In the Easter season our “Alleluias” are bold. Many of the hymns and songs chosen for Easter have a majestic and joyful quality to them. Bells, brass, and drums often enhance organ, piano, or guitar. Yet we know that even though we are a resurrection people, we can’t always shout our praise or exude joy. “Christ has risen while earth slumbers,” a new hymn in All Creation Sings, announces the promise of resurrection while acknowledging the complexity of human experience. In the words of stanza three: 

Christ has risen to companion former friends who fear the night,
sensing loss and limitation where their faith had once burned bright.
They bemoan what is no longer, they expect no hopeful sign
till Christ ends their conversation, breaking bread and sharing wine. (ACS #938)

Drawing on imagery from the Emmaus story in Luke’s gospel, Christ comes among us as he did to those confused, fearful, and grieving disciples. This hymn’s author, John Bell of the Iona Community, is a Scottish Presbyterian pastor who writes and leads songs that often challenge our understanding and experience. He has written several books and articles about why and how we sing in community and how song shapes our witness in the world. You might enjoy listening to this 2019 interview with Bell in which he talks about some other songs of his in both ELW and ACS as well as core beliefs that shape his ministry. 

Bell’s text written in the late 1980s is paired in All Creation Sings with the tune ST.HELENA. The tune by Calvin Hampton (1938–1984) was published in 1977 without a text. It was first associated with “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy” (ELW #587). The Advent hymn “Unexpected and mysterious” was written by Jeannette Lindholm especially for this tune (ELW #258). Like both of those texts, the editors of ACS sensed that the melodic spaciousness of ST.HELENA paired well with the sense of breadth and transformation in Bell’s text. 

In the 2019 interview noted above, John Bell remarked: “The church at its best has a pastoral song which relates the pain of people as well as the joy of people.” “Christ has risen” includes the words “Christ has risen and forever lives to challenge and to change all whose lives are messed or mangled, all who find religion strange” (st. 4). Perhaps this is the only hymn we’ll encounter with the word “mangled,” but it is an honest, direct descriptor of so much of what we experience. 

Into both our joy and our pain, into our messes and challenges, Christ’s new life flows. Especially in this Easter when the pain, grief, and isolation of this year are ever palpable, this new hymn can renew our trust in the One whose Spirit dwells among us always. 

Christ is risen, Christ is present making us what he has been:
evidence of transformation in which God is known and seen. (st. 4) 

To learn more about All Creation sings, visit www.augsburgfortress.org/AllCreationSings.

Christ Has Risen While Earth Slumbers
Text: John L. Bell, b. 1949
Music: Calvin Hampton, 1938–1984
Text © 1988 WGRG, Iona Community, admin. GIA Publications, Inc.
Music © 1977 GIA Publications, Inc.
Permission required for further use. 

Image: Sundays and Seasons

Today’s post was written by Denise Rector, a PhD student at the  Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago focusing on womanist theology, race, and history. Denise was a member of the Liturgy Working Group for  All Creation Sings  and author of this lament. *

“Lamenting Racism” in All Creation Sings offers an entry point to the complexities of racism, making space to consider and mourn the effects of racism. 

Why lament? 

Why a lament, as opposed to a prayer or litany? This lament is intended as an action that acknowledges what has been broken in our relationship with our neighbor – the neighbor that we as the ELCA are called to love as we love ourselves. Specifically this lament is a way to recognize points of brokenness in the relationship between the ELCA and African Americans. 

However, even after lamenting, there is still work to do. The other theological work of lament is that it invites contemplation of confession and forgiveness, reparation, and reconciliation. As members of the ELCA, we can lament racial inequity as a reflection of a societal problem, and then work to make the church and society more equitable. We are freed in Christ to serve our neighbor by actively remediating inequity.  

Using this lament 

Please include this prayer in your worship planning. You may want to add it to worship during Black History Month or for the commemoration of the Emanuel Nine (June 17), or in vigils or healing services. But please know that this lament is not limited to a certain commemoration, church season, type of worship service, or time of year.  

