Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-9-24

One of the oldest, dearest, and powerful yet tender prayers of Christianity is called the “Magnificat.” Its title comes from the phrase in Mary’s prayer, recorded in the Gospel According to St Luke, in ancient words “My soul doth magnify the Lord.”

The Bible relates that Mary offered the prayer when she visited her cousin Elizabeth to announce that she was with child. Mary had been “visited” by the Holy Spirit and told she bore the Savior of Humankind; Elizabeth was pregnant with the future John the Baptist.

Various denominations observe the Feast of the Visitation on a gestation-period before Christmas by the calendar, but the celebration is common in the Advent Season as Christmas approaches; and that is what we do here today. Every day of the year, of course – every moment of our lives – it is appropriate to observe and celebrate the Incarnation: the coming of Emmanuel, God-With-Us.

Mary’s prayer, the Magnificant, is also a miraculous summation of the response she had, and we should have, to God’s favor bestowed on His people. It is a masterpiece of Christian humility, even while accepting God’s particularized blessing. In a literary view, it is the perfect balance of the human and the spiritual: in the form of ancient Hebrew poetry there is paralellism – the relation of “my soul” and “my spirit”; “greatness” and “rejoicing”; “the Lord God” and… “my Savior.” Universal truths suggested by phrases contrasting the “proud” and the “humble”; the “mighty” versus those of “low degree”; the “rich” confronted by the “hungry.”

In Western churches, where it still holds a place in the calendar or liturgy (mostly Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions; but in no way restricted to them) the Magnificat is celebrated in evening service. In Orthodox faiths it traditionally is part of morning worship. Scores of writers and poets through the years have contemplated the Magnificat, and scores of composers have set it to reverent music. It is a universal prayer!

In fact, and somewhat predictably, my favorite musical setting all my life has been the Magnificat of Johann Sebastian Bach. His short but amazing composition typically achieves the delivery of the prayer’s layers of meaning and spiritual significance. When the choir, for instance, sings “All generations…” many groups sing the phrase repeatedly, separately and in harmony, a musical cascade – and we behold a musical image of angels and saints of the ages calling Mary’s name “blessed.”

… and not only Mary’s name. Of course the Magnificat is her response to the Annunciation. The angel Gabriel announced that she is “blessed,” not Holy in the sense that Jesus was Holy. She recognized that she was a handmaiden, a humble servant – and that is where we must focus too.

For as Mary carried the Savior in her womb, we can have that same Jesus live in our hearts. Hallelujah!

So with regard to factors of time and space and circumstance, we can tailor this prayer to be our own prayer, too. Magnify the Lord… rejoice in His favor… cherish what He has done for us… and what He has promised!

My soul magnifies the greatness of the Lord God, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for He has looked with favor on His humble servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed, the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is His Name.

He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

He has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up those of low degree, the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of His servant Israel for He has remembered his promise of mercy, the promise He made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children for ever.

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Click: Bach’s Magnificat

11-25-24

It is altogether fit and proper that we recall the words of a secular American saint if there ever was one, Abraham Lincoln. He responded to an informal tradition, a Day of Thanks, and officially proclaimed the first Thanksgiving Day as a national day of observance.

His words had meaning – and, significantly, give lie to the canard that he was not a man of faith. Year by year, through his presidency, Lincoln increasingly infused conversations, letters, and official documents with references to the God of the Bible, His mercies and His judgments. In the last year of his life his writings and speeches often were like sermons.

From his second Thanksgiving proclamation:

I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday in November next as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.

If this is formal, or seems obligatory for him to have proclaimed – which it was not – consider his Proclamation appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer:

It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. …

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious Hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.

Yes, a president of the United States wrote such words. More has changed than clichés and phrases we now often exchange. (“Thanks.” “No, thank you.” “No prob.” “You bet.”) In fact, does our understanding of the need to thank God need a reassessment too? Maybe a hit of the Reset button?

Let’s see it this way: Of course we should thank God, in many ways and all the time, for the uncountable blessings He bestows. But are thanks all that we can raise? In a real sense, God’s gift of salvation, sacrificing His Son so that we might be free of sin’s guilt, is God’s Thank You to us.

“God’s Thank You to us?” Can that make sense? Yes, the Bible tells us that God so loved the world… and that, significantly, Christ died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:8). To me, that sounds like God saying “You’re Welcome” before we even say “Thank You”! But it is what He has done.

The mysterious ways of God are always like this. He challenges us, yet He knows us. We have free will, yet He holds the future. We seek Him, yet we can know Him. His yoke is easy, and His burden light. We are in the world, but not of the world. St Augustine was not the first nor the last, but maybe history’s most contemplative believer, to gather these apparent contradictions and see them as evidence, not of a capricious and confusing God, but a God who loves us in myriad ways and always meets us where we are, and where we need Him. (And He keeps us guessing; that is, seeking Him!)

All important, as I say. The larger meanings of Abraham Lincoln’s words… and our hearts’ duties. We should remember Lincoln’s perspective: people should set themselves apart; pray; and give thanks, give thanks, give thanks.

Let the stores close for a day… for the proper reasons. To give thanks in ways that matter. Not for convenience or commercial reasons, but remembering the reverence Abraham Lincoln would have us cherish. Three things should be open in America on Thanksgiving Day: open hearts. open Bibles, and open soup kitchens.

Let us also remember that “holidays” have their word-origins in “holy days.” It is odd that in a land of such abundance we often fail to embrace an attitude of gratitude. And when we comprehend that God has thanked us for being faithful stewards… we should reply with a loving “You’re welcome,” and maybe a heartfelt “No, thank You!”

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The exuberance and joy of counting blessings and giving thanks was expressed in music, too; and never better than by Johann Sebastian Bach. Here is the opening sinfonia from his Cantata number 29:

Click: We Thank You, God, We Thank You!