his Little Babe, a victorious poem for Christmas morning, by Robert Southwell.

This little Babe so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,
His naked breast stands for a shield;
His battering shot are babish cries,
His arrows made of weeping eyes,
His martial ensigns cold and need,
And feeble flesh his warrior’s steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall,
His bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, hay stalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes;
And thus as sure his foe to wound,
The Angels’ trumps alarum sound.

My soul with Christ join thou in fight,
Stick to the tents that he hath pight;
Within his crib is surest ward,
This little Babe will be thy guard;
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy,
Then flit not from the heavenly boy.

Here is a recording of a setting of the poem by Benjamin Britten.

hree weeks ago two of my roommates and I attended a choral service for the first week in Advent at the Anglican Cathedral in downtown Orlando. I will confess up front my love for Anglican church music and for good choral music in general. Following the service one roommate and I discussed how many people dismiss traditional choral and organ music as old and irrelevant when, in fact, they are reacting more against the quality of the music than the content of it. (The same could be said for those who dismiss praise bands and pop-style vocal ensembles. I’ll grant that it is often frustrating to try to find high quality congregational music of any genre in many churches today.)

The service was sung extremely well by a well-prepared choir and the Advent readings were spoken with reverence and awe (to steal a phrase from our RTS librarian). A majority of the singing was done by the choir from the choir loft in the rear of the nave. While I have some pretty well-developed views on the role of the choir and the role of the congregation in corporate worship (which I will write on in the future), the use of the choir was not a distraction. It truly felt that we in the congregation were participating in their song as we prayerfully read the words (and translations) provided in the Order of Worship.

Despite all of this wonderful music and ceremony, the most moving portions of the service for me were when the congregation rose and added our voices to the choir in several hymns. I will probably remember for years the feeling of the final verses of “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending”. The organ played with full ranks, the room being thick with incense (in fact, there was more smoke in that cathedral than in a circa-1970s biker bar with Waylon Jennings playing on the jukebox!), the congregation sang the melody and the choir added the harmony as we sang and prayed for the return of the Lord. It was a powerful, powerful moment for me as I was in the thick of studying and writing on Revelation and considering this year’s Advent in light of the future return of Christ.

Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.

John Cennick and Charles Wesley’s hymn instantly became one of my favorites. It captures the glory and the majesty of the return of Christ in a way that I haven’t often seen. It reminds us that in the midst of our Christmas celebrations and songs of Mary and her baby, shepherds and angels, kings and stars, we still await the final consummation of all things. Christmas approaches but so does the return of Christ. As we celebrate his first coming, let us also look for his second coming in glory; we are another Advent season closer.

“Yea, Amen! let all adore Thee,
High on Thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory,
Claim the kingdom for Thine own;
O come quickly! O come quickly! O come quickly!
Alleluia! Come, Lord, come!”

If you don’t have a recording of “Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending” (to the tune Helmsley), consider shelling out the 99¢ (for American readers) that it would cost to purchase the hymn on iTunes.

saiah 11:1-9

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming from tender stem hath sprung,
of Jesse’s lineage coming, as men of old have sung.
It came, a flow’ret bright, amid the cold of winter,
when half-spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it, the Rose I have in mind;
With Mary we behold it, the virgin mother kind.
To show God’s love aright, she bore to men a Savior,
when half-spent was the night.

from Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

ecently, I’ve been reading and studying a lot in the book of Revelation. Or rather, as it gives its own title, the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It’s been a focus of two of my classes this past semester and has been on the forefront of my mind (in no small part due to the two papers I am currently writing on aspects of the book). How we see the return of Jesus Christ and how we read what he showed to John has a dramatic impact on how we live and how we worship.

The previous paragraph seems like an odd way to begin a post entitled “Advent 1″. It would be much more effective to begin with one of the prophecies from Isaiah or one of the Psalms or the account of Gabriel’s visit to Mary and her song that follows. Why haven’t I chosen, then, to use those passages? Certainly, those would be effective ways to begin an entry for Advent, and they certainly have their place, but I’m afraid that in the middle of all of the wreaths, candles and preparations for Christmas, we forget why Revelation is just as important an Advent reading as Isaiah or Luke. The Christian calendar isn’t defined by the biggest shopping day of the year or the biggest day of the year for returns (because we packed on a few more pounds in the past 12 months than our families accounted for); it’s defined by preparation for the coming of Christ and celebration of his arrival.