This lament can be a way to begin: 

• Bible studies
• Book club discussions
• Adult education hour
• Online events
• Staff meetings

The most obvious connection may be to use this lament in situations that deal with racial or racist themes. But in reality, race – even White race – is always an issue. Therefore this lament can be used any time, for many various purposes. Be creative! You could: 

• Use as part of a personal prayer or meditation practice, changing the “we” to “I” 
• Focus on the prayer during a national time of ethnic recognition/celebration (African Descent; American Indian and Alaska Native; Indigenous Peoples within Canada; Arab and Middle Eastern; Asian and Pacific Islander; and Latinx community Heritage months) 
• Lead a discussion / plan a lesson about the lament for confirmation, adult education, etc. 

The very word “racism” engenders emotional response. And that’s OK. Some people are more comfortable than others in talking about race. Consider how some of the above could work for you or in your congregation to begin hard but necessary conversations. 

*sections adapted from Rector, Denise, The Gift of Lament: Moving from Diversity to Racial Equity in the ELCA, M.Div thesis, Wartburg Theological Seminary, 2018.

To learn more about All Creation Sings, visit www.augsburgfortress.org/AllCreationSings.

As congregations and worship leaders prepare for Ash Wednesday in this most challenging year, the ELCA Worship team offers this set of reflections by those serving the church as scholars, pastors, and bishops. Our hope is that their perspectives will provide thinking points as you reflect and prepare worship in your context.

Repentance is at the core of Christian living (the first of Luther’s 95 Theses). During the season of Lent, we all become a “penitent” with ashes on the forehead, looking toward to the cross as a sign of God’s reconciliation with all creation (with the absolution on Maundy Thursday). Ashes appear throughout the Hebrew Bible as a sign of mourning and repentance, but Isaiah reminds us that such practices point to the larger call for justice (Isa. 58:5-6). These ashes are at the very beginning (“dust” in Genesis 3:19) and connect each of us to all of creation and to our own mortality.

Ash Wednesday reflection has taken on new meaning because of the coronavirus. Some may argue that a specific day or season is not necessary since signs of impending death are all around us as the pandemic continues to claim thousands of lives and impacts millions more. But the coronavirus is not only a reminder of mortality but also the result of sins. Let me be clear here – I do not mean that the pandemic is punishment for sin, but rather that the spread of the pandemic has been aided by the sins of “neglect of human need and suffering” and “our lack of concern for those who come after us.”

The popularity of ashes-on-the-go highlights that Ash Wednesday can be commemorated outside the church building. For the sake of safety, the imposition of ashes should only take place with those in the household. Congregations could provide ashes (traditionally made from burning last year’s palm branches), or households could make their own – even all-wood charcoal would work.

When participating in digital worship, those in the household could impose ashes on each other during the appointed time in the liturgy. Those worshiping at home could use the litany of confession as a conversation guide, discussing (and then acting on) how to live into the disciplines of Lent: “self-examination and repentance, prayer and fasting, sacrificial giving and works of love.” It is not enough to just remember that “we are dust, and to dust we shall return.” As ones marked as Christ’s own children, we heed the call to repent, to ‘turn around.’

Prof. Kyle Schiefelbein-Guerrero is Steck-Miller Assistant Professor of Worship and Liturgy at United Lutheran Seminary. Prof. Schiefelbein-Guerrero explores “Living the Liturgical Year in Pandemic Times” in a new video series. Look for an entry about  Ash Wednesday in the coming weeks.

The power of receiving the cross on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday is in the layering: there is a sign of sin and death traced and layered on top of the tracing in water and oil of the promise of life, rebirth, and liberation from sin and death. On Ash Wednesday, we feel the full weight of the ashy tracing. It does not negate or obliterate the liberating sign it is layered with, but it is a suitably tangible reminder of the reality of grief, loss, and death.

