Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-25-22

As we have shared here, often, the birth of Jesus, His ministry and even His death and Resurrection, were not events that took place in a vacuum.

The ancestry of Mary and Joseph are delineated in the Gospels, generation by generation. Myriad prophecies were fulfilled in the person of Jesus in so many aspects that would baffle statisticians. Hundreds of years before Bethlehem, the Book of Isaiah described things like the betrayals Jesus would suffer; even his physical appearance.

Whether from ignorance of Scripture or the Hallmarkization of our culture, a lot of us think that Mary looked up one evening and wondered “Who’s that angel?” Oh, she was surprised. She certainly was humbled. But… she knew Bible prophecy.

She knew that God had planned that a virgin would conceive in the City of David… that the Baby would be the Incarnation of God… that His purpose would be to serve as the Salvation of His people. His job description, we might say today.

And she knew – as she knew Bible prophecy so thoroughly; as did her betrothed, Joseph – that her baby Boy was destined to be the Servant King. And also the Man of Sorrows. She was humbled; she was full of joy; she knew there would be smiles, and tears. Perhaps the lot of all mothers. But Mary knew.

Her response to the angel, and with her cousin Elizabeth, has become known as The Magnificat. It is one of the Gospel’s tenderest and most profound passages, part of many liturgies and church music, including one of J S Bach’s foremost works.

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior.

For He hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden: For behold, from henceforth: all generations shall call me blessed.

For He that is mighty hath magnified me: and holy is His Name. And His mercy is on them that fear Him, throughout all generations.

He hath showed strength with His arm: He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek. He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich He hath sent empty away.

He, remembering His mercy, hath helped his servant Israel: As He promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, forever.

Mary knew, because she knew prophecy, because an angel had visited her, that her beautiful, innocent baby Boy would do great miracles; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; indeed, save His people and be the Savior of humankind.

And she knew no less that her beautiful baby Boy would grow up to be despised and rejected; acquainted with grief; wounded, smitten, and whipped for the punishment sinners deserved; brought like a lamb to the slaughter; put to death with the wicked. Mary knew.

She rejoiced to be used of God in such a role. But how excruciating nonetheless to be a mother in all these moments. Mary knew.

So she prayed her Magnificat – “my soul doth magnify the Lord” – and she planned with Elizabeth the birth of their babies; and traveled with Joseph (again fulfilling prophecy) to the spot where Scripture said the Messiah would be born. Humankind’s Messiah. Her baby.

No room in the inn? We know the story. So humanity’s Savior was born in a manger. Once again, try to erase the greeting-card scenes from your mind. “Manger,” from the Latin “to eat,” is where the animals chomped their hay, and it is reasonable to assume that the Christ Child came into His world amidst a few bugs and some animal spittle. A little town, a crowded hotel, the backyard where cattle and sheep slept and ate. Mary thought she already knew “humble.”

But that evening, the rough manger piled with straw became a King-sized bed. Mary knew.

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Click Video Clip: Mary, Did You Know?

7-17-17

Sent from Ireland this week, revived while visiting my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren.

Unlike some saints of trinkets and wall-hangings, Ireland’s Saint Patrick was real, and is real.

St Patrick knew persecution. There understandably is some obscurity about a man who lived in the late 400s, but two letters he wrote survive; there are records of his deeds; tremendous influences surely attributable to him are still felt; and he did die on March 17. These things, and more, we do know.

He was born in western England and kidnapped by Irish marauders when he was a teenager. As a slave he worked as a shepherd, during which time his faith in God grew, where others might have turned despondent. He escaped to Britain, became learned in the Christian faith, and felt called to return to Ireland. On that soil he converted thousands, he encouraged men and women to serve in the clergy, he worked against slavery, and quashed paganism and heresies. Among his surviving colorful lessons is using the shamrock to explain the mystery of the Trinity, the Triune God, to converts.

He was an on-the-ground evangelist – possibly the church’s first great evangelist/missionary since St Paul, planting churches as far away as Germany – and he preceded much of history: living more than a hundred years prior to Mohammed; 500 years before Christianity split into Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy; and a thousand years before the Reformation.

I am not Irish; I am American. And my background is not at all Irish; it is German. But propelled, I am eager to admit, by a remarkable book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill, I have learned about a gifted people. Not unlike other ethnic groups, the Irish endured persecution through generations, but in many ways in special ways. I have learned about a land that was repository of many tribes, not least the Celts, until its craggy Atlantic coast became the last European stand against pagan barbarism. Those tribes became a people, and their land virtually became, for quite a while, the defiant yet secret refuge of literacy and faith, in lonely monasteries and libraries. You know, the “Dark” Ages. Which were not all that dark. Plumbing was neglected, perhaps; but faith thrived.

As Lori Erickson recently wrote in a series on St Patrick for Patheos, “In the eighth century, Celtic Christians created a masterpiece of religious art called the The Book of Kells, whose vividness, color, and artistic mastery reflected Christian traditions laced with Celtic enchantment. The Book of Kells is an illuminated Latin manuscript of the four Gospels. While scholars don’t know for certain, it was likely created on the remote island of Iona off the coast of Scotland, and later brought to the monastery at Kells, Ireland. Made from the finest vellum and painted with inks and pigments from around the world (including lapis lazuli from Afghanistan), the book is almost indescribable in its loveliness, with designs that are convoluted, ornate, sinuous, and dreamlike in their complexity. Some scholars have called it the most beautiful book in the world,” she wrote. I can add that it can be seen as an early graphic novel.

It is on display at the magnificent Trinity College Library in Dublin – whose famous, cavernous, multi-balconied library room is akin to heaven for bibliomaniacs like me – surrounded by back-lit photos and displays of enlargements. It sits in an environment-controlled case, one page at a time turned every few months. To behold that book, so magnificent in its reproductions, in its reality, was one of the great experiences of my life.

The Book of Kells is awesome for what it is, surely one of the greatest artistic achievements of the human hand, head, and heart. A majestic monument to faith, all the more remarkable for being anonymously produced, unlikely by one person; possibly by a virtual army of creative souls. The Book of Kells is significant, too, for what it represents:

The tenacity of faith; the triumph of trust; the assumption of lonely devotion in the face of worldly temptations and the world-system’s persecutions; the joy of creativity; and obedience to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Knowing Him; making Him known. Not incidentally investing artistic beauty along the way… and having obvious, visceral, evident fun in the process.

Back to Saint Patrick. When the ancient masterpiece we behold as The Book of Kells was created, the man Patrick who bravely and no less tenaciously fought for the Gospel on that beautiful soil was already, himself, 500 years in the past. Our faith has been blessed with famous noted saints like Paul and Augustine; and those who touched souls for Christ but never were designated saints subsequently, like Martin Luther and J S Bach; and many, many saints who mightily served Christ in obscurity, like the monks who made The Book of Kells, and uncountable missionaries and martyrs.

Saint Patrick, born a pagan, made a slave, once a fugitive, was transformed by a knowledge of Christ. He taught us how to overcome challenges, listen to the Holy Spirit, formulate a vision, and change the world. Not just his world; but the world ever after.

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For more than a millennium a hymn, set to the haunting Irish tune “Slane,” and using St Patrick’s teaching in the words of the 6th-century Irish poet Saint Dallan, has spoken to the hearts of believers and non-believers: God is our All-In-All: Be Thou My Vision. It is performed here – with obvious and profound extra layers of meaning – by the blind gospel singer Ginny Owens.

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Click: Be Thou My Vision