Standing on the Borders in Joy: "Children of the Heavenly King"

The hymn I am reflecting on this week is "Children of the Heavenly King" by John Cennick (1718-1755).

Children of the heavenly King,
As we journey let us sing;
Sing our Savior's worthy praise,
Glorious in his works and ways.

We are traveling home to God,
In the way our fathers trod;
They are happy now, and we
Soon their happiness shall see.

Fear not, brethren; joyful stand
On the borders of our land;
Jesus Christ, our Father's Son,
Bids us undismayed go on.

Lord, obediently we'll go,
Gladly leaving all below;
Only thou our leader be,
And we still will follow thee.

Lift your eyes, ye sons of light,
Zion's city is in sight;
There our endless home shall be,
There our Lord we soon shall see. Amen.

(Tune: PLEYEL'S HYMN)

The hymn begins by addressing "children of the heavenly King." This makes me think about the joy of being called children of God: "See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are" (1 John 3:1). John goes on to write that though now we are God's children, what we will become has not yet been revealed. "What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure" (1 Jn. 3:2-3). God will be fully revealed, and at that time so will we, and we will resemble God. In hoping for this revelation and transfiguration, we purify ourselves, just as God is pure; in hoping to be like God, we become like God.

It may be this journey towards Christlikeness that Cennick's hymn describes. It is a journey that all children of God are summoned to embark on. It begins "below," or in this current state of existence and the world, and continues always "on the borders of our land," behind us being what is familiar and before us being a mystery. Our destination is "home to God." Even now, if we "lift [our] eyes," we may see "Zion's city," "our endless home" where God dwells--or at least a glimpse of it. What do these glimpses of the Holy City look like?

"As we journey let us sing." Several years ago, three friends and I climbed a mountain. It took us half a day, and one of the things I remember most about the hike was that we sang through some of it. Sometimes we took turns singing each line of a song. We began the hike at night, and as the sun was rising, I began singing "Morning has broken. . ." If I had known the lyrics, I would have sung the whole song. Singing was fun and gave me energy to keep walking when I was tired. On our journey toward God, songs give us strength.

"Sing our Savior's worthy praise, / Glorious in his works and ways." Cennick encourages us to sing in joy and worship for all of the wonderful things God has done--and the wonderful ways God has done them. God has created and continues to create us. God has saved us and is restoring us. On a personal level, God has delivered me from snares and given me many beautiful experiences. Singing about these moments feeds me.

"Fear not, brethren; joyful stand / On the borders of our land." The opposite and antidote to fear, Cennick says, is joy. Sometimes standing on a border can invoke fear. A few times as a college student, I joined a group of people at the border between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, to worship God in song, prayer, speeches, and food, with people from both sides of the border. Here was a glimpse of the Holy City: people of different nations, ages, genders, and economic statuses sharing life together. It reflected the unity in Paul's description of God's children: "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-28).

But not everyone who attended saw things that way. Once, a man interrupted the service by walking up to us and shouting at us through a megaphone. Perhaps he and the other men with him were afraid of crossing a border into hospitality by welcoming people from Mexico and Latin America. How would their attitudes toward foreigners change if they stood on the border not in fear but joy because God calls people from all nations to be children of God and members of God's family, and that such a call is an expression of God's love for us? How would my attitude change toward foreigners of all kinds if I stood on the border in the joy of God?

I have stood on spiritual borders, crossroads where I needed to decide between staying where I was or going into a new land. When I face such decisions, choosing can be terrifying because I do not know the consequences of either choice. What are the dangers? What are the blessings? How will I change? Is God leading me in a certain direction? Cennick's words encourage me to stand at such crossroads with joy. Instead of trembling, I can sing.

Jesus Christ "bids us undismayed go on" into God's realm. We can trust that God desires to lead us into God's will, and that in God's time God will give clarity. When God calls us to some specific path, sometimes it is more difficult than the hymn suggests to obediently go, "gladly leaving all below," but I am encouraged when I realize that I journey to God, who is the source of life and joy, and who gives us what we need.

As we journey and stand on borders of various kinds, may God bless us with songs and give us the strength to obediently go further into the life of God.

Let All Together Praise Our God (song)

Today is both New Years Day and the eighth day of Christmas. Although part of me wishes New Years Day fell on the first Sunday of Advent, since Advent begins the new year in the Christian calendar, it is also fitting that New Years Day comes at the heart of the Christmas season because of the newness that God brought to the world in Christ and continues to create in Christ. Also, the the novelty of God's becoming a human in Jesus continues to surprise many people even ages after it happened.

I have a book that gives a hymn each week, and last week's hymn was the Christmas carol "Let All Together Praise Our God" by Nicolaus Hermann of Bohemia (c. 1480-1561). It plainly expresses the creative activity of the Incarnation:

Let all together praise our God
Upon his lofty throne;
For he uncloses heaven today
And gives to us his Son,
And gives to us his Son.

He lays aside his majesty
And seems as nothing worth,
And takes on him a servant's form,
Who made the heaven and earth,
Who made the heaven and earth.

Behold the wonderful exchange
Our Lord with us doth make!
Lo, he assumes our flesh and blood,
And we of heaven partake,
And we of heaven partake.

The glorious gates of paradise
The angel guards no more;
This day again those gates unfold.
With praise our God adore,
With praise our God adore! Amen.
(Tune: LOBT GOTT IHR CHRISTEN; MIDI)

Through this hymn, we can praise God, who reigns from far beyond our realm, for giving to us God's very self in becoming a human. Through the Incarnation, God "uncloses heaven"; in other words, God opens and reveals heaven to us, beginning to unite God's realm with ours.

