Wednesday in the First Week of Lent
I've been an Episcopalian long enough now -- a bit over 17 years -- that seasonal hymns actually come to mind from time to time. The Hymnal, 1982 is a treasure trove of poetry, theology, biblical reflection and devotional literature. And here is the hymn I found myself humming early this morning in my daily pre-dawn excursion out into the Wisconsin winter to walk the dog:
Eternal Lord of love, behold your Church
Walking once more the pilgrim way of Lent,
Led by your cloud by day, by night your fire,
Moved by your love and toward your presence bent:
Far off yet here -- the goal of all desire.
So daily dying to the way of self,
So daily living to your way of love,
We walk the road, Lord Jesus, that you trod,
Knowing ourselves baptized into your death:
So we are dead and live with you in God.
If dead in you, so in you we arise,
You the firstborn of all the faithful dead;
And as through stony ground the green shoots break,
Glorious in springtime dress of leaf and flower,
So in the Father's glory shall we all awake.
-- Hymn 149; words by Thomas H. Cain
The first verse of this hymn recalls the communal nature of the Lenten journey. This is the season in which the Church as a whole journeys again toward, and then through, the drama of Jesus' death and resurrection. We walk together as a pilgrim people -- people who are on a path well-traveled by those who've gone before us in the faith. The writer connects the forty days of this season with the forty years that the Israelites sojourned in the Wilderness on their way to the Promised Land -- led by God's Glory in the form of smoke by day/fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22).
I am grateful for the poet's reminder that while we may be "moved by [God's] love", we have to be "bent" toward God's presence. This ongoing spiritual formation is the work of the Spirit and the journey of a lifetime. We don't easily bend our wills...we too often desire to go our own way...and yet in this season a space is created in which we can reflect both on God's presence in our lives -- when God seems to be "far off" and when God is nearer than our next breath.
The second verse captures the two-fold nature of being a follower of Jesus and invokes the imagery of Baptism. Daily dying and daily living. We're never done with this work in this life. We make progress. We have setbacks. Sometimes we manage to get it "right". Other times we fail miserably. But the call of discipleship is not the call to arrive at some mysterious state of perfection. The call of discipleship is to remember that we are people on a "Way"...living, learning and growing.
The final two lines of the second stanza and the allude to two important passages from the New Testament:
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of theFather, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." -- Romans 6:3-5
"Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." -- Colossians 3:2-3
The third verse continues the death/resurrection imagery and references both Colossians 1:15 in which Jesus is called the "firstborn of all creation" and 1 Corinthians 15:23 in which he is named as the "first fruits" of the resurrection of the dead. We are also reminded of Jesus' words, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12;24). Paul also uses the seed/shoot metaphor in his wrestling with the meaning of "resurrection" towards the end of 1 Corinthians 15, "...what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernal...but God gives it a body as he has chosen..." (verses 36-38)
Perhaps because I tend to over-verbalize, I'm always moved by a poet's ability to compress so much meaning into a very few lines. Concentrated theology and a bible study set to music, what a way to be formed in the Faith!
Now I'm off to continue walking the "pilgrim way of Lent" -- singing as I go.
I've been an Episcopalian long enough now -- a bit over 17 years -- that seasonal hymns actually come to mind from time to time. The Hymnal, 1982 is a treasure trove of poetry, theology, biblical reflection and devotional literature. And here is the hymn I found myself humming early this morning in my daily pre-dawn excursion out into the Wisconsin winter to walk the dog:
Eternal Lord of love, behold your Church
Walking once more the pilgrim way of Lent,
Led by your cloud by day, by night your fire,
Moved by your love and toward your presence bent:
Far off yet here -- the goal of all desire.
So daily dying to the way of self,
So daily living to your way of love,
We walk the road, Lord Jesus, that you trod,
Knowing ourselves baptized into your death:
So we are dead and live with you in God.
If dead in you, so in you we arise,
You the firstborn of all the faithful dead;
And as through stony ground the green shoots break,
Glorious in springtime dress of leaf and flower,
So in the Father's glory shall we all awake.
-- Hymn 149; words by Thomas H. Cain
The first verse of this hymn recalls the communal nature of the Lenten journey. This is the season in which the Church as a whole journeys again toward, and then through, the drama of Jesus' death and resurrection. We walk together as a pilgrim people -- people who are on a path well-traveled by those who've gone before us in the faith. The writer connects the forty days of this season with the forty years that the Israelites sojourned in the Wilderness on their way to the Promised Land -- led by God's Glory in the form of smoke by day/fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22).
I am grateful for the poet's reminder that while we may be "moved by [God's] love", we have to be "bent" toward God's presence. This ongoing spiritual formation is the work of the Spirit and the journey of a lifetime. We don't easily bend our wills...we too often desire to go our own way...and yet in this season a space is created in which we can reflect both on God's presence in our lives -- when God seems to be "far off" and when God is nearer than our next breath.
The second verse captures the two-fold nature of being a follower of Jesus and invokes the imagery of Baptism. Daily dying and daily living. We're never done with this work in this life. We make progress. We have setbacks. Sometimes we manage to get it "right". Other times we fail miserably. But the call of discipleship is not the call to arrive at some mysterious state of perfection. The call of discipleship is to remember that we are people on a "Way"...living, learning and growing.
The final two lines of the second stanza and the allude to two important passages from the New Testament:
"Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of theFather, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." -- Romans 6:3-5
"Set your mind on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hid with Christ in God." -- Colossians 3:2-3
The third verse continues the death/resurrection imagery and references both Colossians 1:15 in which Jesus is called the "firstborn of all creation" and 1 Corinthians 15:23 in which he is named as the "first fruits" of the resurrection of the dead. We are also reminded of Jesus' words, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12;24). Paul also uses the seed/shoot metaphor in his wrestling with the meaning of "resurrection" towards the end of 1 Corinthians 15, "...what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernal...but God gives it a body as he has chosen..." (verses 36-38)
Perhaps because I tend to over-verbalize, I'm always moved by a poet's ability to compress so much meaning into a very few lines. Concentrated theology and a bible study set to music, what a way to be formed in the Faith!
Now I'm off to continue walking the "pilgrim way of Lent" -- singing as I go.
posted by FrGaryB | 5:25 AM
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