Reflections on "O Vos Omnes" and suffering

(I wrote this in 2006. I found it the other day when we started practicing a new "O Vos Omnes" in choir, and thought it was good enough to share.)

What does it mean to share Christ’s suffering?  This
is the question I’ve been thinking on all year.  In
going through anything that is difficult or painful, I
hesitate to say that I am doing as Paul said and
sharing in Christ’s suffering.  Obviously, there is a
lot of emotional and physical pain that doesn’t fit
that description at all.  So, what does fit that
description?  How do we share Christ’s suffering and
thus also His resurrection, as well as His redeeming
work in the world?

I’ve been meditating on the meaning of the text of “O
Vos Omnes” all year, as it has been presented to me in
various musical and devotional forms-- not by
accident, I think, but by God’s leading.

The first type of suffering indicated by the plain
historical interpretation of Lamentations is suffering
because of one’s own sin.  The people of Israel had
sinned, God sent them punishment because of it, and
they lament because of how painful it is for them.
Secondarily, they cry out to God to save them, and
eventually show a sort of repentance.  This, I think,
is the kind of suffering that is the farthest from
Christ’s:  self-pity for something that is actually
one’s own fault, not to mention putting self-pity
ahead of the repentance that God was trying to bring
about by the chastisement.  “Is it nothing to you, all
you who pass by?  Pay attention and see if there is
any sorrow like my sorrow.”

Secondly, this verse is the voice of the prophet
speaking for all Israel.  There is no evidence that
Jeremiah was included in the sins which brought about
the suffering; in fact, the contrary is true.
However, as a part of the chosen people of God, he
also carries the pain of God’s chastisement.  This
could be likened to Christ’s suffering to a certain
extent.  When we are in emotional or physical pain
because we see sin all around us but long for
holiness, we are like Jeremiah.  When we suffer
because someone else’s sins have caused us pain, we
can be like the prophet and call people’s attention to
our sorrow at the unholiness of their life or that of
the world in general.   “Is it nothing to you, all you
who pass by?  Pay attention and see if there is any
sorrow like my sorrow.”  Pay attention, and come over
to the side that mourns over unholiness in your own
life and in others’ lives!  Is this Christlike
suffering?


Then there is the tradition which puts these verses
into the mouth of the suffering Messiah.  The One who
does not deserve punishment for sin exchanges his
deserving of no pain for our deserved punishment. “I
came that they might have life... My joy I give to
you... My peace I give to you.”  This is redemptive
suffering; it causes a real change in creation.  When
Christ calls to us  “Is it nothing to you, all you who
pass by?  Pay attention and see if there is any sorrow
like my sorrow,” I believe He is inviting us to see
the depths of our sin by what it cost Him but He is
also calling us to stop sinning and share in His
redemptive task.

We aren’t able to suffer blamelessly because all of us
are, like the prophet Isaiah, “of unclean lips and of
a people of unclean lips”; like Jeremiah, even when we
suffer because of the sins of others, we always know
that we are not entirely innocent.  How can we share
Christ’s suffering in a way that is redemptive?

There is another tradition surrounding “O Vos Omnes”
that puts these words into the mouth of Mary the
mother of Jesus as she stands by the cross of her Son.
The “Stabat Mater” (At the cross, her station
keeping/Stood the mournful mother weeping/As He hung,
the dying Lord...”) is combined in devotional settings
with “O Vos Omnes” and invites people to come to
Christ as they see the sorrow of His mother standing
beside the cross. (“Jesus, may her deep devotion/Stir
in me the same emotion,/ Fount of love, redeemer kind.
That my heart, fresh ardor gaining/And a purer love
obtaining/May with Thee acceptance find.”) Her
suffering was prophesied by Simeon: “and a sword shall
pierce your own soul too”.  Mary’s willingness to obey
God brought her sorrow as she saw God’s plan unfolding
for Jesus’ life.  In saying “Yes” to God when she was
young, she agreed that God’s will was best, even
though she didn’t know what it would bring her later
on.  Mary, like Jeremiah, suffered as she brought God
incarnate to the world, and the longer she knew Him
the more she was involved in His passion for the rest
of mankind.

