Lift Your Voice in Songs of Praise by Nina Faye Morey

 

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly;

teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;

and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms,

hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

~ Colossians 3:16

Have you been brave (or perhaps foolhardy) enough to be out and about shopping for gifts this Christmas season despite the current Covid-19 Pandemic? I completed all of my Christmas shopping armed with my face mask and lots of hand sanitizer. But now the Saskatchewan government has restricted us to members of our own household. So Christmas celebrations with my daughter and her family, who were planning to travel here from Alberta, will be placed on hold for the foreseeable future. Their gifts have now been stored away, and cards with a little something tucked inside have been delivered. At least, as the only person in my household, I’m allowed one guest, so I’ll still be able to celebrate with my son who lives nearby.

If you have gone out Christmas shopping this year, whether you’ve visited the huge shopping malls or just frequented the little gift shop around the corner, you’ve no doubt been either entertained or exasperated by the constant refrain of familiar Christmas carols. If, like me, you fall into the entertained category, you probably know most of the words to these carols and enjoy cheerfully singing or humming along.

No matter what troubles I might be dealing with at that moment, whenever I hear voices raised in hymns of praise to my Lord, I always experience feelings of love in my heart, joy in my spirit, and peace in my soul. These well-known and well-loved carols that Christians sing during the Christmas season are really inspirational hymns that express our love for Jesus and our thanks to God for His glorious gift.

Have you ever been curious, as I often have, about what inspired those creative songwriters to write their Christmas carols? My curiosity led me to look into the lives of some of these gifted hymn writers to find out the stories behind their expressions of praise to the Lord that I’ve listened to and sung along to for many joyous Christmas seasons: Martin Luther, father of the Reformation; Charles Wesley, co-founder of Methodism; and John Mason Neale, recognized Anglican minister and poet.

In the 1500’s, congregational hymn singing flourished under Lutheranism. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk; his wife, Katharina Von Bora, belonged to a cloister of nuns. When these nuns sought Luther’s help to escape the confines of their convent, he recruited a nearby merchant to smuggle them out in the empty barrels from the pickled herring he delivered. Luther successfully arranged marriages for all but the young, bright, and spirited Katharina. When Luther teased that he might have to marry her, his father encouraged the match. After they wed, they moved into a former Augustinian monastery on Wittenberg’s main street.

Soon their son, Hans, arrived and Luther was an adoring father. He wrote Hans a children’s Christmas carol, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.” The couple sang this renowned Lutheran carol with their children every Christmas Eve. A contemporary songbook entitled Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses, also contained another carol written by Luther that’s been one of my favourites since childhood, “Away in a Manger.” Its compiler, James R. Murray, referred to this carol as “Luther’s Cradle Hymn.” His citation read, “Composed by Martin Luther for his children and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.” Although its authorship has been disputed, many still credit Luther with writing this popular children’s carol.

Congregational hymn singing continued to thrive in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During his years of itinerant ministry in England and America, Charles Wesley, co-founder of the Methodist movement, constantly composed hymns as he completed his “circuit” on horseback. Requiring no specific creative inspiration, Wesley composed approximately 6,000 hymns during his lifetime.

Wesley was always adamant that others reprint his hymns exactly as he had written them. Fortunately, his old friend and fellow preacher, George Whitefield, wisely rewrote some of the lines from Wesley’s 1739 carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” to create the now familiar version he reprinted in his 1753 collection. This is one of my all-time favourite Christmas carols. Its rousing verses never fail to lift my spirits.

As a recognized Cambridge scholar and poet, John Mason Neale dedicated himself to the preservation of ancient churches and medieval “songs of praise.” He translated several Medieval Latin and Greek hymns into English and recovered several segments of Latin responsorial songs that he combined to create the Christmas carol, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” His research also led him to write a translation of the fourteenth-century hymn, “Good Christian Men Rejoice.” His devotion to charitable work resulted in the poem, “Good King Wenceslas,” in honour of this medieval king’s Christian charity.

We Christians, despite our diversity, are united in fellowship every Christmas by our love for these carols. These melodious hymns provide a means to convey our heartfelt gratitude for Gods’ glorious gift of redemption and abundant life through His son, Jesus Christ. So in this spirit of unanimity, let us proclaim our love for our gracious Lord and Saviour by lifting our voices in “songs of praise” this Christmas season.

 

 

Creating Beautiful Literary Art by Nina Faye Morey

We are made in the image of God, our Creator. So it’s part of human nature to want to create beautiful works, whether through art, architecture, music, or literature. As a Christian writer, I long to follow in my Creator’s footsteps. I yearn not only to create something beautiful for the delight of others, but also as a means to awaken their spirits to the goodness and glory of God and His creation.

