Sing praise seraphicwise - an Evensong sermon

 2 Samuel 23.1-5 The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken.

Ephesians 1.15-end The Father put all things under Christ’s feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Anthem text

God is gone up with a triumphant shout:
The Lord with sounding Trumpets' melodies:
Sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praise, sing Praises out,
Unto our King sing praise seraphicwise!
Lift up your Heads, ye lasting Doors, they sing,
And let the King of Glory enter in.

Methinks I see Heaven's sparkling courtiers fly,
In flakes of Glory down him to attend,
And hear Heart-cramping notes of Melody
Surround his Chariot as it did ascend;
Mixing their Music, making ev'ry string
More to enravish as they this tune sing.

 

Therefore God has highly exalted Jesus Christ and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. Philippians 2:9

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This evening’s anthem – and you have the text before you - is both packed full of theology, rich scriptural imagery and the most delicious language.

God is gone up with a triumphant shout: the Lord with sounding Trumpets’ melodies

It speaks so well of the Ascension of the Lord that we celebrated last Thursday, Ascension Day.

It draws from the psalms of David, the shepherd-king described in the first lesson as ‘the sweet psalmist of Israel’ (2 Samuel 23.1)

The ascent, the going up, with the ‘trumpets’ melodies’ is a beautiful rendering of Psalm 47.5

Sing praise to the king.

The Ascension of the Lord is the triumph of the kingship of Christ, not as an earthbound king, in the model of David, who is his prototype, but the King of the Universe, sovereign in all times and places.

In the Ascension Jesus Christ, brings his earthly kingdom into his heavenly kingdom, human flesh into the courts of heaven.

No wonder language gives out and goes into the celestial.

Where else can a word like ‘seraphicwise’ be used.

Seraphicwise certainly gets your spell checker going.

The word speaks of the things of heaven, the domain of seraphs who with the cherubim are described amongst the heavenly host.

Christ arrives and we are to praise him seraphicwise as the king of glory enters in.

There the text draws on the closing verses of Psalm 24:

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is the King of glory : it is the Lord strong and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle.

Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors : and the King of glory shall come in.

Who is the King of glory : even the Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. (Psalm 24.7-10)

And that psalm asks in a preceding verse:

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord : or who shall rise up in his holy place? (Psalm 24.3)

Who can? Can you, can I? The psalm answers its own question:

Even he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart : and that hath not lift up his mind unto vanity, nor sworn to deceive his neighbour. (Psalm 24.4)

Our conduct on earth connects to our entrance to heaven: lives lived in purity of action and heart; lives of humility and not proud vanity; lives lived with integrity with our neighbour.

Christianity is rooted in action that anticipates the realities of heaven: ‘thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven’.

But the anthem took us to the threshold of heaven

Methinks I see Heaven's sparkling courtiers fly,
In flakes of Glory down him to attend,
And hear Heart-cramping notes of Melody
Surround his Chariot as it did ascend;
Mixing their Music, making ev'ry string
More to enravish as they this tune sing.

Where to start with the beauty of that language, language that speaks of heaven, of ‘Heaven’s sparkling courtiers’, ‘flakes of glory’?

‘Flakes of glory’: what does it mean?

Does it matter if we don’t know what it literally mean?

Let’s not try to overdefine: we see flakes of glory; we hear, ‘Heart-cramping notes of melody’.

‘Heart-cramping’ we might say that this vision of heaven is a heart stopper, and that surrounds the ascending king in his chariot.

That itself echoes Elijah’s assumption into heaven, as he was parted from his fellow prophet Elisha and was taken up into heaven:

And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. (2 Kings 2.11)

How else do we describe ascent into heaven, especially that of the king:

Mixing their Music, making ev'ry string
More to enravish as they this tune sing.

The heavenly music enravishes; ravish, in this context, meaning to be filled with an intense joy, we are enravished as the king of glory enters in.

Christ is exalted and given a name that is above every name.

He enters heaven, and, at  the same time, no longer bound by time and space, promises to be present with us until the end of the age, enters the temple of the human body in his real presence.

This is surely the ‘glorious inheritance in the saints’ that St Paul writing to the Ephesians speaks of:

and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power towards us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. (Ephesians 1.19-23)

Let us pray

 

Grant, we pray, almighty God,

that as we believe your only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ

to have ascended into the heavens,

so we in heart and mind may also ascend

and with him continually dwell;

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

 

Lord God,

we believe that the Saviour of all

is enthroned with you in majesty.

Listen to our prayer,

and, according to his promise,

let us feel his presence among us

to the end of time.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

God, for ever and ever.

 

Giving thanks for our fellowship with saints in heaven and earth we say the Grace…

The origin and destination

Acts 6:1-7 ‘They chose seven men full of the Holy Spirit.’

