December 1: Fostering Renewed Hope
♫ Music:
TITLE: FOSTERING RENEWED HOPE
December 1-7
“Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free; from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee. Israel’s strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art.” As this beautiful Christmas hymn proclaims, eternal hope was fulfilled in the person of Christ at his birth in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. And He alone is the answer to the most complex challenges facing the world today. J.I. Packer states, “The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity--hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory--because at the Father’s will Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross.” This week may our spirits soar with the certainty that hope and trust in the Christ of Christmas brings.
Sunday, December 1
Title: PREPARING THE WAY FOR HOPE
Scripture: Psalm 13:1, Isaiah 40:1-5
How long, Oh Lord? Will you forget [us] forever? How long will you hide your face from [us]? . . .
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”
Poetry:
The Caged Skylark
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,
Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —
That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;
This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.
Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage
Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,
Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells
Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.
Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —
Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,
But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.
Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,
But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed
For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
I just recently returned from a six-week stay in England. As part of my sabbatical I was not there merely as a tourist. I was there to research and write, making use of the wonderful libraries in Oxford and Cambridge. It was a productive six weeks but by the end I was ready to come home – to my house in southern California where the sun almost always shines and, especially, to my family. During my last few days in England I kept looking at the calendar and the clock, asking myself: How much longer?
Though radically different in context, my question was not much different than that of the Psalmist: “How long, Oh Lord?” The root of both questions is the matter of time. I knew that my flight from London to Los Angeles was scheduled to depart at 1:15pm on Sunday, November 3 so, for me, it was merely a matter of waiting for that time to arrive. The Psalmist does not know the day or the hour as I did but he too is waiting for a time to arrive. In my case, a flight. For the Psalmist, the comfort of God brought about by the deliverance of God’s people.
Today’s poem by Hopkins is an extended metaphor. Like a skylark encaged, our soul is caged in our mortal bodies. Given that skylarks are made to fly, their incagement is unnatural and given that our souls are meant to be in communion with God, their enclosure in sinful bodies of flesh is unnatural too. Yet there is hope! For one day our bodies will be fully restored and our souls, though still in our bodies, will not be caged but will be free to work with our bodies in enjoying God forever. But we ask, “How long, Oh Lord, until our bodies and souls are free again?”
The music of Respighi and the art of Munch provide different metaphors. The movement from Respighi’s Church Windows is entitled “The Matins of St. Clare.” Matins is monastic morning prayer; it is sunrise prayer. This, and Munch’s “The Sun,” bring to mind the early morning light that casts off the darkness of the night. Unlike some folks, I am not a fan of the darkness of night but I love the light of the early morning. When forced to be awake during those long, dark hours of night I tend to ask myself, “How long before the sun comes up and the darkness breaks?” I long for the light of day and the sense of renewal and refreshment that it brings.
And is this not what Advent is all about? A waiting for the arrival of the Savior of the world who comforts his people? And with his arrival, by which the dayspring from on high breaks upon us (Luke 1:78), are we not set free from our incagement to sin? Does not the light of Christ bring forgiveness of our sins? We know that he is coming so we wait, eagerly asking, “How long, O Lord?”
Prayer:
O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness during the day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
(A Collect for the Renewal of Life, BCP, 1979)
Dr. Greg Peters
Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology
Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
The Sun
Edvard Munch
Oil on canvas
1910-1911
14.9 ft. x 25.5 ft.
University of Oslo, Norway
About the Artist:
Edvard Munch (1863–1944) was a Norwegian painter whose best-known work, The Scream, has become one of the most iconic paintings of our time. Munch’s childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement, and the dread of inheriting the mental illness that ran in his family. Studying at the Royal School of Art and Design in Oslo, Norway, Munch began to live a bohemian life under the influence of nihilist Hans Jaeger, who urged him to paint his personal, emotional, and psychological states. Travel took him to Paris, where he learned about the power of color from fellow artists Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. As Munch’s fame and wealth grew, his emotional state remained as tenuous as ever. After a breakdown in 1908, he became encouraged by the increasing acceptance of the people and museums of Oslo. His later years were spent working in peace and privacy.
About the Music:
“Vetrate di chiesa, P. 150: III. Il Mattutino di Santa Chiara” from the album Respighi: Vetrate di Chiesa
About the Composer:
Ottorino Respighi (1879–1936) was an Italian violinist, composer, and musicologist, best known for his trilogy of orchestral tone poems: Fountains of Rome (1916), Pines of Rome (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928). His musicological interest in 16th, 17th, and 18th-century music led him to compose pieces based on the music of these periods. He also wrote several operas, the most famous being La fiamma. In 1900, Respighi accepted the role of principal violist in the orchestra of the Russian Imperial Theatre in Saint Petersburg. There he met Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, whose music influenced his own orchestrations with greater color and drama. Apolitical in nature, Respighi attempted to steer a neutral course once Benito Mussolini came to power in 1922. His established international fame allowed him some level of freedom, but simultaneously encouraged the regime to exploit his music for political purposes. Respighi vouched for more outspoken critics of Mussolini, such as Toscanini, and thus allowed them to continue to work under the fascist regime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottorino_Respighi
About the Performers:
John Neschling and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege
John Neschling (b. 1947) is a Brazilian orchestral and operatic conductor. He was the musical director and the chief conductor of the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo from 1997 to 2008. He has been the Artistic Director of the Municipal Theatre of São Paulo from January 2013 until September 2016. Neschling has been music director of Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon, Sankt Gallen Theater in Switzerland, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, and the Bordeaux Opera, and assistant conductor at the Vienna Opera. He has also been invited conductor at the London Symphony, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London. Under his request, the great hall of the old Júlio Prestes train station was renovated and turned into Sala São Paulo, the home of OSESP, and one of the best concert halls in the world.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/d36a258b-8aa5-42c8-b86c-41c210a3324b
The Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège (OPRL) is a Belgian symphony orchestra, based in Liège. The primary concert venue and administrative base of the OPRL is the Salle Philharmonique de Liège. While French and twentieth century music form the core of its repertoire, the OPRL has also performed works by contemporary composers. The current music director of the OPRL is Gergely Madaras.
https://www.oprl.be/fr
About the Poet:
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) is regarded as one of the Victorian era’s greatest poets. Hopkins was raised in a prosperous and artistic family. He attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied the Classics. In 1867 he entered a Jesuit monastery near London. At that time, he vowed to “write no more...unless it were by the wish of my superiors.” Hopkins burned all of the poetry he had written and would not write poems again until 1875. He spent nine years in training at various Jesuit houses throughout England and was ordained in 1877. For the next seven years he carried out his duties of teaching and preaching in London, Oxford, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Stonyhurst. In 1875, Hopkins, deeply moved by a newspaper account of a German ship, the Deutschland, wrecked during a storm at the mouth of the Thames River, began to write again. Although his poems were never published during his lifetime, his friend and fellow poet Robert Bridges edited a volume of Hopkins’s works entitled Poems, which was published in 1918.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gerard-manley-hopkins
About the Devotion Writer:
Dr. Greg Peters
Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology
Torrey Honors Institute
Biola University
Dr. Greg Peters is Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology in the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. He is also Rector of the Anglican Church of the Epiphany in La Mirada and author of The Monkhood of All Believers: The Monastic Foundation of Christian Spirituality.