December 1: The Messiah Sacrifices His Life for the World
♫ Music:
The Messiah Sacrifices His Life for the World
Scripture: Isaiah 53: 5-10
But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away; and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.
A Christmas Hymn
by Richard Wilbur
A stable-lamp is lighted
Whose glow shall wake the sky;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
And straw like gold shall shine;
A barn shall harbor heaven,
A stall become a shrine.
This child through David’s city
Shall ride in triumph by;
The palm shall strew its branches,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry,
Though heavy, dull, and dumb,
And lie within the roadway
To pave His kingdom come.
Yet He shall be forsaken,
And yielded up to die;
The sky shall groan and darken,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
For stony hearts of men:
God’s blood upon the spearhead,
God’s love refused again.
But now, as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled.
THE CRADLE AND THE CROSS
As we reflect during Advent on the birth of Christ, we cannot help but also think of our Savior’s death. The cradle and the cross are two essential parts of the same story. He was “born that man no more may die,” and his atonement for us was made on the cross.
Georgia O’Keefe’s Black Cross with Stars captures the solemn beauty and paradox of Advent. The black cross looms large in the painting, the foreground frame that obstructs a perfect view of the blue mountain landscape beyond. It’s a beautiful composition. The cross almost seems like it could be a window pane, perhaps a window from the room where Jesus was born? If we zoomed out would it be revealed to be a window we were looking out through, or would it be a standalone cross? Would it make a difference in how we viewed what is beyond?
O’Keefe’s minimalist, contemplative painting is a fitting visual to accompany the mood set as we listen to the song, “I wonder as I wander out under the sky, how Jesus the savior did come for to die.” As we gaze beyond the cross-shaped frame, we contemplate. We wonder as we wander in the vast spaces of this beautiful world. We ponder the mystery of the incarnation.
The vast and still sky dotted with shining stars, the somber, cold looking mountains on the horizon: they echo the refrain of Richard Wilbur’s Christmas Hymn: “The stars shall bend their voices, And every stone shall cry.” Singing stars and crying stones. This is how creation bears witness to the birth of Christ.
The cross as the framing device of O’Keefe’s painting is appropriate, for the cross is indeed the framing device of our faith. To be a Christian is to be a disciple who follows Jesus Christ, and to follow Jesus is to take up our own cross (Matt. 16:24). As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in The Cost of Discipleship: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
What does that look like for us in this season? As we celebrate Advent and move toward Christmas, what things can we die to as disciples of Jesus? Perhaps we can die to our own comfort for the sake of being with the hurting, the lonely, the isolated people in our spheres. Perhaps we can die to the excesses of this season and the glut of parties and consumerism that so often crowds out Jesus. Perhaps we can die to the vanity that leads us to spend more time perfecting Instagram selfies than listening to and loving those in our communities. Perhaps we can die to the distractions of our technology and instead lift up our eyes to the hills and horizons of the beautiful world that God created and, in Christ, redeemed.
Prayer
Lord, Fill us with your spirit of sacrificial love. Empty us of all that distracts us from you and your kingdom. Help us to embrace your call to die to ourselves. For it is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Barry Corey
President, Biola University
Black Cross with Stars
Georgia O’Keeffe
Oil on canvas
Private Collection
About the Artist and Art:
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) played a pivotal role in the development of American modernism and its relationship to European avant garde movements in the early twentieth century. Producing a substantial body of work over seven decades, she sought to capture the emotion and power of objects through abstracting the natural world. Alfred Stieglitz identified her as the first female American modernist, whose paintings of flowers, barren landscapes, and close-up still lifes have become a part of the mythology and iconography of the American artistic landscape. In 1929, seeking solitude, O'Keeffe traveled to New Mexico and for over 20 years she spent the better part of every year working there, becoming increasingly interested in the Southwest landscape where she eventually settled permanently and worked until her death at the age of ninety-eight. O'Keeffe recounts, “I saw the crosses so often—and often in unexpected places—like a thin dark veil of the Catholic Church spread over the New Mexico landscape.” The crosses she encountered during late-night walks in the desert and then transformed into paintings were probably erected near remote moradas, or chapels, by secret Catholic lay brotherhoods called Penitentes.
About the Music:
“I Wonder as I Wander”
Lyrics:
I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
Why Jesus the Saviour did come for to die.
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all.
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall,
And the promise of ages it then did recall.
If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing,
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King.
I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die.
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.
About the Composer of the Hymn:
John Jacob Niles (1892 – 1980) was an American composer, singer, and collector of traditional ballads. Called the "Dean of American Balladeers", Niles had an important influence on the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, with singers Joan Baez, Burl Ives, and Peter, Paul and Mary, among others. Niles composed the Appalachian influenced Christmas carols: “The Carol of the Birds,” “The Flower of Jesse,” “What Songs Were Sung,” “Jesus, Jesus, Rest Your Head,” and “Sweet Little Jesus Boy.” “‘I Wonder As I Wander’ grew out of a fragment of three lines of music sung for him by a young Appalachian girl. With the writing of additional verses and the development of original music, “I Wonder As I Wander” came into being, and has been sung worldwide ever since.
About the Performer:
Cynthia Clawson (b. 1948) referred to as the “singer’s singer,” was called "the most awesome voice in gospel music" by Billboard Magazine. She has received a Grammy and five Dove awards for her work as a songwriter, vocal artist, and musician. Her career has spanned over four decades with 22 albums released since 1974. Clawson has performed in many prestigious venues and with preeminent groups, and her work has been featured in a number of films including A Trip To Bountiful. Clawson currently resides in Houston, TX, and is married to lyricist, poet, and playwright, Ragan Courtney.
www.cynthiaclawson.com
About the Poet:
Richard Purdy Wilbur (b. 1921) is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1957 and again in 1989. Continuing in the tradition of Robert Frost and W. H. Auden, Wilbur's poetry finds illumination in everyday experiences. Less well-known is Wilbur's foray into lyric writing. He provided the lyrics for several songs in Leonard Bernstein's 1956 musical, Candide.