Sermons

A Song of Restoration and Forgiveness

John Wilkinson	Third Presbyterian Church
December 7, 2008	Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13, Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8

Eternal God, we pray for peace in a conflicted world. We remember those whose lives were lost 67 years ago this day, and all in every war who have made the full and final sacrifice and all who yet mourn. We pray for soldiers and sailors everywhere even now, and their families. Keep them safe, and keep us all living toward that day when we will study war no more. In this sacred season of anticipation and preparation and hope, may we all be as agents of reconciliation and concord, reflecting the Prince of Peace’s desire for his people and his realm. Give us hope this day, gracious God, to seek light and to live into your Advent promises. Transform us now by the power and truth of your word, for we pray in the name of the one whose coming we await, even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

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I grew up on radio. I grew up before you could watch virtually every baseball game on TV, so I spent many childhood nights, some clandestinely under the covers, tuning in to baseball on my little transistor AM radio.

I grew up on top 40 music, when you could hear all kinds of songs on one station, that wasn’t automated and pre-programmed from far away.

I got a taste of that this past Sunday, making the Thanksgiving drive across the Thruway: me, three sleepy passengers, countless raindrops, countless semi trucks, countless unhappy Bills fans and lots and lots of music.

I found several classic rock stations, playing things that I remember from past well into my high school and college years; calling them “classic” somehow did nothing to cheer me up.

And I found Christmas music, lots and lots and lots of Christmas music. A friend once said that when you see the Christmas displays out at the stores you know that Halloween must be coming, and the same rule must apply to radio. Once Thanksgiving rolls round, a certain proportion of stations turn themselves over to all-Christmas, all-the-time.

It’s a bemusing practice that I don’t altogether mind. Some good secular music, some good sacred music every once in awhile. Bing Crosby and “White Christmas” for the millionth time, interspersed with Josh Groban and “O, Holy Night,” wondering how he will deal with that high note on “O night divine.” Gene Autry and “Here Comes Santa Claus” and, of course, Bruce Springsteen with “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” along with Mariah Carey warbling through “Do You Hear What I Hear.” (I want to say, “yes, Mariah, I do hear what you hear!) I must confess to liking nearly all of them, even the occasional “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” which my own grandma found amusing, if I remember correctly, with no disrespect intended to any grandmas this morning.

It’s a kind of December soundtrack, this endless music, as we scurry about, purchasing gifts, going to parties, setting up trees, baking cookies, anxious about our lists.

And it is a deeper reminder of the power of music in our lives, sometimes up front and known, sometimes more subtly in the background.

We recognize that around here in lots of ways. Our ancestors in faith did as well. They created a songbook, called the book of Psalms, that carried profound meaning then and that resonates now. A kind of faith soundtrack, for every life experience. Birth and death. Sadness and joy. Praising God and questioning God.

We experience a kind of Advent soundtrack this morning, as we will on the 14th and 21st of December, as we scurry about church-wise, getting ready. Today, though…

* The prophet Isaiah singing a song of tender nurture – “Comfort, comfort my people – and we can hear Handel’s “Messiah” in the deep background, these words preceding those we’ve just heard from the choir.
* John the Baptist echoes those words, a voice crying out in the wilderness. I like to think of those words having a musical quality to them. A voice cries out. Our voices cry out. Prepare the way. Clear a path. People, get ready. And we are so ready.
* And then our morning Psalm. God, you were favorable to us. You restored us. You forgave us. Restore us again. Forgive us again. This is the song that the people of God sang, and it is the song that we are called to sing now.

What would it look like? What would it sound like?

Sometimes I believe that it should be real song, almost that we as a people need to treat this like “High School Musical 4” or an old-time M.G.M. musical, where groups of people spontaneously and quite impressively break out into song, with sophisticated choreography thrown in. Perhaps that is Sunday morning – Handel and Rutter, ancient communion liturgies as we will experience this morning, the great hymns of the church, traditions practiced and rehearsed over centuries.

Other times, though, the song is raw, unrehearsed, unpolished, from the wilderness. It cries out when hundreds die in Mumbai. It cries out when a Wal-Mart worker is trampled to death. It cries out when another predatory foreclosure happens. It cries out in the face of a cancer diagnosis, or an addiction, or a broken relationship. Every song, every note, reflects the deepest human experience, honestly, forthrightly – sometimes lovely and melodic, sometimes jarring and dissonant.

What does it look like? What does it sound like? Perhaps you saw on PBS a snippet of a show called “Playing for Change.” A music producer, Mark Johnson, travelled around the world recording differing kinds of artists singing and playing the same song, and then weaves the notes and voices together beautifully and powerfully.

On “Playing fro Change,” I heard the classic “Stand by Me,” originally recorded by the great Ben E. King and later recorded by a post-Beatle John Lennon. It’s definitely a love song, but a mournful one, articulating deep human need. In “Playing for Change,” we hear it performed by Dutch, Native American, French, Israeli, Russian, Brazilian, Venezuelan, South African, Spanish voices. We hear it played on guitar, cello, saxophone, bass, drums, with trained voices and street voices. We hear it performed by a blind African-American gentleman on the streets of New Orleans, Grandpa Elliott, accompanied by his friend Washboard Chaz, who plays, rightly enough, the washboard.

It is powerful, and it is what is imagined here, by our forbears in faith, and in this gathering. A faith soundtrack. A life soundtrack. Wildly inclusive. Wildly imaginative. Wildly radical. Untrained and virtuoso at the same time, in the deepest sense that we are given rhythm and melody and harmony, given a vision of comfort and forgiveness and restoration, and given it by one whose desires for us far outpace our human tendencies to be out of tune and off beat and out of sync.

The people of old sang a song of restoration and forgiveness, and we join our voices to that song. The voices of old cry out, and we join our voices to that cry.

Poet Ann Lewis writes this: “Like some great fugue/The themes entwine:/The Christmas carols, / Demanding our attention/ In shops and pubs, / Bore their insistent way/ Through noise of traffic; / Underneath, almost unheard,/ The steady solemn theme of/Advent.// With growing complexity,/ Clashing, blending,/ Rivals for our attention, / Themes mingle and separate,/ Pulling us with increasing/ Urgency,/ Until in final resolution, / The end attained,/ Harmony rests in aweful/ Stillness, and/ The child is born.”

May it be so. And may we sing together: “Finish, then, Thy new creation, pure and spotless let us be./ Let us see Thy new creation perfectly restored in Thee./ Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place./ Till we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.” Amen.