Most of us said “Yes” to God with a minimum of
information about what that would mean later on in our
lives.  As we seek to follow God daily, as we get to
know His heart better, sometimes we end up in
situations we never expected which cause us suffering.
Is this sharing Christ’s suffering?  As we learn to
share Christ’s heart for holiness, and try to bring
Him to the world, we will experience pain.  I think
that is what is meant by “sharing in Christ’s
suffering”.  When we sing “O Vos Omnes”, we are
alternately representatives of the sinful world under
chastisement and of Christ’s holiness meeting the
sinfulness in the world.  While we live in the world,
there will always be both sides of suffering.  The
better we know Christ, the more we can share in His
suffering, and also the more He will allow us to share
in His work of redeeming and restoring all creation,
and to share in His victory.

A blessing on your work

 Blessings already received

Some of our works begin with the blessing of the pastor and the community of believers. Ordination of a minister or elder, commissioning of missionaries, marriage, dedication or baptism of a baby, adult baptism marking the individual's decision to follow Christ, entrance into a monastic order: all these involve a public blessing from the Body of Christ. Once you are "in," though, you are done. You have received your ordination and official appointment. No more ceremonies of blessing for you!


Consecrate your new job
 
Some people, like me, take one job and stick with it for their whole working life. I was commissioned from Trinity Baptist Church in Vancouver, BC, when I started my missionary journey in 1981. The pastor and community laid hands on me. They sent me to my calling in Japan with their blessing, and I am still here (and blessed.) However, not all singles have the opportunity to be blessed and sent, ever. Married people may have received a public blessing on their new family, but do they receive a blessing for their secular job? What if we had a public blessing for each worker as they begin a new job? What if we, the Body of Christ, consecrated and sent each member out as they begin each new job

Think how our sense of calling would change if the Church "sent us out" as an elementary teacher, an engineer, a waitress or cashier or chef or plumber! Perhaps if we had individual prayer and laying on of hands by the pastor and church, just as ministers, missionaries, elders and deacons receive for their calling within the church, we would know our secular job to be God's place for us and would "go out" backed by prayer. People who change jobs could be blessed for their new calling. What would we have? Consecrated electricians, nurses, computer technicians, dry cleaners, pizza delivery people. A people belonging to God, fulfilling their priestly calling in the world (1 Peter 2:9) and hallowing all of creation.


Accept the blessings given

Even if individual blessing services for jobs out in the world are not a part of your church tradition (and likely they are not,) every week you receive a pastoral blessing as a congregation at the end of the service. Own that blessing. It is for all and especially for you. For you who have never received the laying on of hands for any church position. For you who were baptized or confirmed or commissioned or ordained years ago. It is new for you, this Sunday, this week, as you are sent out into God's world as His priests and caretakers of creation.

Bless your co-workers and yourself
 
We can bless each other during the week, too. Assuming that we pray for one another, how would our awareness of our work change if we greet one another with a blessing? What if we encounter a brother or sister co-worker whom we know is going into a difficult half-hour, and bless them with "The Lord be with you" or "God bless your next class" or whatever would be appropriate? Bless yourself too, of course. Ask the Lord, your High Priest, who is always with you, for a blessing for your next ensemble practice, your next painting job, your next meal that you cook. In the book Pilgrimage to Dzhvari by Valeria Alfeyeva, a novice monk goes out to trim some grass, somewhat unsuccessfully. The older monk asks him to think about why his work was not as good as he had expected. The young monk replies that perhaps he should have picked another tool. The older monk says, "No, it is because you did not ask for a blessing before beginning."

I leave you with this blessing:

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭14‬ NIV)

Why do we play with words?

Why do we like playing with words?

In every language I have studied, people like to play with words. We enjoy throwing around the humor of substituting two similar-sounding words for each other and laugh at the image it creates. We write anagrams. We play with onomatopoeia. We rhyme things (in Western languages, anyway.) We make up silly-sounding poems for our children. From the time humans begin to talk, they love to play with words. Why?

I think the main reason is because we are made in God's image. He created all things by speaking a word. The Gospel of John tells us that He is the Word. We create, to a much lesser extent, with words. God did not only create the huge serious galaxies by His word; He also created turtles and bunny rabbits and snails with eyes on flexible stems. We too can create large things, which are either blessings or curses, through words. But more often in our everyday life we can imitate the Creator by creating small decorations of humor and joy through what we say.

