Music Spotlight! (Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022)

This Sunday, we commemorate Jesus' baptism in the river Jordan. Not only that, but we remember or look forward to our own baptisms--that moment when our lives are renewed by the Holy Spirit in front of the priesthood of believers. 

At the beginning of this new year, many of us are setting fresh resolutions. Baptism can be a powerful metaphor in our lives for "starting fresh." Through baptism, God, freely gives us the opportunity to truly live--no strings attached! Ephesians 2:8-9 communicates it best: 

"It is by grace that you have been saved, through faith--and this is not from yourselves; it is the gift of God not by works, so that no one can boast." 

As you encounter music and worship this Sunday, reflect on the significance of holy waters in your life, whether you've been baptized yet or not. In fact, try this meditation right now...

• Close your eyes. What images of water come to mind? Are the waters peaceful, violent?
• What emotions do you feel about these images? Calmness, fear, awe? 
• How has God been sending cleansing waters to you lately? Has it felt like healing or perhaps upheaval? 
• What cleansing or renewal might you pray for this year? For yourself, for others?

Footage of African-American river baptisms in the 1920's:

African Americans have historically found deep significance in water as metaphor. Water often symbolizes deliverance, freedom, cleansing, passing to the next life, or healing in their songs. We will be presenting two African-American songs this Sunday that deal with the saving power of water. 

As Special Music, the choir will sing "Take Me to the Water," an African-American spiritual. There is some evidence that this song goes back to antebellum times. Early enslaved peoples connected Christian river baptisms and the spirituality of their African traditional religions. But the whole concept of slave ownership, and other political issues, put into question whether Africans could really be baptized. So, enslaved peoples sometimes conducted their own river baptisms in secret, where they might have sung songs like "Take Me to the Water." [Source]

During the offertory, you will hear a piano arrangement of "There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit"--a song by 20th-century African-American composer, Doris Akers. 

Akers was heavily influenced by Luke 3:21-33, in which the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in bodily form like a dove. Lindsay Terry comments on the origins of this song in an interview with Doris Akers in the late 1980s: 

[S]he related to me that one Sunday morning in 1962, while directing the Sky Pilot Choir, she said to her singers, 'You are not ready to go in.' She didn’t believe they had prayed enough! They were accustomed to spending time with her in prayer before the service, asking God to bless their songs. She said, 'I feel that prayer is more important than great voices.' They had already prayed, but this particular morning she asked them to pray again, and they did so with renewed fervor. 

As they prayed, Doris began to wonder how she could stop this wonderful prayer meeting. She said, 'I sent word to the pastor letting him know what was happening. He was waiting in the auditorium, wanting to start the service. Finally, I was compelled to say to the choir, We have to go. I hate to leave this room and I know you hate to leave, but you know we do have to go to the service. But there is such a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place.' [Source]

In kind with Ms. Akers, let us pray for the Spirit to reside within us and renew the waters our lives!