This Sunday we will have a joy-filled celebration as if we were attending a family wedding! This photo is from the wedding of my nephew Anthony and Mariah’s last September. In Isaiah 62 we read: For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you. In Psalm 36 we read: How priceless is your love, O God! your people…feast upon the abundance of your house; you give them drink from the river of your delights. In 1 Corinthians 12 we read: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. In John 2 we read: the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The wedding at Cana demonstrates how Jesus first revealed his glory by turning water into wine and his disciples first began to believe in him!
Our Processional hymn will be a joyful one that we sing often, Christ is the world’s true light. Our Sequence hymn is an ancient chant with contemporary text, O Holy Spirit, by whose breath, translated by John Webster Grant in 1968. It’s a translation of the Latin hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus. Although the ancient text acquires a modern face with the freshness of Grant’s translation, the ancient and Biblical images are still very much present: we sing of the Spirit as “breath” and “fire”, as “giver and Lord of life”; as “energy” and giver of gifts; as source of light and love; and as bringer of peace, fullness, and unity. (Psalter Hymnal Handbook, hymnary.org)
Our St. Martin’s Choir will sing Creating God, Your Fingers Trace, an arrangement by Ralph Johnson of Jeffery Rowthorn’s hymn, using the traditional English folk tune O Waly Waly. Johnson is a composer and church musician working in the Twin Cities, Minnesota area as Director of Music at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Minneapolis. (2012 Kjos Music Press)
Creating God, your fingers trace the bold designs of farthest space;
Let sun and moon and stars and light and what lies hidden praise your might.
Sustaining God, your hands uphold earth’s mysteries known or yet untold;
Let water’s fragile blend with air enabling life, proclaim your care.
Redeeming God, your arms embrace all now despised for creed or race;
Let peace, descending like a dove, make known on earth your healing love.
Indwelling God, your gospel claims one family with a billion names;
Let every life be touched by grace until we praise you face to face. Jeffery Rowthorn
(1979 The Hymn Society, Hope Publishing Co.)
Our Communion hymn is a new one, Jesus, come, for we invite you, written by Christopher Idle in 1979. Idle was born in Bromley Kent in 1938 and served as a Church of England priest in Cumbria, London and Suffolk. He served on the editorial groups for several Anglican hymnals and has written hundreds of hymns. He often speaks on issues of peace, war and Christian mission. The hymn invites Jesus to celebrate the wedding feast with us and become a part of our lives. This text is set to the familiar Sicilian Mariners tune which suggests a party atmosphere. This tune is traditionally used for the Roman Catholic Marian hymn O Sanctissima, that you will hear as this Sunday’s prelude. According to tradition, Sicilian seamen ended each day on their ships by singing this hymn. It probably traveled from Italy to Germany to England. It also appears to have had an influence on the African American song We Shall Overcome. (Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988)
Our final hymn will be sung in honor of Martin Luther King Day: Lift every voice and sing. It is considered to be the black national anthem and calls for everyone, no matter who they are or where they come from, to lift their voice and sing for freedom. May we continue to enjoy this wedding celebratory sensation throughout the coming weeks!
