Finally we come to the Fourth Sunday of Advent, when, with just days until Christmas, we light the candle of peace. Peace is one of our most beloved and oft-repeated themes during this Christmas season. We can hardly open a card or sing a Christmas carol without hearing the angels’ praise of Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth, goodwill to all. We listen to Handel’s Messiah and hear that “his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace“; we pray that Emmanuel will come and “bid envy, strife, and discord cease; fill the whole world with heaven’s peace.” The angels sing, “Peace on earth and mercy mild; God and sinners reconciled;” and we look forward to the time, “when peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling.” And by candlelight on Christmas Eve, we lift our prayers that the Christ-child and we ourselves may “sleep in heavenly peace.” And yet, what does peace really look like in our world governed by military might? How do we follow the Prince of Peace in a world that knows violence far too well — both the actual violence of war and the structural violence of injustice? Is peace simply the absence of conflict, or is it, as Dr. Martin Luther King so famously said, the presence of justice? And what does it mean/look like for this peace to be for the whole earth, for goodwill to extend to ALL? Our authors in this final week of this series will spend some time contemplating justice and peace and how we — when we sing the hymns of Glory to God — can join the angels in proclaiming peace on earth and goodwill to all people!
The Prophet’s Song, David Lamotte
In the field of music therapy, stories are often told of people in advanced stages of dementia who have lost the capacity for speech, yet when they hear familiar hymns, can sing them perfectly. I have experienced that phenomenon firsthand with a declining family friend who was suffering from Alzheimer’s at an unusually young age due to brain trauma in an automobile accident. At the request of his wife, I brought my guitar to the nursing home and played some simple folk songs that he had loved as a child. His eyes lit up and he sang along, remembering the words perfectly, even though spoken words had left him entirely by then. Continue Reading
Ransom Captive Palestine? Salvation History in the Presbyterian Hymnal, Nahida H. Gordon, Introduction by Chris Iosso
Mary is warned by Simeon in the Christmas story that “a sword will pierce her heart” (Luke 2:35). Frankly, this letter from Professor Nahida Gordon, a Palestinian American Presbyterian, makes me uncomfortable because it challenges the sentimental side of Christmas and insists on the liberation side. The birth narratives of Jesus in Luke and Matthew are brilliant claims of divine favor on an oppressed and subjugated people – then Israel under Roman occupation – but also “to all people” (Luke 2:10, 29-32). Continue Reading
Turning the World Upside Down, Ginna Bairby
This Christmas season, we have touched on a wide variety of topics as we have investigated what the hymns in Glory to God say about justice for the church and for individuals. Some of what our authors have shared has been received almost universally with great rejoicing, and some has brought controversy and discomfort. However, there is at least one important topic that we’ve yet to fully address; ironically, it is the topic to which Jesus dedicated the most space in his earthly ministry. It is at once the most seemingly mundane and the most controversial issue our church faces. Continue Reading
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