By: Stephen Schall, Music Director
This Sunday we mark the end of this post-Epiphany season of light as we celebrate Christ’s Transfiguration. Tradition has it that this event occurred about 40 days before the Crucifixion. It is a fitting way to bring one season to a close while casting our thoughts ahead to the Passion. This idea is nicely illustrated in two of the three hymns we sing this weekend. I draw particular attention to our closing hymn, “You, Lord, Are Both Lamb and Shepherd.” The title of the wonderful poem by Sylvia Dunstan (1955-1993) is “Christus Paradox,” because the text deals with the many of the ways Christ is paradoxical. The second stanza has particular application to this day and, as I mentioned, contrasts the glory of the Transfiguration with the crucifixion:
Clothed in light upon the mountain,
stripped of might upon the cross,
shining in eternal glory,
beggar'd by a soldier's toss,
You, the everlasting instant;
You, who are both gift and cost.
As this is the last Sunday before Lent, we say goodbye to Alleluia for 40 days. Our opening hymn, “Christ upon the mountain peak,” ends each stanza with an Alleluia.
The choir sings the introit, “O nata lux de lumine” by Thomas Tallis and the anthem, “Christ, whose glory fills the skies,” by C. Frederick H. Candlyn. The “O nata” text is from the liturgy of the Transfiguration. The words connects Transfiguration to to the nativity.
See in church again on Wednesday as we begin the holy season of Lent at 7 o’clock.
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