Hearing the Music

Hymns and a hymn

Behold the singing of the saints! (or, Don’t miss the singing of the followers of Jesus!) Our singing gives us a way to praise God, remember his promises, cling to truth, lament, learn what faith lived out looks like, rejoice in the beauty of God, repent, hope, and encourage each other. On July 30 at 6pm, we’ll get an opportunity to really dig in to singing together at a Hymn Sing in the sanctuary. Some songs will be pre-selected, others chosen on the spot. Everyone is welcome. 

One of the hymns of the church we’ve been singing this summer is “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.” It’s based on Psalm 46 which was written by the sons of Korah; Martin Luther paraphrased the psalm sometime between 1527 and 1529; and Frederick Hedge translated it into English verses in 1853. So followers of God and Jesus have been singing these truths for thousands of years! Below is my paraphrase of the hymn, using a dictionary and the articles linked below*. I enjoyed working on this for the Arts & Rec in a Box this summer and thought I’d share it here too! Let me know if you would have paraphrased something differently.

Hope to see you Sunday. Pastor Michael will be opening I Samuel 20 with us where we see the beauty of David and Jonathan’s friendship; and we’ll be singing “A Mighty Fortress!”

*What “One Little Word” Will Fell Satan?
*What Do the Lyrics of “a Mighty Fortress” Mean?   

Photo by Zack Smith on Unsplash

Contrast

My dear Aunt Ronnie had a great saying, “Life is all about contrast, kid.” She lived to be 97 years old and then, staying consistent to the end, died on my mom’s birthday. On that day I ran to Meijers and got the last box of martini glasses on the shelf so we could raise a toast in her honor because she had always so enjoyed a super dry martini. Contrasts tangled up galore.

We all know the contrasts of life, don’t we? Happiness, sorrow…fear, trust…things being absolutely lovely, chaos…obedience, secret sin. What do we do with those overwhelming longings for happiness, trust, loveliness, and obedience? Why do we want to pursue those things and try to avoid the others? 

Psalm 126 was in our all-church reading schedule this past week. If you didn’t read it in the devotional, take a moment and read it now. It opens with such an amazing picture: fortunes restored as in a dream, laughter, shouts of joy, other nations seeing the blessing, great things, being glad. Yet it indicates that these beautiful events are from times gone by. “Joy seems to lie in the past, tears occupy the present. If only the Lord would act now as completely and dramatically as he did then! So we pray for streams…transforming dried-up watercourses, making the scorched land into a garden! But no, in God’s providence, following on his mighty acts, the metaphor of the harvest takes over. There will be songs of joy but only when the toilsome task of sowing has been done and the crop has matured for harvest. That is where we find ourselves in God’s perfect plan of things.” (New Bible Commentary, ed. Wenham et al, p. 574)

How can we know God’s presence with us in both the laughter and the weeping? Specifically how do we go out day to day not just gritting our teeth as we sow in tears and weep? Because God is over and through everything, we weep towards God in lamenting and repenting! That makes all the hard things not just something to endure and regret, but to actually mean something! It’s restoration. The ESV Study Bible says Psalm 126 “is a community lament that recalls a previous time of God’s mercy on his people and asks for a fresh show of that mercy.” In lament we tell God about the sorrow, fear, and chaos in our lives, and look to him in hope because we remember that he has restored us in the past. In repentance we are real about our sins and lament the damage they do to ourselves and others. And then we receive forgiveness and restoration amen and amen. Repenting is so freeing. Can we really keep up this facade that we aren’t messing up? What a contrast: hope and laughter for tears; forgiveness for failure.

Notice these words in the psalm: we, our, us. We live this life of contrast with each other! I’d like to give a special shout out to the teenagers and young adults among us. Do you know you’re 100% part of the “we” of Christ Church? You are needed to make us whole. Please, enter into the communal laughing, lamenting, and repenting, looking to God with hope. We adults were young once. We remember the struggles of youth and there is nothing new under the sun. Share your tears with your youth leaders, your parents, with safe adults, with each other. Let’s pray for the streams of God’s mercy to enter into all our sorrows, chaos, and sin, together. 

