Thursday, January 1, 2015

Epiphany from the Americas: Tuesday, January 6th

Epiphany means “manifestation.”  This festival of the church celebrates the revealing of Christ to the Gentiles.  Light is a big image for this service, recalling the star that the magi followed until they found the house where Jesus was with his mother.  The gifts they offered are heavy with meaning: gold fit for a king, myrrh for anointing, and richly perfumed incense.

This year’s Epiphany service at St. Mark’s has an underlying musical theme: Epiphany from the Americas.

The Americas are the combined land masses of North America and South America, along with the outlying islands – what early explorers named “the new world.”  The Americas are blessed with a rich diversity of cultures, so it’s not surprising that native (or nearly native) music is filled with tantalizing rhythms, poignant texts, and ethnic melodies.

Here are a few of the musical highlights from the service:

Kyrie and Glory to God from setting six of Evangelical Lutheran Worship (African-American inspired)

Santo, Santo, Santo and O Lamb of God from setting seven of ELW (Latin-American inspired)

Halle, Halle, Hallelujah from the Caribbean as the gospel acclamation

Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow, an African-American spiritual

Many and Great, O God, a hymn of the Lakota Native-Americans

‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime, a hymn from Native-Americans in Canada

Epiphany Carol, sung to the tune Beach Spring which is named for a church in Georgia, USA

. . .and more!

I am sure you will be surprised at how much of this music you already know.

Epiphany is the last day of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany arc of stories and readings from our Christian tradition.  We have waited through four weeks of Advent. We are still celebrating twelve days of Christmas. For this final festival, the Holy Spirit gathers us to bear witness to the light of Christ and sends us out to carry that light into the world – not just the new world, but the whole world.

                                Tuesday Evening, January 6th at 7:00 p.m.


top photo: by David Nunley, used with permission
middle photo: Lakota art work via Wikipedia
bottom photo: photo by Andre Cruz, used with permission

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