02/07/2024 0 Comments
From the Associate for Liturgy and Music: Beginning at the Endings
From the Associate for Liturgy and Music: Beginning at the Endings
# News
From the Associate for Liturgy and Music: Beginning at the Endings
While driving into church on Wednesday morning, I turned on the radio and heard just a bit of the funeral service for George W. Bush, which, as you might know, took place at the National Cathedral in (the other) Washington. It is an Episcopal Church that often hosts state funerals and other religious services that are of significance to all of the United States.
Perhaps especially at state funerals, we’re reminded that the mistakes and triumphs of leaders, just by virtue of their position, wound more deeply and shine more brightly because of where they are. Not unlike them, all of our lives are a combination of things we’d rather do differently: noble (and, perhaps very occasionally, heroic) choices, and evil things all of us have done that have really hurt other people. We are a mix of all of this, every one of us, people high and low.
I find myself setting these reflections alongside our readings over the last several Sundays about what will happen at the end when the Son of Man comes “with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:27) When I do, I wonder what will happen at the end of my days and the end of all of our days. What will be made of my failures and my good? What will happen when we’re gone with all of the bad, the good, and the indifferent choices of all of us have made, together?
It was something from the liturgy of the President’s service that offers something of response to these wonderings. Accompanied by the organ, I heard the congregation singing a few lines from a hymn we sing also here at St. Columba’s:
All my hope on God is founded,
he doth still my trust renew…
Mortal pride and earthly glory,
sword and crown betray our trust.
What with care and toil we build them,
tower and temple fall to dust.
These are such meaningful words to hear sung at a funeral. For in moments where I am facing the most profound questions of life - questions that really don’t have any answers - liturgy and music speaks to me. What I hear in these words is that God is bigger than our victories, our mistakes, and our forgetfulness. At the end of all, for me and for all of us, is God who loves and redeems. This good news reminds me that everything changes.
What are the deepest questions of your life? What questions do you ask about your endings and what will begin after? Where do you hear God’s reply to your questions in the music and liturgies of Advent, in this time where we find our beginnings at the endings? For me, it is where more of my own selfishness and judgement of my good and my bad is set alongside the eternal changelessness of God, in whose power and eternity all my valleys are lifted up and all of my mountains are made low. (Isaiah 40:4)
I pray that this Advent season brings you joy in your contemplation of life’s beginnings and endings.
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