Sunday, December 15, 2019

Advent Dreams, Advent Actions: Why This Jubilee?
Rev. Jimmy Moore, preaching
Luke 2:8-14

What is your favorite Christmas song? Why is it your favorite? In many cases, certain songs can open our minds and hearts in ways that spoken words never can. Sometimes those tunes take us to places distant and beloved, parts of the deep sanctuary of memory we hold dear. And sometimes, in the words of psychiatrist Oliver Sacks in Musicophilia, they can take us places we have barely ever imagined. “Music can also evoke worlds very different from the personal, remembered worlds of events, people, places we have known,” Sacks writes. We find that in the great economy of God, we are made for music, and when music finds us, we resonate like a tuning fork sending out the pitch we are seeking.

 In a well known, Christmas carol, we sing these questions, “Shepherds, why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong?” The Christmas narrative is punctuated by surprising, powerful songs, almost like a Broadway music, although we have little to no idea what those songs might have sounded like. But like all music, they both reflect the energy of the divine and human experience, and more, they serve as transformational agents within that energy. The shepherds heard that angelic chorus, and were both spiritually transported and moved to travel to the site with Christ was born.

 This Sunday morning at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, music will call out to us. The Chancel Choir, joined by singers and orchestra from the Bloomington Chamber Singers, will sing excerpts of Part One of Handel’s Messiah. And the homily for the day, titled, “Advent Dreams, Advent Actions: Why This Jubilee?”, arising from Luke 2: 8-14, will reflect on the power of music in human experience generally, and particularly in faith experience. A children’s sermon will do the same. We hope to see you this Sunday at 10:30.