The questions that have helped guide my reflections and exploration of Ash Wednesday this year have been basic: What is Ash Wednesday? What does it do? I’ve found help in the ELW Pattern for Worship (Pew Edition, p. 248; Leader’s Desk Edition, p. 612.) That led me to Welcome to Baptism (ELW Pew Edition, p. 232; Leader’s Desk Edition, p. 592), which led me to conversation with Episcopalian and Roman Catholic folks involved in the ecumenical catechumenate. Michael Marchal, a Roman Catholic writer and educator, and I talked about the ancient origins of Ash Wednesday (more focused on penitence) and creative possibilities for adapting the rite this year. We found common ground in a focus on baptism and the cross. The cross we trace on each other within our households or on ourselves is an embodied reminder that God is where we’d least expect an all-powerful being to be; a connection to both the reality of sin and death as well as to the promise of baptism.

Blessings on your caring and creative approaches to Ash Wednesday this year. It will be different; things are different this year. Christ will meet you there.

Bishop Anne Edison-Albright is Bishop of the East-Central Synod of Wisconsin. An expanded version of this reflection is found on Bishop Edison-Albright’s blog.

Most of my personal study and continuing education for the last several months has been focused on trauma-informed care, recognizing that living through the varied events of the last year affects not only our spirit but also our mind and body, and requires adaptations honoring this challenging new space. A best practice for trauma-informed care is to remember that significant stress and trauma are not just intellectual exercises. Our bodies respond to and reflect the events of the day. It may be using prayer beads or a finger labyrinth to make home worship feel more real or wrapping myself in a favorite sweater or soft blanket when I miss the comforting hugs of family and friends. Being mindful of how my body responds to grief and loss and finding ways to care for and comfort it has been both personally and professionally beneficial.

Ash Wednesday is such a powerful experience because we experience it physically. Even when our minds are not fully able to understand the scope of what is to come, when our spirits reject the pain of Jesus’ last days, our bodies remember. Wearing the cross of ashes as a bodily exercise is Jesus meeting us in our body’s anxiety and sadness and being with us there. As an Ash Wednesday discipline, I am encouraging my parishioners to consider ways their body can hold the day’s realities. What rituals, symbols, or actions can help us confront the fragile beauty of these brief, powerful moments of life? How can we remember that we are called to journey with Jesus and pray with him over the next 40 days, knowing what is to come? Our minds may not have the answer, but our bodies carry ancient wisdom.

The Rev. Carla S. Christopher Wilson is Assistant to the Bishop in Charge of Justice Ministries for Lower Susquehanna Synod, ELCA and Associate Pastor of Faith Formation and Outreach at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of a journey when we remember Jesus’ ministry, his ability to heal and care for humanity, and at the same time, his passion, death, and overall, his glorious resurrection. In a “typical” year it might seem too soon to even talk about Easter on Ash Wednesday. However, I don’t know if that’s the case for 2021.

We have been in a sort of Ash Wednesday and Lenten journey for so long already. We have been on a journey in which we have witnessed pain, suffering, and even death. More and more people dying due to COVID-19, political upheaval in the nation, racism, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, violence, injustice, poverty, and many other issues seem endless. We yearn for that Easter moment.

Before Easter happened two millennia ago there was suffering, pain, anguish, uncertainty, fear, and death. Although pain and suffering are not God’s desire for us, they are an inevitable reality in this human life both then and now.

We say or hear on Ash Wednesday the remarkable phrase: “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” This year it can be an invitation for us to talk and grieve with our communities about how awfully painful these days are. We are invited to do so, however, while keeping the other real fact in mind: Those words are said and heard on a day in which we also know that, even in the midst of suffering and death, Easter is also our reality.

May your Ash Wednesday proclamation and celebration this year be a glimpse of realistic hope that will help us to face together these excruciating and painful times. We know that Easter will come. Though tomorrow is uncertain, we do know that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!