Come, thou long-expected Jesus,
born to set thy people free;
from our fears and sins release us,
let us find our rest in thee.
-Charles Wesley

These aren’t just words that we sing to little baby Jesus who we’re waiting to place in the manger in our home nativity scenes. Even when we do well to use Advent as a time of preparation for the celebration of the coming of Christ at Christmas, we often forget that that’s not the only coming of Christ. We may confess with the Nicene Creed that “he shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,” but in the real world, where theology really happens, we don’t let it change us.

Born thy people to deliver,
born a child, and yet a king,
born to reign in us for ever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.

This Advent, don’t only pray that our hearts aren’t overcome by the rampant materialism in our society, especially at Christmastime. Don’t stop with the prayer that asks that the glory of the incarnation will make our hearts alive as we celebrate Advent and Christmas. Pray those things! But also pray that we will be faithful, like the saints and martyrs in heaven pictured in Revelation. Pray that our songs, like theirs, would be directed to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. Pray that we might “find our rest”, as Charles Wesley wrote well, in Jesus - the one who was born in humility and will return in glory.

[bibleblock]Revelation 22:20-21[/bibleblock]

Walter C. Smith composed his great hymn “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise” in 1876 as part of a collection entitled Hymns of Christ and the Christian Life.

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, Thy great Name we praise.

The hymn, especially when sung to its traditional tune, St. Denio, is a triumphant song of the glory and transcendence of God Almighty. Thankfully, this theme of the glory and majesty of God is not one that has been relegated to history; modern hymn writers have also picked up on the idea. Many praise songs composed in the past few years have been written as celebrations of God’s majesty. One of the most popular of these in recent years has been “Indescribable” by Laura Story.

Indescribable, uncontainable,
You placed the stars in the sky and You Know them by name.
You are amazing God
All powerful, untamable,
Awestruck we fall to our knees as we humbly proclaim
You are amazing God

I have sung this song in churches, in chapel services and on retreats and, for the most part, I like its statements of the matchless character of God. There’s only one word that gives me pause. Normally, this wouldn’t be a gigantic problem, but it is when that one word is the same as the title of the song: Indescribable.
(As a quick note, I am assuming that “Indescribable” has more lyrical thought put into it than Faith Hill’s “This Kiss”. That song, popular a few years ago, seemed to contain each and every 4-syllable word that the songwriter could think of. I do think that “Indescribable” is more thoughtfully written than simply being a collection of 4- and 5-syllable words in a 6/8 time signature.)
In one sense, it is true that God is indescribable in totality. If we could describe everything there is to describe about God, he would no longer be God. I am certain that the lyric was written in this sense. In fact, it is because of this perspective that I do not have a problem singing the song in worship; I am able to remind myself that no man has fully seen God and no mind has fully comprehended him.
In another sense, however, it is dangerous to assert that God is “indescribable”. God has certainly given us a vocabulary to describe him. We may not be able to describe him in his fullness, but he has given us the means that we may know him. We have been given the scriptures, he has come incarnate in the person of Jesus and those of us who believe have been given the witness of the Holy Spirit. If God was completely indescribable, we wouldn’t be able to sing all of the other affirmations of the song, lyrics describing him as the great creator, the all-powerful king, the all-knowing Lord. If God was completely indescribable, we couldn’t make the affirmations of “O Worship the King”: God is the ancient of days, our shield, maker, defender, redeemer and friend (to simply name a few). We cannot completely know God but we can know him as he desires to be known: through the scriptures, through prayer, through the person of Jesus, through the sacraments, through the Holy Spirit.

[Edit: Thanks to my friend Tim Sharpe who pointed out that Faith Hill sings "This Kiss", not Shania Twain. (Of course, not knowing who sings country songs out of Nashville probably gives me more credibility rather than less.)]

The public radio program of sacred music, With Heart and Voice, is broadcasting alternate settings of familiar hymns this weekend. Public Radio Fan has a listing of days and times of the program’s broadcast, along with links to listen to the audio feed from various radio stations.

