Although the Pilgrims never planned it so, our national harvest festival (some of us still call it Thanksgiving) occurs near the end of the Church’s liturgical year. Families and friends typically gather together at this time in a faint, secular echo of our Eucharistic feast, which in turn anticipates the great wedding feast ushered in with the second advent of our Lord.
The music in our worship this Sunday resonates with Thanksgiving and anticipates Advent. Our processional hymn, “We gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing,” has often been sung at Thanksgiving as a national hymn, the “We” taken to mean “America.” It is important to remember that the “We” throughout the hymn designates the Church Militant as she struggles “against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). Her enemies are much deadlier than those America faces, but her Defense is surer.
Our sermon hymn this week, “Hark, my soul! it is the Lord,” is by William Cowper (1731-1800), a talented and devout poet who struggled throughout his life with depression and spiritual dryness. The comforting words of Jesus in verse 4 of the hymn, “Thou shalt see my glory soon,” are addressed to an individual believer struggling to remain faithful, but it also can be received as an Advent promise.
The last line of one of our communion hymns, “Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts,” also anticipates a key theme during Advent: “Chase the dark night of sin away, Shed o’er the world thy holy light.”
Our closing hymn, Isaac Watts’s “O God, our help in ages past,” is a paraphrase of Psalm 90, combining gratitude for God’s faithfulness in the past and confident hope in God’s own being as our dwelling place.
The Offertory anthem this Sunday is also based on a paraphrase, this time of Psalm 130. The text is by Martin Luther: Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, “From deep affliction I cry to you.” This text and its associated tune were in one of the very first Lutheran hymnals published in 1524.
The choir’s Communion motet is a setting of Ave verum corpus by William Byrd (c.1540-1623). Read “A Tudor tutorial” to learn more about how this work became available to choirs thanks to the generosity of an American industrialist.