Further, through Jesus, God "lays aside his majesty / And seems as nothing worth"; the one who created heaven and earth takes on "a servant's form." Many of us would expect God incarnate to be a mighty conqueror, unmoved by our pleas, impenetrable by weapons, temptations, and sin, but Jesus is the opposite: he is born among farm animals, he is moved with compassion by the people who follow him, and he is vulnerable, so vulnerable that he dies at human hands. But through this vulnerability, God empathizes with us, and through Jesus' death humanity is saved from death. Somehow, both Jesus' birth and death reconcile us with God. Perhaps it is Jesus' whole life which reconciles us with God. Because God becomes vulnerable in Christ, we can now "of heaven partake."

The final verse says that through the Incarnation, the gates of paradise, which God had barred after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, are now open for humanity's re-entry. The book of Revelation paints a slightly different picture: rather than restoring the Garden of Eden, God gives to the world the holy city, the new Jerusalem, which descends to earth. However, within that city is a kind of garden: flowing through the middle of the city is "the river of the water of life," and on either side of the river is "the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations" (Rev. 22:1-2). No matter the details, Hermann expresses that humanity's entrance into the holy city, the new realm, does not begin on a future day, but began on Christmas Day.

So New Years Day seems to come at a fitting time for Christians. If it came during Advent, we would be jumping the gun, celebrating newness before celebrating the birth of the one who is making all things new. If it came on Christmas Day, we might focus on the newness that Jesus brought when he was born and forget the novelty that he continues to make. Instead, New Years Day comes a week after Christmas, suggesting that newness is a consequence of Christ.

Further, our celebrating New Years Day in the middle of the Christmas season reflects the Incarnation. Just as, on this day, we celebrate two events at once, following two calendars at once, so too in Christ God celebrates both holiness and profanity, Holy Spirit and human flesh, creator and creation at once.

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us." 2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Thanks to God for reconciling all things in Christ! May we be open to God's new work in us, and have the courage and willingness to participate in God's reconciliation and work of making all things new.

The Ultimate Blessing

Yesterday my Constructive Theology class was talking about the atonement through Jesus Christ. Our conversation has caused me to reflect on how, through Jesus' death and resurrection, God has blessed the world.

The church teaches that in Jesus Christ, God dwells fully. Jesus' death gives us a clear picture that God responds to sin not by retaliating with evil, but by blessing. On the cross, Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). Through forgiving his enemies, Jesus blessed those who had cursed, rejected, and murdered him.

This is consistent with what Jesus taught his disciples to do:

You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Matthew 5:38-48

Through the cross, Jesus turned the other cheek, allowing his enemies to strike the fatal blow. He gave his cloak to the soldiers who divided it among themselves. He walked the second mile on the path to his execution. Through the cross, Jesus loved his enemies.

Often it seems that blessing one's enemies instead of cursing them makes one weak, surrendering that one's power to them. But actually blessing one's enemies subverts and overcomes their power because by blessing one's enemies, one transforms their attacks into a regenerative response. Curses decay, whereas blessings create. By blessing instead of cursing, one opens the possibility to transform the cycle of violence into a cycle of healing and blessing. Rather than mimicking his enemies, Jesus reflected the power and love of God, who holds true power and is the source of all authority.

Through Jesus' death, God has blessed not only those who killed Jesus, but the whole world. While we had turned away from God, in Jesus, God turned toward us. 

We see this blessing also in Jesus' resurrection. Three days after Jesus died, God raised him from the grave, making him the first among many who will live after death. When Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection, he blessed them, saying "Peace be with you!" and then breathed on them, giving them the Holy Spirit (John 20:19-23). Whoever receives Jesus' blessing will also receive that abundant life which endures beyond death.

Who else but God, and those living in God, could respond to hatred with love, to curses with blessings?

One day early this semester, during my school's weekly Common Meal, a couple of ministers were visiting. One of them shared how, for a season, they had been persecuted for the work they were doing. One night, someone called, threatening them, and in response, the minister blessed the caller. The threats ended after that, thanks to God, but no matter what the result, in blessing their enemies, these ministers lived faithfully as followers of Jesus, resembling the perfect love of God.

As the Apostle Paul writes, "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:14, 21). Jesus' death and resurrection is God's ultimate blessing for the world which rejected the One who created all things. By dying, Jesus overcame evil with good, and after rising again, he breathed out on his disciples the Holy Spirit which empowered them and can empower us to respond to curses with blessings, and to overcome evil with good.

Where is death's sting? (song)

This afternoon at Reid Memorial Hospital, I sang in a men's quartet from West Richmond Friends Meeting. We sang the hymn "Abide with Me." It was for a memory service for families who have had early pregnancy losses, stillbirths, and early infant losses.

Teach me to be in tune

Today's joint chapel service was an introduction to unprogrammed worship, which is a Quaker form of worship in which people sit in silence waiting for God's speaking and leading. If one is led to share a message to the group, that one is encouraged to stand and speak. Sometimes people will read a scripture passage or sing a hymn.

Today we sang the hymn "Teach Me to Stop and Listen" by Ken Medema. Singing the song was a warm introduction to this form of worship. Sharing the lyrics is not the same as hearing or even singing the song, but it'll give an idea of the experience.

Teach me to stop and listen,
Teach me to center down,
Teach me the use of silence,
Teach me where peace is found.

Teach me to hear your calling.
Teach me to search your word,
Teach me to hear in silence,
Things I have never heard.

Teach me to be collected,
Teach me to be in tune.
Teach me to be directed,
Silence will end so soon.

Then when it’s time for moving,
Grant it that I may bring,
To every day and moment
Peace from a silent spring.