Hymnody's Tapestry

We are on a journey. 

      A journey that is bigger than you. 

      A journey that is bigger than me. 

      A journey that is bigger than we can ever begin to grasp. 

We are on God’s journey, held in the palm of God’s hand and guided on the path that we should take. 

This path takes us places that we could never imagine, twists that are right where we are meant to be.

And along the way, God places people in our path to remind us that we are part of something so much bigger than our part of the world. He places people and events in our path that prod us take the blinders off and realize that we are part of God’s ever-widening plan.

The language of this journey is voiced in many ways. 

One of these voices is the voice of our hymnody, our song. Through the language of hymnody, we hear the stories of this journey told, from every place and every time. And while we can study this concept and we can believe we have a full grasp on this concept, it is not until you are immersed in the waters of God’s story, through the rich blend of the ages’ harmony, that we can truly begin to see how wide and how deep God’s story of unending love is to all of the world. 

In our ever-changing society, we have the privilege and responsibility to engage with people from all lands, telling the story of how God has been faithful to all of us. In a society that has access to the writings of past generations, we too have a privilege and responsibility to listen wisely to the stories and wisdom of those who have gone before us.

It is through a tapestry of these stories, woven together, that we can learn the stories of God’s love in all times and all places. This tapestry goes back and speaks through the words of the Psalms and it goes back to the early church. It has strands of the words of the Reformation, the great Revivals, and Vatican II. It has voices of the mega-churches and it has voices from the farms of Iowa. 

This tapestry is our hymnody. 

This past week I have the privilege of journeying with God to a place that I could have never dreamed about, doing things I never could fathom. I had the chance to lead worship and engage in conversation about hymnody with the leaders of the Christian Reformed Church at Synod. The focus of our conversations and our worship was to share this story of a journey—the journey of the story of the church from all times and all places. 

It is these hymns that give voice to the journey.

      The journey of our collective faith, from all times and all places.

And so, next time you lift your voice in song, remember that you are not alone.

Stop.

Look around.

Listen as you sing.

God has given us an amazing gift of the people around us. But more than that. Stop and remember--God is faithful not just to us or our congregation. God has been faithful to people from all times and all places.

And this is all part of the story. The story of the journey of faith. 

Patterns

⁴ "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.^{[a] 5} Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." 


God stands before with us today. And God asks to have an impact on our lives. An impact that can shake the world. An impact of love. And not just the love that lasts a short time.

Love.

Love that shapes who we are. Love that shapes who we will become. Love that shapes us. Forever.


Tomorrow we will go to church. Tomorrow we will continue in a pattern that shapes our living. The pattern of rushing to get the door on time. The pattern of singing the songs but not listening to the words we are singing. The pattern of reading announcements during the sermon. The pattern of doing, but not living.

God asks to have an impact on our lives. An impact so that we want to worship him every day of our lives. An impact so that our love for him will be evident in everything we do.

And for so many of us, we reserve our time with God, our time to tell him how much we love him to Sunday.

And yet, for so many of us, Sunday can easily become a pattern, much like that second cup of coffee or the perusing of the front page news.

If we are to love God with all our heart, with all our strength, and with all our mind, this means giving him our best on Sunday. Singing, listening, communing with God, for that hour once a week.

And.

It means continuing that hour for the whole week. Communing with God outside of worship. Singing, listening, reading, praying with God. Shaping our lives around God and our love for God.

And so, as we worship tomorrow, allow the grace of that hour to fill you. Allow God to work within you that one hour. And pray, that that grace and that love, that praise and that prayer can continue not just to the narthex or the parking lot, but to your home, your gym, your office place and your school.

Allow a love for God and fellowship with God fill you. And have an impact on you. God wants to shape you. God wants to live within you. And God wants you to love him. And it starts with patterns.

Love that Rides Trains

⁴ "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.^{[a] 5} Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." 

From the beginning of time, God has showed us love. 

Love showed itself in the deliberate acts at creation.

Love showed itself in the plan known, before time began.

Love showed itself in the unfolding of time.

From the beginning of time, God has showed us love.

Yet. 

We fell into sin. We denied that someone could love us like God could love us. 

And so, throughout scripture, God tries to break in. God tries to tell us. And God tries to tell us how to love him back. 

In this season of Easter, we remember the love that ultimately broke in. And it is this love that we need to bind on our hearts. We need to write this love on our doorposts. We need to talk about it and ultimately, we need to live this love out. We need to love as God loved us.

But how do we tie this love on our hands? How do we write it on our foreheads?

My grandpa tells a story every year on their wedding anniversary. It is a story that I will never forget. As a World War 2 veteran, he doesn't tell too many stories from his time in Europe. This story isn't one of battles. It is one of selfless love.

While serving in Europe, he was granted a time of leave. And so he decided to travel to the Netherlands to see his grandparents, who he had met only once before, at age 6. 

But this was no ordinary train ride. At one stop a young woman got on the train and sat down next to my grandpa. When a soldier came around to check identification, she did not have any--and in this case, my grandpa inferred that she was most likely Jewish. 

And while many might have fled from being associated with a Jew while traveling in Nazi occupied territory, my grandpa said confidently to the questioning officer, "She's my wife." And from that point on, my grandpa has called this lady, whose name my grandpa never learned, as his first wife. 

