Songs of Hope & Joy

Posted by Chris Breslin on December 16, 2019 in

12/15/2019

Songs of Hope & Joy

Matthew 11:2-11

Chris Breslin

“Joy builds on the past and borrows from the future.” -Eugene Peterson

“True joy is freedom from fear and alienation. Real joy is knowing that we are loved and nurtured…practices like fasting prepare us for joy because they turn our self-serving into self-offering ways that nurture, celebrate, and share the gifts of God. They remove the glasses that distort our vision and degrade our relations with others.” -Norman Wirzba

“He will remake us … He always has and He always will.  It is true – blessed be His name – thank you God.  God breathes through us so completely …  so gently we hardly feel it … yet,  it is our everything.  Thank you God.  ELATION-ELEGANCE-EXALTATION All from God.  Thank you God. Amen.” -John Coltrane

“In Jesus, God did not remove the complexity of the divine life but became a companion for us, inviting us to live freely in the absolute unfathomable depths of grace and divine love. The Son of God’s life introduced us to the awesome complexity of the human creature itself. We are much more than we can grasp, understand, or certainly control, each of us and all of us together. What I have learned by listening to and watching so many musicians, especially jazz musicians, is what it means to give witness to that complexity.” -Willie Jennings

“The joy of God has been through the poverty of the manger and the affliction of the cross; therefore, it is indestructible, irrefutable. It does not deny affliction when it is there, but it finds in the very midst of distress that God is there; it does not argue that sin is not grievous, but in that very place of sin is found forgiveness; it looks death in the face and it is just there that it finds life.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Mentioned:

Slides from December 15, 2019

Seeing God in Jazz: the music of jazz and the art it inspires points to the incarnation of God by Willie James Jennings (Divinity Magazine, Fall 2011)

A Time for Wanting & Waiting: an Advent conversation with W. David O. Taylor (Road to Now Theology podcast)

Dear Christian Radio, I Love/Hate You by Chris Breslin (Missio Alliance)

This Sunday’s Songs

Love Came Down at Christmas by Rosetti

Hark the Herald Angels Sing by Wesley/Mendelssohn

Canticle of the Turning by Cooney

Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming by Traditional

Psalm 126 by Wardell

The Magnification by Walton