Give to the LORD the glory due to his name;

worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

~ Psalm 29:2 AKJV

Our Lord is described as “the Word”: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Jesus told stories (parables) to illustrate His teachings, and several biblical writers created beautiful poetic books, such as the Psalms, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. Therefore, as a follower of the Lord, I feel a desire to serve Him by learning how to artfully employ words in order to proclaim the gospel.

I believe my desire to write is a divine calling from God. I view works of literary art not just as human creations, but God creating through their authors. The Holy Spirit and the beauty of God’s Word inspire me in my creative endeavours to express God’s love for the world. I wish to use my creative gift to praise God, and I hope others will experience and praise Him through my creations. I want to dramatically change readers’ hearts and transform them into worshippers of God, either by awakening a desire in their heart to get to know Him or reawakening their long-lost faith.

One of my goals is to tell God’s glorious message in a way that won’t make my writing sound preachy. That tone turns off readers, turns their hearts away from God, and it definitely doesn’t create beautiful literary art. I strive to create images or word pictures that will convey the truth of God’s Word without making it seem incomprehensible or objectionable to the uninitiated. John the Baptist, King David, Jesus, and many other great messengers of God used word pictures to preach the truth of the gospel. God generously gives me the freedom to use my creative skills to pass along the knowledge I’ve received for the benefit of others (Exodus 35:34-35).

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power

and divine nature, have been clearly perceived,

ever since the creation of the world,

in the things that have been made.

~ Romans 1:20 ESV

Just as I catch glimpses of God in the beauty of the natural world He created, I also can see His grandeur in the beautiful works of art created by the human hand. Such artistry inspires me to use figurative language, like metaphors, to create beautiful literary art that conveys the meaning and truth of the gospel message. Orson Scott Card, an American novelist whose faith influences his writing, has taught several creative writing courses and written two books on this topic. He says, “Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”¹

The great theologian, author, and hymnodist, Martin Luther, understood well the value of creating beautiful literary art to reveal the Word of God: “Certainly it is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, as I see that by these studies as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily”²

Words have the power to transform hearts and minds (Romans 12:2). The world needs more beautiful writing—poetry and prose, drama and songs—that reveals the truth.

Whose writing do you consider beautiful? How will you create beautiful literary art?

¹Orson Scott Card Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2019. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/orson_scott_card_108637, accessed July 5, 2019.

²Martin Luther, Letter to Eoban Hess, 29 March 1523. Werke, Weimer edition, Luthers Briefwechsel, 111, 50. Cited in Donald T. Williams, “Christian Poetics, Past and Present,” in The Christian Imagination: The Practice of Faith in Literature and Writing ed. Leland Ryken, Shaw Books, 2002, p. 8.

What The Reformation Did For Christianity - Bruce Atchison

It seems that almost everybody forgets the significance of the revolution which Martin Luther started on October 31, 1519 with his ninety-five theses. Ask any churchgoer about what the last day of October means and that person will most likely say, "Halloween." I feel this is a pity since the Reformation gave us Christians so much.

First of all, the Reformation gave the Bible back to the congregation. The heads of the Catholic church feared that a flood of iniquity would be unleashed if each person could interpret Scripture themselves. While it has spawned hundreds of denominations and sects, having the Bible in the hands of the people restored the gospel and placed Scripture in its rightful place as the yardstick of truth.

It also showed the people what a cash cow indulgences were. Christians indwelt with the Holy Spirit are supposed to be dead to sin. Therefore, they shouldn't be buying permission to practice it.

The Reformation likewise  broke up the monopoly which the church had on spiritual leadership. Instead of being dominated by traditions and fiats from Rome, Christians were free to appoint their own pastors and teachers. They could also pray directly to their Lord and Saviour instead of to the saints. Sins could be confessed directly to God as well.

This new freedom didn't come without a price. History records hundreds of years of bloody Catholic-Protestant wars and campaigns of slander. Additionally, the level of detestation of sacrimentalism has become so severe in some quarters that churches neglect Holy Communion and believer's baptism. Worse yet, cults have sprung up to lead naive believers astray and indoctrinate them with blasphemous lies. Though Martin Luther was warned by clerics that this would happen, he saw the greater good of people being saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

As we near the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, let's remember how it freed people from superstition and works-righteousness slavery. Let's enjoy our freedom in Christ and do good works from our salvation, not for it. Thanks to the Reformation, Bibles are no longer chained to pulpits and written in a language that had gone out of use for hundreds of years.


Bruce Atchison is a legally-blind freelance writer as well as the author of How I Was Razed, Deliverance from Jericho, and When a Man Loves a Rabbit. He lives in a small Alberta hamlet with his house rabbit, Deborah.