Listen to the reflection.
Click here to see a photo of the windows in Fairchild Chapel.
Last night, Justin and I took in an amazing concert by a student group, Collegium Musicum, here in Oberlin. This group specializes in Renaissance music. They sing completely a cappella, about 40 voices becoming like one. The theme for this concert was angels and there were several times throughout the concert when I felt like I was listening to the angels themselves. It was beautiful and powerful. The kind of music that touches you deep in your soul and brings goosebumps to your skin. I don’t think my words can even begin to do it justice.
As I listened to the angelic voices, singing the story of the angels of Scripture--the angels who proclaimed good news at Jesus’ birth, and greeted another Mary at the empty tomb; the angels who sang the holy, holy, holy in Isaiah--I gazed upon the incredible stained glass windows behind the choir. The little chapel where the concert was held has five beautiful windows. The center depicts the last supper and two on either side depict stories of Scripture, with the evangelists looking up watching the stories unfold. They are absolutely stunning. And this was at night. I haven’t been in yet during the day, but apparently they are even more beautiful when the sun shines through the colored glass, illuminating this sacred space.
As the choir sang parts of Palestrina’s Christmas Mass, Missa Hodie Christus Natus Est, I listened to the same words, though sung in Latin, that we sing: “Holy, holy, holy” and “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” and Isaiah’s promise, “The grass withers and the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever,” echoed in my head. In December 2011, we listened to pieces that were written well over five hundred years ago, telling the stories that had transpired nearly fifteen hundred years before they were written. I thought about how many voices had sung these words. I thought about the ways that these words unite us, across time and space. And I thought about how this promise is even more powerful: the word of our God will stand forever.
In a world that seems to be ever fleeting, where things are constantly changing and it sometimes seems like nothing is ever permanent, we hear this promise. In a season that is so much about anticipating and waiting and watching for the Word that becomes flesh and dwells among us, we hear that the word of our God will stand forever. God’s word of grace and mercy, love and forgiveness stands. Forever. In a world that seeks revenge, where so many are hurt by lies and deception, God’s word stands, filling us with hope. Giving us something to grasp to in times when we don’t know which end is up. Reminding us, once again, that we are named and claimed in God’s word and that will last forever.
How many generations have heard these words? How many generations have clung to this promise and shared it with their children? How many have heard hope in the midst of despair? How many have cried out and, somehow, received comfort in knowing that God’s word, God’s care, God’s love, will stand forever? We stand in a long line, we continue to live into the great promise of life in Christ, we continue to be fed at Christ’s table, and nourished by the Word that becomes flesh and lives among us. We continue to tell the story to our children so that, they too, will know that in the midst of withering grass and fading flowers, God’s word stands. In the midst of that we cannot understand, God’s word stands. In this crazy world, God promises to be among us. We hear the words of comfort and we do our best to live into that message that is so unbelievably true. We mourn the loss of loved ones or the way things were or what we thought would last, and then we look once again to the One who, as the hymn He Comes to Us as One Unknown proclaims, “comes in truth when faith is grown; believed, obeyed, adored; the Christ in all the scriptures shown, as yet unseen, but not unknown.”
Whether we read it in Scripture, our hear it in music or on the lips of those we love, or from total strangers, God’s word continues to come to us. Where ever grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness are proclaimed, we catch glimpses of Christ among us. That is the promise of God’s word that stands forever. And that is very, very good news indeed. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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