One of the hymns is David Ashley White’s setting of “When In Our Music”. Dr. White is the director of the Moores School of Music, where I studied as an undergraduate.

Since most of the broadcasts of With Heart and Voice occur on Sunday morning, I would suggest using an audio capture program like Audio Hijack for Mac OS X or a comparable program for PC (sorry that I cannot suggest one).

dis·con·so·late |disˈkänsəlit|
adjective
without consolation or comfort; unhappy : he’d met the man’s disconsolate widow.

From the Oxford American Dictionary.

Sometimes the things that should be most obvious to me aren’t. Take, for example, the hymn “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy”. One Sunday at the end of last summer, we sang this hymn at the end of the worship service. It was a pretty standard rendition; I was singing pretty strongly because the melody sat in a good range for me. (The only people in that church who ever really said anything to me were two little old ladies who complimented my singing a couple of times. I think they were glad that someone seated beside them could read the music and teach them an unfamiliar melody.) We arrived at the last stanza and my eyes came upon this verse:

If our love were but more simple,
We should take Him at His word;
And our lives would be all sunshine
In the sweetness of our Lord.

I had to stop singing. I couldn’t sing this in good conscience. I knew that just wasn’t the case. I don’t know what Frederick Faber meant when he wrote that verse, but if I’m understanding the words right it’s simply untrue. Love Jesus as much as I possibly could, and that still wouldn’t mean that my life would be all sunshine. Maybe Faber meant ultimately, I don’t know. But it sure isn’t the case here in the real world. There is suffering, there is pain, there is death. Jesus doesn’t promise that we won’t have suffering but that he’ll be with us in the midst of it:[bibleblock]John 16.33[/bibleblock]

That stanza of the hymn felt so out of place because of its obvious dissonance with real life (and with the testimony of Jesus) and because the previous hymn expressed quite the opposite sentiment. Just after the sermon we had sung a marvelous hymn by Thomas Moore and Thomas Hastings.

Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish,
Come to the mercy seat, fervently kneel.
Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish;
Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.

Here I was in a place where I knew no one, no one said a word to me (except the aforementioned little old ladies), no one knew if I was there or not, but there was hope. It didn’t matter if my life was sunshine or not, I could sing about a wounded heart, sorrow and anguish — the stuff of real life. The world is a screwed up place and God’s okay if we tell him that, it’s not going to offend him.

Joy of the desolate, light of the straying,
Hope of the penitent, fadeless and pure!
Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying,
“Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure.”

The hymn was great, but the tune…the tune didn’t fit very well at all. For one thing, the word “disconsolate” sounded incredibly happy and resolute…and that’s not what disconsolation is. I suppose that a tune could be written for the song that expressed the triumphant nature of the hymn — that there is triumph because sorrow cannot win, because heartache will end. But that doesn’t really speak to what I heard in the words; I heard a solemn invitation to be healed. I heard a text that needed to be reflected upon, one that would reflect the depths of the sorrow before the light of healing. It’s similar to what I wrote about when I was writing on “From Depths of Woe”. Real problems need a real savior.

Here see the bread of life, see waters flowing
Forth from the throne of God, pure from above.
Come to the feast of love; come, ever knowing
Earth has no sorrow but heaven can remove.

That afternoon I went home and immediately started writing. I wanted to write a tune that would be grave and yet hopeful. The first two lines of the hymn are about languishing, coming to God and kneeling. That’s what I wanted to reflect in the music that I wrote. I hope I captured that in the shift from minor harmonies in the first half of the tune to the major chord that begins the third and fourth lines. Wanting to accurately depict the reflective nature of what I heard in the words, I intentionally wrote very easy, very slow rhythms.

Disconsolation is all over the Psalms and all over the Bible but it’s not all over the songs that we sing as Christians. That’s a shame. When Hannah wept to the Lord because she was barren, she didn’t sing about how her life was sunshine, she was honest. When the slaves cried out in Egypt, God didn’t tell them to make “their love more simple”, he heard them and he sent a deliverer. Perhaps we don’t have a truer picture of God because we don’t bring him our wounded hearts and admit the pain, hurt and sorrow in our lives.

Come, Ye Disconsolate at Psalms and Hymns.com.