Psalm 93 [97]
OT Reading: 2 Samuel 23.1-17
NT Reading: Matthew 28.16-end
Text: Go and make disciples of all nations (Mathew 28.19).
This evening is an occasion for multiple celebration. First it is, or was yesterday the Feast of St Cecilia, the patron saint of music. Second, we have special grounds for our thanksgiving this year on account of the exceptional generosity of Charmian England, who died in July, leaving the whole of her estate to the Hampstead Church Music Trust. Charmian valued the high standard of music in worship, which the Church Music Trust enables us to maintain at Hampstead. In particular she was regularly present at this service of choral evensong, until she moved to a retirement home some years ago. We celebrate her generosity this evening, along with the source of all musical inspiration, which we associate with the name of Saint Cecilia.
However, the primary focus of our celebration at Evensong on this last Sunday of the Christian Year is the climactic celebration of the triumph of Christ the King. This year we have been following Matthew’s gospel, and tonight we come to his concluding verses, Christ’s great commission, which summarises the overarching truths that Matthew has drawn out for us in his account of Jesus’ life, and sends us out to continue and complete his work. Writing for a community of Christian Jews, Matthew affirms in his gospel the conviction that Jesus is the fulfilment of the great Old Testament prophecies that look forward to the coming of the Messiah in all his long-awaited manifestations as Prophet, Priest and King. Matthew opens his gospel with a genealogy tracing Jesus lineage back through King David and the patriarchs to Abraham. His account of the nativity emphasises Jesus’ royal birth, signified by the star in the east, and the wise men who come seeking the child born to be King of the Jews. Jesus himself is reticent in relation to such claims, but at his trial he has alluded to Daniel’s Messianic vision of one sitting at the right hand of God and coming on the clouds of heaven with all authority, honour and royal power. This has allowed the Chief Priest to declare ‘blasphemy’, a capital offence, nailing him to the Cross under a sign reading: ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews’. Now Matthew proclaims that sign, intended to be read as an ironic comment on an ignominious death, is true after all, since all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus, who has passed through death and resurrection to sit in triumph at the right hand of God the Father. Jesus, son of David, is indeed Christ the King.
Another great theme of Matthew’s gospel is that of Jesus as a second Moses, fulfilling the old law and setting out in word and deed the new law. Like Moses, Jesus has performed mighty miracles, and has stood on a mountain side to give his people a new law. And so, at the end of his time on earth, just as Moses commissioned and empowered Joshua to take the people of Israel into the promised land, so Jesus stands on a mountain side to commission and empower his successors – the disciples and after them the church – to complete his mission. Go and make disciples of all nations, he commands them, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.
In a third aspect of his final scene, Matthew restates his conviction that as the promised Messiah, Jesus is not only King but God. Once again it is the birth narrative, which gives us the clue, referring back to Isaiah’s prophecy that a young woman shall give birth to a child who shall be called Immanuel, which means God with us. On every page, Matthew’s account of Jesus’ life has supported the truth of that prophetic claim by word and deed. Now, as Matthew draws his story to a close, the risen Christ proclaims that from now on he will be with his people always, to the end of the age. Immanuel, God with us. Moreover this is not just some cosy word of reassurance to the disciples who will miss their friend and leader. They have been given an immense task – to make disciples of all nations – and the continued presence of Jesus’ spirit among them is the guarantee that they and indeed we will be empowered by His Spirit to extend his mission to all nations.
What a tremendous conclusion that is, and what a happy coincidence it is that the Feast of St Cecilia should fall so close to that of Christ the King. You may have noticed too that there is in these verses a surprising, almost discordant note of doubt. ‘When the disciples saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted’ (v17). I understand that the verb used in the Greek is not so much an indication of fundamental disbelief, but rather of that uncertainty that seized Peter when he realised he was walking on water, or Thomas before he actually saw the risen Lord. It reflects that mixture of doubt and faith which is expressed in the cry of the father over his tormented child: Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief (or help me where faith falls short) (Mark 9.24). How could we begin to give expression to such complexities of emotion and self-awareness without the help of music to explore and articulate the ambiguities of our hopes and fears, the glimmer of light in the darkness, as well as the shadow that may fall across the brightest day.
Matthew’s final verses, so full of meaning about the second Moses, about the Man Born to be King, about Immanuel – God with us – divinity in humanity, these verses which take us with Jesus to the very edge of his presence on earth, take us also to the very edge of what can be communicated through earth-bound language. As Jesus’ physical presence fades from the picture, and with the disciples we are left looking up into heaven, there are no more words. But perhaps in the silence we may hear the echo of a great company in heaven and on earth worshipping God in songs of joy and praise.
We don’t know precisely what it was that so mattered to Charmian England about our music. Perhaps she found solace and strength, as I do, in the evensong liturgy with its origins in the monastic offices of antiquity, with its roots steeped in the exploration of Scripture, with its Psalms and Canticles drawing us into their authors richly diverse experience of God’s engagement with humanity. To all this is added on Sunday the gift of music to take us deeper into these great treasuries of praise and prayer.
On St Cecilia’s day our thanks are due not just to Charmian, but to the long line of benefactors, composers and musicians on whose shoulders we stand, as to-day’s musicians help us to offer our worship in this place to the glory of God, and so to go out, as Christ commanded us, in the power of his Spirit, to be caught up into his continuing presence in the world, making disciples of all the nations.
Thank you Charmian. Thank you Cecilia, and all musicians. Praise be to God. Amen