The lectionary gives us a beautiful resurrection story on Easter, but it's not the story of Easter morning. It's the story of Easter evening found in Luke 24:13-53.
In fact, this story is so dearly beloved by the Church that we hear it three times this year.
Note that the Revised Common Lectionary is a three-year cycle, so this year we hear the road to Emmaus story on the Third Sunday of Easter, but even in years B and C the story appears twice.
I love this story, which appears immediately after the story of Jesus' resurrection in Luke's gospel. It is the first resurrection appearance.
The meal at which the two disciples (one of whom is named Cleopas; the other's name is lost to history) recognize Jesus involves the breaking of bread. And in the same moment that they finally recognize him, Jesus vanishes into thin air.
It's a mysterious story.
Leo Sowerby set a good bit of this story to music (using the words of the King James Version). And it is splendid. Sowerby unspools the threads of this story in his inimitable style. The revelation of Jesus identity is powerful. But just as powerful is the turn that Sowerby takes in the music to accompany Jesus' disappearance. It is a mystery in music. We are left with these very "James Bond" sounding chords at the end of this anthem that let us know that this isn't the last time we're going to encounter the resurrected Christ. He'll be back.
A year ago, I found that this anthem was ideal for an Eastertide Evensong
At the root of the Greek word for beauty (kalon) is a connection to a sense of call. If you have felt your heart stirred by the beauty of the Easter Gospel (whether it was for the first time or the most recent of many times) you are invited to encounter the risen Christ again on the road to Emmaus at Choral Evensong. In this and every service of Evensong, we seek to worship God through word, song, and sight.Before our first Evensong this season I wrote about Evensong having a sense of “surrender,” but when the presence of God reaches us, even when it is unexpected, we also feel a quickening of our hearts – an awakening. We worship God who is the source of all beauty and calls to us through the same. And it is “in the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act” (John O’Donahue).
This year I find that this marvelous anthem is just right for the Third Sunday of Easter. And I wonder how it's "flavor" will change. I think that the disappearance of Jesus will be just as mysterious at the end, but I wonder how much more revelatory the breaking of bread will be when this anthem is sung in the context of a service Holy Communion in the Easter season.
28 And they drew nigh unto the village, whither they went: and he made as though he would have gone further. 29 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. 30 And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. 31 And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
See also: 5 Sowerby Anthems That Every Church Musician Should Know
Labels: Communion, Easter, Evensong, John O'Donohue, Sowerby
From the storied Chapel of King's College, Cambridge, England, comes an argument for the primacy of the daily office: Matins (Morning Prayer) and Evensong (Evening Prayer).
[The services of Matins and Evensong] are made out of layers of tradition which are much older. The medieval services drew on the patterns and content of worship in Christian churches of the first centuries. They in turn drew on the worship of the Jewish synagogues, which themselves depended on the traditional Jewish scriptures which Christians call the Old Testament.Service Booklet. Introductory Note, p. 2. King's College Chapel, Cambridge, England.
Having placed the services in their historical context, the anonymous author of this introduction (could it possibly be Eric Milner-White?) then elucidates our place in this ancient pattern.
It follows that we need to do two things in order to enter into the spirit of these services. First we have to be patient and relaxed enough to allow a long tradition to have its say. Then we should allow our own thoughts and feelings to become closer to us than life outside admits. These two things are not separate. In the tradition there are, along with what is strange, strong expressions of our basic feelings about ourselves and God. And it is precisely the cool and ancient order of the services which gives a space and frame, as well as cues, for reflections on our regrets and hopes and gratitudes. The best analogy of it is in a relation of love. There, as here, we find ourselves by attending to another. So we may learn here a little of what we need and enjoy everywhere.Service Booklet. Introductory Note, p. 2. King's College Chapel, Cambridge, England. Emphasis added.
It's not surprising to find "a relation of love" when we consider the Matins and Evensong liturgies, or really any liturgy of the church. Beauty is both intrinsic to and the goal of liturgy.
John O'Donohue, quoted on this blog earlier this month in Evensong - the surrender to, remarks on the human soul's hunger for beauty. "In the experience of beauty we awaken and surrender in the same act."
This brings immediately to mind these words of Thomas Merton's No Man is an Island: "Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." And do we not find and lose ourselves in the experience of love?
O'Donohue goes on to say that at its essence, beauty is love. (And not just any shade of love either, but Eros!)
