December 8: A New Kind of Warfare
♫ Music:
And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.
Genesis 3:15
A NEW KIND OF WARFARE
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 unarmèd wise
The gates of hell he will surprise.
from Robert Southwell, “New Heaven, New War”
We read in Genesis 3 that the curse of the fall pits us against God, against each other, against the earth. But God curses the serpent too, and this is God's declaration of war. In the seed of the woman, God is with us at war against sin and death. In Mary's son, Immanuel has come to crush our foe.
In Robert Southwell's lyric on the incarnation, he looks at the babe in the manger and sees a knight. This is not because he sees the Christ-child as inhumanly powerful, but because the baby's vulnerability and weakness are his weapons. Southwell turns the worldly way to fight fire with fire on its head, and this is divinely comic. What utter nonsense it makes of Satan's pretensions to power.
In this sense, crushing the head of the serpent's seed is an act of joyous war and martial play. This paradox is embodied by Richard Alston's dancers, who don costumes suggestive of the tunics of knights and squires. Their angled, extended arms and half-cocked knees interrupt cross-wise the long lines of their bodies. This could make a jarring asymmetry suggestive of conflict, but the swinging, buoyant swirling of their limbs into these extensions creates a playful effect. They are both exuberant and utterly at ease as they chase Benjamin Britten's musical setting of Southwell's lyric.
Britten too has captured the spirit of boyish combat. He has translated Southwell's muscular rhythms into a round, the kind of music we sing with nursery rhymes. The round is sung by boys accompanied only by a harp, doing its level best to sound like a war drum. Swap the harp and boys for horns and drums with the same rhythms and you would have the terror of the god of war. But here, God at war is a baby, and just as Southwell's lyric insists "his battering shot are babish cries," Britten's music follows suit. The boy choristers sing with dizzying speed a childs round that builds into a wash of rising and falling sound until the final two lines of the poem. Here, the relentless gallop slacks as the boys sing in unison an exultant melody. And these last lines speak a wonder to the believer's soul: "If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, / Then flit not from this heavenly boy".
The curse on the serpent teaches us to expect an all-out war against sin and death, but we forget that war only wears a grim face when total victory is in doubt. When God himself entered the fray and took upon himself our frail frame, it was not an act of daring; it was triumph at play. So often we battle sin with anxiety and a mind harried by strain. Southwell invites us to fight with Christ not by emulating his weakness, for his weakness was already ours. No, to fight with Christ is to foil the foe with a weapon not our own--with a joy that was always the Son's and which Father has given to us in Immanuel, God with us.
Diane Vincent, Associate Professor of Torrey Honors Institute
SON of DAVID, Today I bow before you as my true King. You subdue me by humbling yourself as a helpless baby, you rule me by subjecting yourself, you defend me through a chubby infant’s arm, and the hand of power that conquers all enemies is curled around a mother’s finger. Amen
Phillip Reinders from Seeking God’s Face
Annunciation
Bruce Manwaring
Giclee Digital Print
About the Artist and the Art
Manwaring’s riveting Annunciation print encompasses the full spectrum of salvific history from the first Adam fleeing the Garden of Eden to the second Adam being ushered into view via the mighty hand of God. The composition’s visual flow gives an almost cinematic feel to this static image, reminding the viewer of the centrality of the incarnation in the Gospel story, the story of all mankind.
About the Artist
Bruce Manwaring was Professor in Printmaking and Illustration at Syracuse University where he helped to build the Printmaking Program as part of the Experimental Studios Department. He and his wife, artist Nicora Gangi, were co-partners of Machaira Studio, which was formed in 1986. Bruce’s prints have been exhibited regionally, nationally, and internationally in numerous juried and invitational shows. They are in the collections of the Free University in Amsterdam; The Munson Williams Proctor Institute; the Tyler Gallery at SUNY Oswego; the Scripps Gallery in Claremont; and in numerous private collections in the US, Canada, England, Germany, and the Netherlands. Manwaring was also a member of Christians in the Visual Arts.
About the Composer and Music
Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976) was an English composer and conductor. A central figure of 20th-century British classical music, Britten wrote a wide range of works including opera, other vocal compositions, orchestral and chamber music. A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28, is a choral piece scored for three-part treble chorus, solo voices, and harp. Written for Christmas, it consists of eleven movements, with text from The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, edited by Gerald Bullett; and is sung in Middle English. Two of the most popular pieces from the cantata are This Little Babe and Deo Gracias. This Little Bade addresses Christ’s prophetic victory over Satan as recorded in Genesis 3:15.
Deo Gracias from Ceremony of Carols Lyrics
Deo gracias! Deo gracias!
Adam lay ibouden,
Bouden in a bond;
For thousand winter
Thought he not too long.
Deo gracias! Deo gracias!
And all was for an appil,
An appil that he tok,
As clerkès finden
Written in their book.
Deo gracias! Deo gracias!
Ne had the appil takè ben,
The appil takè ben,
Ne haddè never our lady
A ben hevenè quene.
Blessèd be the time
That appil takè was.
Therefore we moun singen.
Deo gracias! Deo gracias!
This Little Babe from Ceremony of Carols Lyrics
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 looks of weeping eyes.
His martial ensigns Cold a 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, haystalks his stakes, of shepherds he his muster makes.
And thus as sure his foe to wound, the angels’ trumps a larum sound.
My soul with Christ join thou in fight: stick to the tents that he hath pight.
With in his crib is surest ward; This Little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil foes with joy, then flit not from this heavenly Boy!
About the Dancers
The Richard Alston Dance Company is a contemporary dance company that was formed in 1994. Richard Alston, Artistic Director, is internationally recognized as one of the most inspiring and influential choreographers in dance today. Perhaps more than any other choreographer, Alston is known for his instinctive musicality. Alston is renowned for having a very close relationship with his music, taking inspiration for his work directly from the music he uses, and using the music as a point of departure for the choreography.
Website: http://www.richardalstondance.com/