The Rev. Alejandro Mejia is Chaplain Resident at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Image Credits: Pearls of Life. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Ugandan Risen Christ, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.

The days of Christmas are typically a time to sing beloved carols. This year when we are gathered in our homes, it may be especially comforting to sing familiar Christmas carols. While singing songs etched on our minds and hearts is important, we affirm that as creative people made in God’s image we create and seek out new ways to sing the story of Christmas.

All Creation Sings provides six hymns and songs under the Christmas heading; the topical index offers additional suggestions. While some of these may be familiar from their inclusion in other resources, some are brand new to an ELCA worship book. One of these is the hymn, “Night Long-Awaited / Noche anunciada” by Félix Luna (text) and Ariel Ramírez (music).

While new to our resources, this hymn was composed in the 1960s. It is an excerpt from “Navidad Nuestra: A Folk Drama of the Nativity Based on the Rhythms and Traditions of Hispanic America.” Published for mixed chorus and soloists with percussion, guitar and harpsichord/piano, it included text in both Spanish and English. The performance notes in the original score describe it: “Navidad Nuestra—Our Nativity—was created for a criollo retable—a native tableau—where each moment of the Mystery of the Incarnation is expressed in a popular manner, with all the tenderness that the Miracle of two thousand years ago evokes in the spirit of the simple people.” Each section used a different regional voice.

Félix Luna, Argentine poet, collaborated with Ariel Ramírez, an Argentine and internationally celebrated choral composer, in this tender and simple hymn. Of course, we are also indebted to the work of translators. The version of “Night Long-Awaited” in All Creation Sings was translated by Adam Tice (ACS also includes five of his original hymns). Translations allow the texts to speak anew to us in every generation, but it’s interesting to point out one feature of the original text that changed over time.

The end of stanza two of the version published for mixed chorus in 1965 reads:

When He is smiling, Radiance glows,
And in His arms, a tiny cross grows.

The recent translation reads:

Light for our shadows, grace for our loss;
Born for our dying, bearing our cross.

Both settings connect the incarnation to the death of Jesus.

Unlike “Silent Night,” this hymn incorporates “redeeming grace” with more direct references to the arc of salvation through Jesus, that “all that is broken shall be restored” (stanza 2). Like “Silent Night,” the music ushers us into a sense of stillness and awe, complete with beautiful four-part harmony.

Several recordings exist of this. José Carreras sings the hymn in this recording. Though it is pitched in a higher key, it captures the simple beauty of this hymn. You can also hear it in the key of C in this less formal recording.

The hymn concludes:

Now is God’s promise born in the night,
wake to its fullness; live in its light.
Christ comes among us; people, draw near!
Come to the manger; Christmas is here.

May a treasury of songs, both old and new, fill your hearts and homes this Christmas.

To learn more about All Creation sings, visit www.augsburgfortress.org/AllCreationSings.

Night Long-Awaited / Noche anunciada
Text: Félix Luna, 1925-2009; tr. Adam M. L. Tice, b. 1979
Music: Ariel Ramírez, 1921-2010
Text and music © 1965 Lawson-Gould, admin. Alfred Music
Permission required for further use.

Image: Sundays and Seasons

The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic God’s giving, by grace, through faith, and this is not of ourselves. —Nicholas

On December 6 the church commemorates Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, or as he is more commonly called, St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was a fourth-century bishop, serving for twenty-five years in a city that is now in Turkey. Stories of his care for children led to his being named the protector of children and eventually to his evolution into Santa Claus. In some northern European places, December 6, Nicholas’s death day, is the day of winter gift-giving (see More Days for Praise [Augsburg Fortress, 2016], 282).

In this time when we are often worshiping at home, it is very fitting to find ways to mark St. Nicholas Day at home.

