1/29/2025

I’m not a beach person. Those of you who are . . . you are welcome to it! Too much sand. Too much salt. Too many people. . . 

Well, once I went down there and there weren’t too many people. In fact, there were NO people! 

Several years ago, some friends and I rented a house in Ft. Morgan the week after Labor Day, and it was perfect!  Our final night there, I went out into the Gulf and could see no one. There wasn’t one living person as far as I could see in any direction.

It was amazing.

I stood there, in the water, and tried to hold on to that moment. I closed my eyes and listened to the roar of the gulf and I thought that this was the longest continuous sound in the history of the world — dating back to the first day of Creation, when the Spirit hovered over the face of the deep.

And then, standing there waist deep in the waters of the gulf,  I thought about a sound that has gone on even longer. In Revelation 4, we read of the cherubim singing around the throne of heaven: “Day and night without ceasing they sing, “Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” Day and night. Without ceasing. 

800 years before Revelation was written, Isaiah described the cherubim singing the same song: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). 

That is the same song we join in each week as we sing the Great Thanksgiving. “Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of power and might; heaven and earth are full of your glory . . .”

When we started Christ Church, even though it was a new plant and even though we weren’t connected to a particular denomination, we still recognized we were part of a long story. We wanted to be sure our worship practices and theology would be a continuation of a faith stream that stretched back thousands of years and would, as much as possible, draw from the entire story – from every era – of God’s people, including that ancient, continuously sung hymn. 

So much of our culture, both sacred and secular, is disposable. Most church services are filled with whatever top 40 songs are the rage today, and within a handful of years, they’ll be replaced by some other top 40 songs. And sometimes for good reason. I go back and listen to some of the religious songs from the late 70s and I cringe at how bad and just . . . well, tacky they were. 

I don’t even want to list any of them. You might look them up. 

When I directed a youth choir, I worked hard to find songs that were theologically and lyrically sound, and not just what was popular. It was a challenge! I remember singing one cringy song in a service and afterwards one of the boys (who was a professed atheist) begged me, “please, don’t sing that again.”

When an atheist teenager recognizes it as junk, then you can pretty well mark it down: it’s junk. 

At Christ Church, we escape the nonsense du jour by singing hymns from a hymnal, which is a gift to us from past generations of believers. These songs were written by theologians, pastors and poets. They’ve stood the test of time. The oldest hymn in the hymnal is probably “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” (written around AD 347), but sometimes we’ll sing hymns that are even older, like the Trisagion we sang during Advent. That hymn is so old, it may have been sung by Peter and Paul! 

So you can see, our roots run deep. 

But we’re not stuck in the past – we also sing songs written within our lifetimes. We’re not all ancient (although I’m feeling pretty ancient more and more). We sing music from the synagogue and from the camp meeting, from southern gospel and black gospel, from Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran and Church of God traditions . . . our music is an expression of our unity!

And it’s not just music! Each week, we read from scriptures that were first written down some 1400 years before Christ and completed around 60 years after his Resurrection. In response, we sing Psalms that the people of God have sung since at least the time of King David (and some are much older).  

Following the Word, we prepare to gather at the Table to remember, to praise God for all he has done for us through Jesus, and to look forward to the return of Jesus. . . and to say “Thank you.” The words of institution (“this is my body . . . this is my blood”) were spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper. The Great Thanksgiving we pray before communion dates back to the early years of Christianity. It is rooted in the Jewish Passover celebration and in Jesus’ own practice of “taking, blessing, breaking, and giving.” 

This part of our service, more than any other part, binds us together with believers from every age, race and nationality. When we sing it, we’re joining with the Cherubim in their ancient hymn:  “And so, with your people on earth and all the company of heaven we praise your name and join their unending hymn, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord. . .”

This Sunday, we celebrate five years as a congregation, which amazes me! But, young as we are, we’re part of a long line of worshipers that stretch back through the ages, and our worship, theology and practice reflects the long tradition of being God’s people. 

Blessings,
Pastor Terry