God doesn’t say when those shouts of joy will come out of our hearts, he just promises that he is with us and that the shouts will come. I think this psalm might be showing us a path where both our laughing and our weeping can be contrasting circumstances to know the loving arms and heart of God. The song below, sung by Emma Bukovietski and Kuni Hotta, captures this so well… 

My Goal Is God Himself  
by Francis Brook, music by Mark Giacobbe

My goal is God Himself, not joy, nor peace,
Nor even blessing, but Himself, my God;
’Tis His to lead me there—not mine, but His—
At any cost, dear Lord, by any road.

So faith bounds forward to its goal in God,
And love can trust her Lord to lead her there;
Upheld by Him, my soul is following hard
Till God hath full fulfilled my deepest prayer.

No matter if the way be sometimes dark,
No matter though the cost be oft-times great,
He knoweth how I best shall reach the mark,
The way that leads to Him, it must be straight.

One thing I know, that “no” I cannot say;
One thing I do, I press towards my Lord;
My God my glory here, from day to day,
And in the glory there my great reward.

Photo by Tom Barrett on Unsplash

Together

The Grapes of Wrath is one of my favorite novels and I often think on Ma Joad and her relentless pursuit of keeping the “fambly” together through all of their challenges, despair and life moments. As we enter 2021, Ma Joad is coming to my mind again. I think we’d do well to catch some of her tenacity, and keep up the hard work of maintaining our unity as a church family during a global pandemic as we begin this new year....together.

There are many ways we’re fighting isolation as a church family: our Bible Studies, our C-Groups, Youth Groups, children’s Bible verse memory challenges, single women’s meetings and our varied worship offerings. Then there are the texts, phone calls and cards that are going out. But one thing is for sure--it takes work. It’s harder to connect. If you are struggling in any way, please let the church know.

One opportunity I’d like to highlight is our Together in Prayer group that meets via Zoom on Wednesdays 7-8pm. The group is mostly populated by those of us with older kids or empty-nesters, but all are welcome! It’s pretty simple--we say hello, we go to prayer, we chat a bit and say goodbye. Some people pray out loud, some stay on mute with the video off the whole time. But in that way we go before God in prayer together, and you are invited. Use this form to get the Zoom link.

Learning to pray is a journey for me. I’ve been surrounded by people who pray my whole life; I’ve had many, many people pray for me and my family (thanks be to God!!); I’ve talked about prayer and have prayed for others. But I’ve mostly felt guilty, inept and as if I wasn’t doing nearly enough. (rightly so!) I do not know the ways of Jesus going off by himself to spend time with his Father in the midst of his chaos. But I can testify that the Holy Spirit has been drawing me more and more into prayer, and teaching me to just do the next thing. And what I’ve seen is that He does work through our prayers. He likes to do that. Things start to move, and I can see it. It’s usually pretty quiet, but sometimes his presence is loud and without a doubt. (It feels to me as if we’re helping him in the kitchen--he could do his will much more easily without us, but he invites us in to use us and to train us.) I notice also that after a while I might change a longtime prayer over a situation to be more in line with God’s heart. This little app has been helpful to me: prayminder.com. It sends prayer prompts throughout the day. If you’re looking for something like that, I recommend it. Also remember our weekly prayer email. You can contact the church office to be added to the list to receive it if you don't already.

Noting big life events is an important way for the “fambly” to live together. We have had many entries for our family Bible this past year: births, adoptions and the dear ones who have died. Praying over these families would be a great way to live together with them.

This Sunday we celebrate Epiphany--the light of Christ going out to all the world. Pastor Addison will open Luke 2:10 with us; we’ll celebrate the Lord’s Supper; we’ll hear an Epiphany testimony. Let’s look for the ways God is drawing us together into himself through these things so we can move into 2021 and welcome others into our family. May we "fear not and behold the good news of great joy that is for all the people" this Epiphany Sunday. 

_{Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash}