Tuesday, December 13, 2022
Memorial of Saint Lucy, Virgin and Martyr
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Harmonies in the manger
I will change and purify the lips of all peoples, that they all may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.
You all know Handel’s Messiah is a knock-your-socks-off choral masterpiece, rich and beautiful. And at a Christmas Messiah singalong, it’s better than ever. Sunday night at St. Matthew’s Episcopal near us in Austin, the Austin Chorus and Orchestra presented Messiah for the 32nd consecutive year. Director Ryan Heller scattered his chorus members throughout the audience. We got there just in time and found seats on the edge of the soprano section.
Which was perfect. The sound of the sopranos filled the sanctuary, and we were right there in the middle of it. It reminded me (a little) of running the Upper Gauley’s Class V rapids in West Virginia with Chris and Marc years ago. That took our breath away. We needed all our concentration just to stay on the raft. This time, carried away by the music, I closed my eyes and fell into heaven.
And that was the distilled harmonies of the concert itself. Afterward the director drew a name from a hat, winner of the chance to direct the whole chorus and orchestra in one last rendition of the “Hallelujah Chorus.”
“Isaiah and Lucca!” Ryan looked up in surprise. OK! Two people directing, for the first time ever. I wonder how they will pull that off. He waited for them to come down from the balcony.
“Oh, my goodness,” Ryan exclaimed, as Isaiah walked up the aisle holding his son Lucca, a wild-blonde-haired boy. “He’s almost three,” Isaiah said. Big smiles. Take a look.
And for a few minutes longer, we were immersed in the soprano voices once more. Again the trumpets and tympani sounded out. And this time, the director’s white baton was in the hands of Lucca and Isaiah. Smiling and laughing all of us into the lap of Jesus.
I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall ever be in my mouth. Let my soul glory in the Lord.
Monday morning we met Jasper and parents at the Austin Classical School chapel service, to sing several carols and listen to the German and Latin versions sung by the fifth graders, along with the Christmas stories from Matthew, Luke and John … “and the Word was God!” The atmosphere at ACS lends itself to songs and scriptures about tidings of comfort and joy.
Trader Joe’s is just a couple of blocks away, and we met several of the people we saw at the chapel service. Jasper was in a real “comfort and joy” mood. It helped that his grandparents kept saying yes when he wanted something. Our checker wondered if he was for sale. Oh, no, he isn’t!
Look to him that you may be radiant with joy, and your faces may not blush with shame.
The weather is turning “cold” in Texas this week. I remember colder nights in December when I was a boy, helping my dad milk our Holsteins. Jasper and Miles could have helped and learned how to handle a restless cow swishing her tail, not sure if she wanted anybody touching her, let alone milking her. For many years those tails were longer than I was tall.
Wendell Berry’s poem, like Margaret Wise Brown’s picture book Christmas in the Barn, warms my heart and takes me back.
VI, 1988
Remembering that it happened once,
We cannot turn away the thought,
As we go out, cold, to our barns
Toward the long night’s end, that we
Ourselves are living in the world
It happened in when it first happened,
That we ourselves, opening a stall
(A latch thrown open countless times
Before), might find them breathing there,
Foreknown: the Child bedded in straw,
The mother kneeling over Him,
The husband standing in belief
He scarcely can believe, in light
That lights them from no source we see,
An April morning’s light, the air
Around them joyful as a choir.
We stand with one hand on the door,
Looking into another world
That is this world, the pale daylight
Coming just as before, our chores
To do, the cattle all awake,
Our own white frozen breath hanging
In front of us; and we are here
As we have never been before,
Sighted as not before, our place
Holy, although we knew it not.
–From A Timbered Choir, anthologized in A Kentucky Christmas, p. 327-328
What a privileged surprise, to be amazed beside the birth of Jesus, his holy family waiting in the barn for our everyday religion, our everyday worship, and smiling up at us in peace.
I will leave as a remnant in your midst a people humble and lowly, who shall take refuge in the name of the Lord: the remnant of Israel. They shall do no wrong and speak no lies; nor shall there be found in their mouths a deceitful tongue; they shall pasture and couch their flocks with none to disturb them.
(Zephaniah 3, Psalm 34, Matthew 21)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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