as “songs they’ve written that have had a wide influence outside Churches of Christ.”

While I often lament that our tradition has been so insulated and because of this, a number of hymns & gospel songs written by our people have not made the beyond the walls of our churches, there are several individuals who’s songs are still Sung today in churches and denominational settings of all shapes, flavors, and sizes.

“Softly and Tenderly” is a prime example of this. Earlier this week, Carrie Underwood performed this song on a national award show…and the online chatter it created is remarkable. Everywhere I seemed to look, whether it was facebook, twitter, etc., there were people commenting about how moved they were by this performance. A HYMN? POPULAR PERFORMANCE? IN 2017? SURELY NOT!

Will L ThompsonWill Lamartine Thompson (1847-1909) is one of only a handful of hymn writers from Churches of Christ whose hymns have been broadly accepted outside of Churches of Christ.  His “SOFTLY AND TENDERLY” is probably his most well known hymn. Hymnary.Org claims it has been found in some 720 hymnals in total.

 

 

 

s-l300Alongside his catalogue of hymns and texts that we know about, He also published a number of his own smaller hymnals and church music educational publications as well under his own publishing label in Ohio. He was acquainted with the Fillmore Brothers, also Restoration Movement folks in origin, and Thompson is believed to have found a home in each flavor of our northern Restoration Movement Churches.

This hymn can also claim one of the earliest “gold records” of all time.maxresdefault

Alongside a long list of hymns that only appear once or twice, here are a few more titles you may recognize that Thompson wrote that are sung across mainline hymnody, across the years, and across the world.
There’s A Great Day Coming
Jesus is All the World to Me
Lead me gently home, Father
A Sinner Was Wandering at Eventide
Jesus Bids You Come

For a brief bio of Thompson, click here.
Will Lamartine Thompson (1847-1909).

Finally and unrelated, I wanted to point you to two wonderful sites that I use often in my weekly planning.

First, is a wonderful site called WordtoWorship. WordtoWorship.com is an incredible site that has created a wide compendium of “modern” “or contemporary” titles of the last 25 years (and that is kept remarkably up to date) that allows you to search, create lists, and also, if you choose, become a member to add, upload, and submit titles to help keep the growing list of titles current. Go and search, look around, and help support this great site.

Lastly, it’s easy to get lost in the vast number of texts, tunes, hymns, and songs available to us with this wonderful thing called technology and the internet. I’m always looking and adding to a growing list of bookmarks…A few days ago, I was looking for a particular text by Brian Wren, and I was pointed to an excellent search interface at Hope’s website. You can find it, a link to Hope Publishing’s hymn catalogue, here. This site is one I’d encourage you to look to from time to time, especially in light of more recently written hymns. Texts and Tunes from the New British Invasion of the 1960’s, Brian Wren, Timothy Dudley-Smith, Fred Pratt-Green, Erik Routley, and many others can be found here. These are texts that, thanks to hymnals from Wiegand in 1997 (Praise for the Lord) and the more recent Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs (Sumphonia), we are finally beginning to see eek themselves into our Church of Christ congregational hymnody, slowly but surely.

PAX.
DJB