“The World Awaiting the Saviour” – Elisa Williams Bickers
I am a professional church musician. Actually, I have been a church musician since I was twelve years old, when I started to learn the organ and had my first “church gig.” Since that time, my life has revolved around the liturgical calendar. I was raised as a good Lutheran girl, and played in a good Lutheran church, and our church gave proper Lutheran attention to all the feasts and seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Pentecost, Reformation Sunday (Does that count as a feast? It did for us…), and so forth. Colors changed; psalm tones changed; we nixed “Alleluias” during Lent, and then brought them out in full force on Easter Sunday. On Reformation Sunday, a church member who already looked pretty well like Martin Luther would don Renaissance clothing and pontificate to the crowd about things like congregational hymnody and various sizes of catechisms. It was a good time.
Advent was always a very special time for my family. Of course we had an Advent calendar that my mom and grandmother had made. Little felt pockets numbered one to twenty-five each hid a treasure of some sort, which my sister and I would race to discover every morning. Mom filled the house with cookies, and dad led the Christmas tree brigade, tending to and watering our live tree with care. Tunes from the “Glad” Christmas album and Barry Manilow swirled throughout the house for the whole month of December. There was a palpable sensation of expectancy – you couldn’t miss it.
And at church, we listened to readings from the Gospels and Isaiah. Every Sunday, another advent wreath candle was lit. On Christmas Eve, our small sanctuary was filled with candlelight as we sang beloved carols and listened, enraptured, to the story of Mary and Joseph’s long journey, and the birth of our little baby savior. It wasn’t a new story. We could all tell it, with every detail, because we’d heard it so many times. But on Christmas Eve, one is ripe with anticipation, eager to hear that old familiar story again because we know what the outcome is. Peace, right? Enveloped in a single baby would come a peace that the world hadn’t yet known; a leader who would teach and encourage and change hearts and souls so profoundly that we still look to him today. The world would change, and for the better. “Christ was born to save; Christ was born to save!”
Peace, right?
Where?
The world isn’t peaceful, not even after our savior was born. The promised turning, the new life, good will to all… where is it? Did I miss it? Or have all of those beloved Christmas carols lied to us all this time?
Today, this month, we are living in the murky reality of terrible violence and unrest – abroad, in Ferguson, Missouri, in countless homes. In Johnson County, where I live, the average age of a homeless person is seven years old. SEVEN. Politicians lie and cheat, and so do lots of spouses. Teen drivers back into my in-laws at a stoplight, whilst on the phone, and then drive away (true story).
Several years ago, I studied and performed Marcel Dupré’s Passion Symphony. It’s a dramatic, amazing four-movement work for solo pipe organ, and each movement is inspired by a different phase of Christ’s life: first, “The World Awaiting the Saviour” (in other words, Advent); second, “Nativity;” third, “Crucifixion;” and fourth, “Resurrection.”
In the first movement, Dupré paints a picture of a world in great imbalance. The time signature puts five and seven beats in a measure, which robs the listener of any clear rhythmic arrival points. The repeated chords, dissonant and discombobulated, create great suspense. What are we doing? Who’s in charge? Is somebody coming to clean up this mess? This is the world awaiting a Savior….
Then, out of the chaos, there’s a pause. And the music changes character, going from a cacophony that seems to lack direction to a peaceful quotation of the sixth-century Christmas chant “Jesu Redemptor Omnium.” The text of that chant is one of praise and hope. This is the reminder of that promise of Advent: with the coming of Christ, there will be redemption and peace. Even with the chaos close behind. And musically, the chaos soon returns, and after that delightful reprieve, we’re thrust back into senselessness. It seems the peace of that chant is long gone… until Dupré forces the disarray into order by surrounding it in the highest and lowest voices with that Christmas chant, at full forte. Musically and theologically, the point that this communicates is that maybe there will never be only one or the other; peace or unrest; plenty or want. The truth of a grown-up world is that no reality looks like The Hundred Acre Wood. There are those that would do harm whenever given the chance; there is severe thirst and crippling depression; and there are situations large and small that will never, ever know resolution.
Tom Are, Jr., our brilliant senior pastor, points out that it’s always Advent, it turns out – regardless of any actual proximity to Christmas. Twelve months out of the year, we live in a place of expectancy, of hope that the world is about to turn. And we must live in a way that demonstrates that we are doing all that we can to see that swords get beaten into plowshares, and that lions lie down with lambs. The view of the hopeful Christian is that not all is lost, even in the face of devastating facts. Because there are thousands of food pantries around this country that work tirelessly to bring nutrition and a smile to hungry families. There are ordinary people with extraordinary courage and heart that will stand up for a neighbor that has been wronged and say to the community “This is NOT okay with me.” And even if they are hard to find, there are moments of relief in a schedule packed with activity and obligation where a husband and wife can look at each other and reconnect briefly, before the toddler rediscovers the drawer with the checkbooks and makes art out of stamps and permanent markers.
Hear Rolande Falcinelli play this magnificent movement here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qS2c4tQ6Jo
This week on Ecclesio.com, we turn to music, and tell stories of the songs that inspire us. Stay tuned, and turn your speakers on.
Elisa Williams Bickers is active across the country as a solo and ensemble organist and harpsichordist. She serves at Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village Kansas; she is Principal Organist for sanctuary worship and lead musician for The Gathering (Village’s alternative worship service). She is also organist and harpsichordist with the chamber ensemble Bach Aria Soloists, and has taught at Washburn University and the UMKC Conservatory. Dr. Bickers received first prize and the hymn-playing prize in the graduate division of the 2006 William Hall Competition. In 2009, she was awarded the Carlin Award for excellence in teaching, and competed in the International Buxtehude Competition in Lübeck. She was a semi-finalist in the 2010 National Young Artists Competition in Organ Performance. Dr. Bickers began her organ studies with the Potomac Organ Institute in Washington D.C. She has degrees from Texas Christian University and the University of Kansas. Her teachers include Dale Krider, H. Joseph Butler, and Michael Bauer.