English often uses rhyme for enjoyment. For example, small children love the phrase "See you later, alligator! After a while, crocodile!" It is fun, not only because it rhymes, but because it is nonsensical. Once given a rhyming pattern, children love to continue the pattern by making up new phrases. One reason Dr. Seuss books were, and continue to be, popular children's literature is that they combine children's natural love for rhyme, rhythm and nonsense. Of course, it is not only children who love them!

One of the German phrases I was taught by a friend utilizes another form of play: adding letters to a word to form a word with contrasting meaning. I had commented, "I'm innocent! I'm an angel!" and he responded, "Ein Engel mit ein B bevor." "An angel with a B" becomes "Bengel," which apparently means "a naughty child."

One of my greatest joys in the Japanese language is seeing how easy it is to play with numbers and meaning. For example, a flower shop has as the four last digits of its phone number "1187." This can be read "ii hana" which means "good flowers." Another play with words I enjoyed was from an optometrist:"ai ai ai" which (if you use English meanings for the first and last words) means "I love eye." And what other country would designate 11/11 as "dogs' day" because "wan wan" (woof woof, used as the children's word for "doggie") sounds like English "one one"?

God has created us with the ability to play with words and to make the world a more enjoyable place by doing so. "The Word became human, and lived for a while among us, full of grace and truth." I think part of this grace is to bless our world not only with strong and deep words that are like majestic mountains, but also with playful words like playing kittens. He created all, and us in His image.

And heaven and nature sing

And heaven and nature sing

“And heaven and nature sing.” This phrase immediately draws one’s mind to Christmas. So why is it the blog title I have chosen? Because I believe that Christ’s incarnation, God-becoming-part-of-His-own-creation, is the focal point of history. Because I believe that Christ’s incarnation touches all creation. Because the incarnation of Christ was the beginning of healing for all created things. Because I am happy to be a musician, and part of the singing of all creation in praise to God-become-human, Emmanuel, God-with-us.

And heaven

In the Psalms, “heaven” or “the heavens” (ha-shamayim) refers to the part of creation we usually call the sky. It includes stars and planets and the great expanse of the universe. How does heaven sing? A few years ago, science showed that some planets have a hum, a particular vibration. In an article somewhere, it was stated that one of the planets was humming a Bb! This is reminiscent of another hymn, “All nature sings, and ‘round me rings/The music of the spheres.” In the book of Job, “the morning stars sang together for joy.”

We can also think of “heaven” as being that other realm, the place where God reigns and His will is obeyed: “on earth as it is in heaven.” Those who want to follow Christ should be daily seeking the culture of heaven in this sense. What do the angels of heaven do? They worship God. They protect us. They do God’s bidding. They also rejoice that they have the privilege of serving Him. Thus, they sing.

And nature

The contrast between “heaven” and “nature” is not, here, a distinction between uncreated and created; the heavens, the angels, the earth and all it contains are all made by God, who is distinct from them. In this hymn, “nature” seems to refer to things of the earth: mountains, rivers, trees, animals. The earth, where we live, gives us the opportunity to see God’s creativity up close. It also lets us see nature “singing.” Listen to the rustling of the leaves in a forest, the song of autumn insects, flowing water, the wind rushing over the plains. Listen to a vent in a volcano, the rumble of an earthquake, a downpour of rain. Nature sings. Sometimes it is frightening to us humans, but the sounds nature makes are beautiful, and in obedience to the Creator.

Let every heart prepare Him room

Where are people in all of this, besides being a part of nature? Where does the individual human come in? The line before “and heaven and nature sing” gives us the answer: “Let every heart prepare Him room.” There have been many responses to the news that God became human, born of Mary. The response encouraged here is an invitation to every individual to open their hearts to Christ. At Christmas, this is easy to do; who would reject a baby? But Christ the one who challenges us, the one who chased the moneylenders out of the temple with whips, the one who says repeatedly “You have heard it said… But I say unto you…” is the one for whom we should make room in our hearts, the one we need to imitate in our lives, the one we should sing to and about.

Joy to the world! The Lord is come! Let earth receive her King.

Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing.

Why? Because the Lord’s coming as a human to His world is the focal point of history. The Lord came to bring joy to the world. Our response, along with all of creation, should be to sing.

(All photographs are my own.)