Sermon for 6th Sunday of Easter: “Music Festival” preached at the Eucharist, Sherborne Abbey on Sunday, 5 May 2024 by the Reverend Christopher Huitson. (Acts Ch 10: v 44 – end; John Ch 15: v 9 – 17)
I once served in a church where the organ still had a pumping handle to provide air for the bellows, though it also had an electric pump for normal use. The manual version proved very useful at a wedding when a thunderstorm caused a power cut.
When, in many rural churches, the hand pumped version was all there was, one of the choir boys would be deputed to work the pump. My father was one of those chosen to undertake this task at his local church – many years ago. The boys discovered that over filling the reservoir would lead to a great crash as the excess air looked for a way of escape. So if the sermon proved long and wearisome to the boys – not something we are familiar with in Sherborne Abbey, of course – they would deliberately overfill the reservoir with air hoping the disturbance would cause the preacher to take the hint!
Our understanding of great events, majestic ideas or philosophical concepts is enhanced by commentary – the teasing out of what is important or relevant. A sermon may do this, but so may music or Art. They add to the bare words or draw from us additional responses which the words on their own have implied but not fully realised. We are fortunate that we have a brilliant choir here which accompanies the services and especially the Eucharist with wonderful music to illuminate and give extra meaning to the bare words. The Sanctus, for instance, occupies a key place in the Eucharistic prayer. The words come from Isaiah’s experience of the majesty of God in the Temple at Jerusalem. It is one of the passages in the Eucharist that is often sung and so composers in the main concentrate on emphasising the glory and majesty of God and make the music loud and glorious as it calls us to a higher plane. If there is an orchestra then trumpets and drums may be used as in Bach’s B minor Mass.
But then you find in the Sanctus of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis a very quiet and deeply spiritual interpretation with a low-key orchestral introduction and with just the soloists singing – two rather different interpretations which both add to our understanding and worship in their different ways. These are appropriate themes as we enjoy the Music Festival and this morning hear a lovely setting by Palestrina as part of the Festal Eucharist.
Music accompanying the creed can plumb the depths of the crucifixion and scale the heights of the resurrection and draw out sadness turning to joy. The third part of Handel’s Messiah uses texts and music to comment on the resurrection but I have failed to find anything in the classical repertoire which gives a musical interpretation of the two disciples being confronted by the risen Christ at Emmaus as he says a blessing over their food. How could composers convey in music their lack of recognition followed by their sudden perception and realisation that Jesus was truly alive.
What music in this instance finds difficult, Art finds easier and The Supper at Emmaus is one of the great paintings by Caravaggio which you can see in the National Gallery. Caravaggio captures Christ blessing the meal and that moment of recognition, that split second of sudden understanding on the part of Cleopas and the other disciple. One of them seems to be about to rise from his chair and the other flings wide his arms either in surprise or in greeting. He painted another version which hangs in Milan and he is one of a number of great artists including Titian who have been inspired by this story.
The lack of such recognition may seem odd to us for we have celebrated Easter for many years – we know how the story ends, as it were. But the gospel writers were not afraid to include this failure on the part of the disciples to recognise the risen Jesus. It was itself so much a part of the tradition which had been handed down that they dare not supress it even though it could be embarrassing. What it does is to underline the unexpectedness of the resurrection. It is not as though the disciples were ready for it and therefore on the lookout. It was a total shock and surprise. Caravaggio illuminates his picture in such a way that Christ is both lit and appears to be the source of light. The disciples have this moment of sudden recognition and are illuminated both literally and figuratively. Christ is the revelation and the message.
Music, Art, ecclesiastical architecture, stained glass and faith are sometimes interwoven to illuminate our understanding. This becomes clearer in that wonderful series of TV documentaries which Kenneth Clark called “Civilisation” and below the title his note: “a personal view”. It was first shown in 1969 after 3 years of filming but by coincidence and happy chance is now being repeated. We can’t escape the now familiar warning that the content reflects the attitudes of the past as though we couldn’t work that out for ourselves.
The resurrection narratives were the inspiration for the Christian faith when Jesus is seen by various disciples alive again after the crucifixion. But often in the gospel stories the disciples do not think that the figure they see is Jesus. On the contrary they think that it is someone else perfectly normal. Mary Magdalen thinks it is the gardener. Cleopas and his companion think it is a traveller on the road. The eleven disciples think it is someone standing on the shore tending a fire for breakfast.
The gospel stories do not hide this peculiarity, so it must have been important and accurate. Here was no mass hallucination, no group wish fulfilment. The risen Jesus was different; he did not look quite the same, so that his true identity took time to be perceived. We also note the people to whom Jesus revealed himself. There was no mass revelation to the Jewish people, no challenge to Annas or Caiphas or Pontius Pilate or Herod – just appearances to his friends who would have responded to his low call “Mary” or recognised his blessing over their food or recalled previous incidents when they caught a great haul of fish.
Although Jesus during his earthy ministry had spoken occasionally about his rising again the disciples really had no experience to guide their understanding of what this actually meant. Their expectation was focused on Jesus living, conquering and being crowned king – not dying and rising to new life. No wonder they did not immediately recognise him. They were not gullible. They knew the finality of death. They were certainly not expecting to bump into him in the garden or on the road to Emmaus or on the beach or in the room where they met in fear and fright lest they too should be arrested and executed.
Normally at these meetings Jesus seems to say very little. But on the road to Emmaus Jesus speaks at length about how the OT scriptures connect with his life and death. At that time this was a vital issue, for the Jewish people would not accept Jesus as Messiah if his life contradicted the OT prophecies. St. Luke’s readers would have been familiar with way verses and texts would have been used to underpin the claim that Jesus was the longed-for Messiah and this story places the source of that interpretation and explanation with Jesus himself. We might have preferred Cleopas to question Jesus on other important subjects – perhaps what resurrection might mean for each one of us or how we can deal with today’s complex moral issues as ordinary people face the risk of injury or death from knife crime or warfare. But no such information is forthcoming.
Then Jesus takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them. Then they know who he is. They know his love.
That is what we do at each Eucharist and why the Eucharist is at the heart of our worship. This is why we are here, why we come Sunday by Sunday, faithfully – to receive the bread and wine blessed by Christ and shared with him. This is how we get to know Jesus so that at the important critical time in our pilgrimage we will recognise him, and, much more importantly, he will recognise us.