To awaken and surrender. To find and lose. When we surrender and lose ourselves in the historic, authentic liturgy of the church, we awaken to love. One needs only to look to Christian hymnody to see what a archetypal spiritual image this is.
Perhaps the most famous words in this vein are those by John Newton
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
A lesser-known hymn by Elizabeth Cosnett (b. 1936) gets at the contradiction in trying to "find" God.
Can we by searching find out God or formulate his ways? Can numbers measure what he is or words contain his praise? Although his being is too bright for human eyes to scan, his meaning lights our shadowed world through Christ, the Son of Man. Our boastfulness is turned to shame, our profit counts as loss, when earthly values stand beside the manger and the cross. We may there recognize his light, may kindle in its rays, find there the source of penitence, the starting-point of praise. There God breaks in upon our search, makes birth and death his own; he speaks to us in human terms to make his glory known.
An anonymous 19th century hymn also gets at the paradox of finding the One who finds
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew he moved my soul to seek him, seeking me; it was not I that found, O Savior true; no, I was found of thee.
And in one of the grandest lines of hymnody, by the great Charles Wesley, we see that the goal of all this spiritual hide and seek is really so that we can lose ourselves in the beauty that is the subject and object of our worship.
Finish then thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be; let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee: changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place, till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.
And so it is with Evensong. If we attend to Evensong "in a relation of love", the great tradition of beauty which permeates this service will awaken us and cause us to surrender in the same act.
Evensong, in a noisy, demanding world, offers something rare. Our churches should offer it, and our congregations should be encouraged to cherish it.
Evensong should be loved.
Labels: Charles Wesley, Elizabeth Cosnett, Evensong, John Newton, John O'Donohue, King's College (Cambridge), liturgy, Thomas Merton
Why should you return to a church on a Sunday evening (assuming you were there that very morning) to attend the service of Choral Evensong? If you ever find yourself moved by the choral music you hear in worship on Sunday mornings, you will find an abundance of sacred choral music offered to the glory of God in this shorter candlelit service.
Dale Adelmann's article at the Cathedral of St. Philip in Atlanta speaks to this well: "Think Evensong isn’t for you? Well, if you ever resonate with the choirs’ musical offerings on Sunday morning, you will find Evensong to be an especially rich revelation of the glory and presence of God."
"Have you ever been to Evensong?" 13 September 2015
Evensong (the service of Evening Prayer, sung) is drawn almost entirely from the Bible and has been sung regularly in the Anglican Church since the sixteenth century. Its purpose is to give thanks in song and sight to God, the Giver of all beauty. This service brings together many elements of the older monastic offices of Vespers and Compline, particularly their respective canticles the Magnificat (Luke 1) and the Nunc dimittis (Luke 2). There is wide variety of music spanning four centuries that has been written specifically for this evening liturgy.
“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender”
You may find that Evensong the ideal place to introduce a friend or colleague to the rich liturgical and musical heritage of the Episcopal Church. With neither sermon nor Eucharist, the more contemplative atmosphere at Evensong can be a wonderful experience for a new or returning Christian.
Furthermore, there is an indescribable quality to worship at the time of the sun’s setting. The energetic quality of the morning liturgy is familiar to American Christians; the contemplative quality of Evensong, less so.
The service in the morning is a ready complement to our addiction to busyness (cars!), need for control (iPhones!), and love of energy (Starbucks!).
This service in the evening helps us to turn our attention away from ourselves to remember many different aspects of our relationship to God: including the act of surrender.
“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender. Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time; each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more. At birth we were awakened and emerged to become visible in the world. At death we will surrender again to the dark to become invisible. Awakening and surrender: they frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, the beauty and the frailty.”– John O’Donohue, quoted from "Between Awakening and Surrender: John O’Donohue on Beauty, the Enchantment of Falling in Love, and the Vortex of Desire" Brainpickings 21 September 2015.
I invite you to frame your day with worship, including Evensong. Seek out an Evensong if you can. Or gather with others and read Evening Prayer (use Rite I if you wish to use the language often heard at Evensong) from the Book of Common Prayer.
Further Reading
- Hough, Stephen. "'Do not touch me': the wisdom of Anglican thresholds". The Telegraph 25 January 2012.
- Mead, the Rev. Andrew C. "What is Evensong?". A sermon preached Sunday, October 30, 2011 at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City.
Labels: BCP, church music, evangelism, Evensong, John O'Donohue
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