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Music of the Season
- Date: Fri, Dec 4, 2009
- Author: Linda Roddis
“It’s that time of year when the world falls in love.” During this season Christmas music fills our iPods and radios, our homes and our shopping malls. Musicians are busy and church choir directors can be seen in the most surprising places. Last Saturday, I spotted our own choir director, Dennis Coleman, on the top balcony of the Westlake Center. He was directing the show as the Macy’s star and Christmas tree began to shine with hundreds of lights and the voices of the Seattle Women’s Chorus and the Northwest Girl’s Choir entertained the crowd. During this glorious month we listen to songs about “Joy to the World” and a special “Silent Night.”
Even many Christmas decorations stem from the music of the season. It was an English choir master who is credited with shaping the candy cane into a shepherd’s hook. On Tuesdays, two accomplished musicians play in our sanctuary lounge; they are too humble for me to even mention their names in this article. As they play Bach and other classical works, homeless people come in and out of the church asking for snack packs and bus tickets. The other day two homeless gentlemen said, “Sometimes, even the poor get to hear the best music.” The scriptures tell us that it was to a bunch of rag tag shepherds that the heavenly chorus sang: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward all.”
These are the scripture readings in the Revised Common Lectionary for the forthcoming Sunday:
Malachi 3:1-4
3:1 “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; and the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Luke 1:68-79
68 “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has visited and redeemed his people
69 and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David,
70 as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
71 that we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all who hate us;
72 to show the mercy promised to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us
74 that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
76 And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77 to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high
79 to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Philippians 1:3-11
Thanksgiving and Prayer
3 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. 7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
Luke 3:1-6
John the Baptist Prepares the Way
3:1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight.
5 Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall become straight,
and the rough places shall become level ways,
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’”
Footnotes
[1] 3:3 Or and they will belong to the Lord, bringers of an offering in righteousness
[2] 1:78 Or when the sunrise shall dawn upon us; some manuscripts since the sunrise has visited us
[3] 1:7 Or you all have fellowship with me in grace
[4] 3:4 Or crying, Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord
