Love has come and never will leave us!
Love is life everlasting and free.
Love is Jesus within and among us.
Love is the peace our hearts are seeking.
Love! Love! Love is the gift of Christmas;
Love! Love! Praise to you, God on high!
(v. 3, ELW 292)
Dear NWIM Synod,
Merry Christmas! I love the words from this hymn, especially verse three. I hope whatever the short season of Christmas has held for you that it has included singing. My mom and I spent Christmas Eve and Day in Minnesota with family. My half-brother and adult niece both pulled out their guitars and even though we had sung many hymns at Christmas Eve worship, we kept singing together. It helped me begin to strengthen my weary heart and tired mind. My mom and I watched the recording of the Concordia Christmas Concert one afternoon—more beautiful sacred music. And we were back for singing in southern Minnesota churches on the First and Second Sundays of Christmas.
I have thought a great deal about how singing together is something I missed so much during pandemic days, how I love singing with youth and summer staff around a campfire at camp, how during an ELCA Youth Gathering we often sang our way home from the mass gatherings in the dome, how singing Taize chants quietly with others gives me that peace that passes understanding. And sometimes, when I cannot find my voice, I simply listen and let others carry the song. Collective or communal singing is one of the best things we can do for our spiritual, emotional, and communal health, and it is something Christians, including Lutherans, have a lot of experience with.
Our collection of hymns, songs, and musical settings of Holy Communion continues to transform. Our language for God is more expansive than when I was growing up, for which I give thanks. We have new tunes and new lyrics. Today we sing songs from many more cultures than when I was growing up—something that connects us with the global church. What we retain is a collection of prayers, stories, and poems that witness to the God of love we worship. They capture what sermons cannot.
Some of the congregations in our synod select a hymn for the year, a piece of music they return to regularly. This is something you could also do as a Bible Study group, youth group, family, or with your friends.
How could singing together even more often enrich your faith, prayers, Christian grounding, and relationships?
How could you take the gift of communal singing into other communities in your life?
Perhaps many of you are already doing this. Please share your stories. And know that when someone asks you about your own faith, it is more than okay to include in your answer whatever hymn or song seems to sum up your faith in that moment.
Finally, please take some time this year to explore the riches of our hymnals Evangelical Lutheran Worship and All Creation Sings. Use them for your collective and individual prayers and devotions.
God’s peace as we begin the new year.
Bishop Meggan
Of the Father's love begotten
ere the worlds began to be,
he is Alpha and Omega,
he the source, the ending he,
of the things that are, that have been,
and that future years shall see,
evermore and evermore.
(v. 1, ELW 295)