1 Peter 2:4-9 ‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood.’

John 14:1-12 ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’

 

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Popular culture has got very interested, in recent years, in exploring the ‘origin stories’ of fictional characters, real people, movements and ideologies.

‘Origin stories’ help us make sense of things.

Our first two readings give, what you could call, ‘Christian origin stories’.

These accounts reflect the way in which the first Christians began to order themselves, under the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and help us understand why patterns of Christian life developed as they did, so as to serve the Gospel and the needs of the Church, to this day.

In his first letter, the Apostle St Peter connects the identity of the church with Christ’s crucifixion.

His death on the cross was then, and is now, a stumbling block to many when it comes to faith in Jesus Christ as Son of God and Saviour of the world.

But that stone, that many trip over, is for those of faith, in fact, a foundation stone, on which God builds the spiritual house that is his Church.

The foundational identity of the Church, and of the Christian, is to be found in baptism.

Baptism is the common identifier of the Christian, but the Christian is never a Christian in isolation, but always in connection with the whole, that is why the Church is catholic.

That word, which we often translate as meaning ‘universal’ is from the Greek kata-holos: kata, meaning ‘concerning’ or ‘about’, and holos, meaning the whole, think of the word holistic.

The Church is concerned with the whole: the whole picture of the salvation of God and our identity as Christians.

As part of the whole, we are not Christians in isolation: my salvation is not a private matter between me and God; I am part of a Body not the sum of it.

As St Peter puts it:

you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession (1 Peter 2.9a)

And that is not just so we can feel good about ourselves – “we’re on God’s side” or “God’s on my side” - but we are baptised into this, ‘chosen race, royal priesthood, and holy nation’ for a purpose.

And the purpose is clear:

that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. (1 Peter 2.9b)

That contrasts with those who stumble and disobey and fall into darkness.

So there is the call to make your life built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

And what we also find going on here is that the general task of proclaiming the greatness of God, which is the task of every single one of us, is worked out in particular ways.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles we see that an ordering of ministries flows from the task of mission and proclamation.

It is recognised that the Apostles need to be released to focus on apostolic tasks and not to be distracted by tasks that others can do equally well as them, if not better.

The twelve Apostles gathered the whole body of believers together to say, ‘It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables’. (Acts 6.2).

That is not because serving tables is beneath them, but so that the Apostles can devote themselves to what is proper to them, which is ‘to prayer and to the ministry of the word.’ (Acts 6.4).

It is like me, as a priest, spending all my time doing things I am not very good at: managing projects; scrutinising budgets; repairing church plumbing.

My call is not to that but to celebrating the sacraments, preaching the Word and leading the Church here: thanks be to God others bring their skills and calling to the Church to manage projects, deal with numbers and practical tasks.

What we see in the Acts of the Apostles is a sacred order developing, under the guidance of the Spirit, not just a pragmatic allocation of jobs.

These seven men named in the passage are to serve after the example of Christ who ‘came to serve and not to be served’. (Matthew 20:28)

These seven are the first deacons, in Greek διάκονος (diakonos), which primarily means ‘servant,’ ‘waiter,’ or ‘minister.’

And theirs is an ordered ministry because before they took up their task to serve at table the Apostles prayed and laid their hands on them.

To this day this is the pattern of ordination of deacons, priests and bishops, and the same action used at confirmation too.

Overarching this ordering of the Church - with the Apostles and deacons serving the baptised in priestly and practical service - the purpose of Jesus Christ’s mission in the first place is to lead us home to our heavenly Father, to the dwelling place of God, where we find our true home.

Here’s not just the ‘origin story’ but the ‘destination story’ too!

This is what Jesus is pointing us to when he says to Philip, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’

He is saying quite plainly that God is unknowable without Him, and that to see Jesus is to see God: as St Paul puts it elsewhere, ‘Christ is the image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 3.12).

See him and you see the Father; and when you to walk in his way, rejoice in his truth, and share his risen life then you are walking in the ways intended by God for human beings.

This is our ‘destination story’ as a Christian people on the path, the road, the route, the way with Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ.

If we are not on the path that is Christ, then we are not on the way to the Father’s house, our heavenly dwelling, and worse we trip up over the foundation stone rather than build our lives on it.

Last week the Church celebrated the great saint of the 14^th century, Catherine of Siena.

Catherine has many wise and ‘tough love’ sayings and here’s one beautiful one, that reminds us that our ‘destination story’ is also to be lived out today:

All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, "I am the way”.

Our true ‘origin story’ and ‘destination story’ is when Jesus says, ‘I am the Way, and I am the Truth and I am the Life’.

The Church, the company of the baptised, served by its bishops, priests and deacons, exists to walk that way, invite others to walk that way and at the last to come by that way to the Father, to whom we pray in the words of Psalm 143:

Let me hear of your loving-kindness in the morning,

    for in you I put my trust;

show me the way I should walk in,

    for I lift up my soul to you. (Psalm 143.8)