Here are some ideas:

• St. Nicholas Eve. On the eve of St. Nicholas Day (December 5), have children place a shoe or boot outside their bedroom door. Parents or caregivers can fill the shoe with little gifts, much as you would a Christmas stocking. Gold coins are the traditional gift, associated with the legend of St. Nicholas providing dowries in the form of bags of gold to three impoverished young girls, to save them from prostitution.
• Act of kindness. Have each family member draw another family member’s name from a hat. Perform a secret act of kindness for the person whose name you have drawn.
• Surprise your neighbors. You can leave a small gift such as a tin of cookies on a neighbor’s doorstep. You could include a simple note, mentioning a little about St. Nicholas and his generosity.
• Keep Advent. St. Nicholas Day might be a way to gradually introduce Christmas decorating while still observing Advent. Perhaps you hang Christmas stockings on St. Nicholas Day or make your plans for giving to others in need this season. Check out the ELCA’s Good Gifts catalog.

For more about St. Nicholas, visit https://www.stnicholascenter.org.

We are inspired and encouraged by singing together. Not being able to do so has made this pandemic time immensely challenging and grief-filled. We long to join our voices as one in our sung praise and prayer. With All Creation Sings soon to be released amid such challenges, worship leaders rightly wonder how best to use the resource when we are not yet able to sing together in worship.

One feature of ACS is the inclusion of many short songs; they make up nearly one-fourth of the collection. In recent decades, the church has witnessed greater interest in “paperless singing,” that is, singing together without printed or projected words or music for worshipers. While a more recent practice in many worshiping communities, the oral tradition of music-making precedes our singing from published materials. It may seem odd, then, to include them in a printed collection, yet their presentation in a bound volume allows the church to know about these songs, even if best sung without singing directly from the book itself.

This time of pandemic presents some unique opportunities around such short, “paperless” songs.

Home Use
Incorporate these short songs in home worship. Since many songs are a single melody line, keyboard skills are not a necessity; any instrument or the voice alone would suffice. We read in Deuteronomy, “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them…when you lie down and when you rise” (Deut. 6:7). Short scripture songs such as “What does the Lord require of you” (from Micah 6), “Though the earth shall change” (based on Psalm 46), and “If we live, we live to the Lord” (based on Rom. 14:8) provide ways to surround our days with God’s word. They can be sung as part of bedtime prayers, family worship, around the dinner table, and at other times.

Outdoor settings
Transporting instruments and sound systems outside can be challenging. While many communities incorporate instruments aided by amplification in successful ways, the short songs in ACS require sparse, if any, accompaniment. Like singing in outdoor camp settings, these songs can be led in a call and response format. Even if the whole assembly could not yet join in, two or more soloists could model the call and response. Invite the assembly to accompany the songs with movement. Songs that would work especially well are “May God bless us / Bwana awabaraki,” “Guide my feet,” and “Come, bring your burdens to God / Woza nomthwalo wakho,” among others.

Online gatherings
Those who have been planning and experiencing music in an online format know well the difficulties this format presents. When it’s not possible to sing synchronously, a leader may sing lines of a short song and then pause for silence while those at home sing back (even if they can’t be heard by the leader). Or such short songs could be sung in an online choir gathering. Their brevity would allow different singers to sing a line rather than having the whole group sing together. For more about how short songs might be experienced virtually, see recent blogs and webinars offered by Music that Makes Community.

During this time we are apart, the words and melodies in All Creation Sings can be imprinted in our ears, minds, and hearts so we’ll be ready to participate more fully when we can sing together. Consider this a time of discovery along the way. In addition, the prayers and songs in ACS can enrich individual prayer and reflection.

As we approach Advent, we pray fervently for Christ’s peace to come among us.

Let your peace rain upon us,
O living God of peace.
Let your peace rain upon us,
Lord, fill our hearts with your peace. (ACS 989)

Let Your Peace Rain Upon Us / Yarabba ssalami.
Text: Palestinian traditional; tr. Mark Swanson, b. 1955 and Mark Sedio, b. 1954
Music: Palestinian traditional
English text © 2020 Augsburg Fortress
Permission required for further use by contacting Augsburg Fortress or reporting to One License.