What my grandpa did that day was lie to the soldier on that train. And in doing so, he saved this stranger's life that day. Without saying anything, he showed everyone what it meant to live out of God's love, even if that meant that he would lose his life. 

This story is one of a handful my grandpa can tell from those years. And it is a story that should live. 

Without thinking about it, my grandpa talked about God's love as he rode the train that day. 

From the beginning of time, God showed his love.

And he calls us to love in return. 

Love that permeates every ounce of our being.  

Love that defines who we are. 

Love that shows in the most miraculous places.

Earthquake

We live in and among a world of chaos. A world that is defined by a rat-race. A world that is defined by what it has become...

      ...instead of who created it.
      ...instead of who defined it.
      ...instead of who the One who came to distill peace into our our chaos.

Yet, as reformed people, we know that we are called to live in this world and to bring Christ's peace into the chaos, into the rat-race. We are told to be part of restoring the world into what God intended when he said, "It is Good!"

We sit, one week after Easter...
      ...after the tomb broken.
      ...after love won.
      ...after the world was shaken to its very core.

Yet.

We remember...
      ...the pounds we put on by the Easter candy.
      ...the chaos of Easter egg hunts.
      ...the record breaking church attendance.

What should we remember? What should make a lasting impression?

 On Easter morning, many of us read the familiar story and skipped over a small phrase that jolted me tonight...

"After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for the angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it." (Matthew 28:1-2)

Did you catch that? There was a violent earthquake. Again.

When Jesus died, Matthew tells us that "The earth shook and rocks split". It was on Sunday morning that the earth spoke up again, and there was an earthquake.

An earthquake.

You see, what happened that morning was something out of the ordinary. Jesus rose. And he didn't rise just for the people that day.

He rose to cause lasting damage... the rocks that shook and split on Friday were just a warning for the catastrophic love that would reign come Sunday. For then, there would be an earthquake. 

An earthquake.

The love of Christ was shouted by Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, by the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and by the rest of the friends of Jesus.

Yet, the first one to announce this miracle was the earth.


And it didn't just whisper.

It caused an earthquake.

In the chaos of this world. In the chaos of this season. In our busy lives.
      ...we often forget.
      ...we often make excuses


Yet. It begs to be remembered. It begs to be talked about. It begs to make front page news, right along side the other natural disasters.

Christ's resurrection begs to form our lives, changing them from someplace that we simply have buried our Lord, to someplace where Christ's resurrection has turned every stone.

And so friends, how long can we ignore the earthquake?

It is in this season that we are called to remember that earthquake and live out of the rubble.

     Live lives shaped by the love...

           ...Love that overturns every stone and leaves nothing untouched.

Christ has risen! He is risen, indeed!

From the Beginning...

For some reason, John 1 has really stuck with me this Lent and Easter season. From the beginning God had a plan--and so in John 1 we hear language reminiscent of Genesis 1. And this plan came in full when the Word became flesh. When the light shone in the deep darkness. And when the world did not recognize it.

But for those of us who recognize the light, we are children of God. We are welcomed into his family. We receive the benefits of the plan. The large plan that stood in place from the beginning.This is the amazing grace of the Bible--everything works together in order to give us spectacles in which to see God--to recognize God. And, ultimately, to live out of this glorious grace.

 ¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning.

 ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of men. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood^[a] it.

 ⁶ There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. ⁹ The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.^[b]

 ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent,^[c] nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

 ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only,^[d] who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 ¹⁵ John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” ¹⁶ From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. ¹⁷ For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,^[e][f] who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

Love has won!

Love has won! Love has endured hell at the hands of sinners. And love has won!

Love has claimed the victory, not just for today, but for every day.

"Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia! Fought the fight, the battle won; Alleluia! Death in vain forbids him rise; Alleluia! Christ has opened paradise. Alleluia!" 

Love became human. Love became divine. And love did the unbelievable. 

This unbelievable became believable today.

For in the crispness of dawn, Christ rose. Christ rose to live for you and for me. Christ rose to conquer the ultimate battle. Christ rose to open paradise. 

In the crispness of dawn, love won. Love conquered death. Forever.

       Yet.

The battle is not over completely.

And the unbelievable still begs to be believed. 

       Everyday.

Love truly has won. Love truly has conquered. Christ lives!

      It is this message that must frame our life.
      It is this message that must be believed.

Love truly has won. Love truly has conquered. Christ lives. Hallelujah!

Silent Saturday

Today is a silent day.

Saturday was the Jewish Sabbath. And on this Jewish Sabbath the world, stood still.
                   
                And silent.

The world waited.

                In shock.

And we too find ourselves waiting... dwelling in the memory of yesterday.

"He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth." 
Isaiah 53:7

And it is in this shock that we find tears.

                  Tears.

We remember the darkness of noon, the earthquake and the tearing of the curtain.

And we remember the words that hung eerily in the air... "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."

We remember in silence because no words can say what we are feeling. No words can express our sorrow. No words can be said to undo yesterday, to undo the lamb of God taking on the sin of the world... for even his father could not take that from him. 

And so today, on this silent Saturday we remember the message of Friday.

                    And we wait for the message the crisp dawn air will surely bring...