Transfiguration Sunday - 8th Sunday After Epiphany
This Sunday we celebrate the Transfiguration of Jesus and I love the themes of light, cherishing Christ’s presence, and BEING Christ’s presence to all we meet. The readings and music call us to be transfigured by our time with the Holy One and to be empowered to transfigure others by our loving acts and ways.
My Organ Voluntary and Communion Music are based on the “runners up” for hymn choices this week. When Pastor Valarie and I were deciding on our hymns, the texts of our Opening and Closing hymn spoke profoundly to us, and the tunes are well-known and stirring to sing. Both will have soaring soprano descants – the opening hymn's by Richard DeLong, my mentor and former director at EDCC across the street, and the closing hymn descant is by Paul Halley, my favorite living Canadian Church music composer.
The ”runners up” were “When Morning Gilds the Skies” and “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise”, and I found beautifully-crafted organ works based on these much-loved melodies to further illuminate this glorious story.
The Choir’s Prelude is Jane Marshall’s setting of the ancient Sarum prayer “God Be In My Head” which is sadly out of print, but Saint Matthew’s Cathedral gave us copies last September. Its final words may seem an odd recommendation to celebrate the Transfiguration: “God be at mine end, and at my departing”, but the preceding petitions remind us that God must be in our thoughts, our speaking, and our seeing – the various means by which we are able to be a transfiguring power in our often dis-figured world. And when our life of service to Christ’s people is ending, Christ will indeed bring peace to our departing.
Brian Wren’s 1977 Transfiguration text “Christ Upon the Mountain Peak” places us on the mountain in Christ’s blazing glory, breathlessly inviting our praise “let us, if we dare to speak, with the saints and angels praise Him, Alleluia!” This four verse hymn text appears in some newer hymnals to various tunes, but this anthem setting by Paul Bouman with its constantly moving organ part and soaring choral lines has always been my favorite.
After we have read of Moses and Elijah walking with Christ on the mountaintop, our Offertory music will be a rousing setting of the Spiritual “I Want Jesus to Walk With Me” arranged by Lloyd Larson for One Piano Four Hands. Hyung Seop’s oh-so-talented wife Jae Eun will join me at the Steinway playing the Primo [and upper] Part (starting with the familiar melody in octaves), and I will play the Secundo [and lower] Part (a lively idiomatic accompaniment). Settings such as these are challenging because they often give matching swift and syncopated rhythms to both players with the expectation that everything sounds perfectly together as if played by one very proficient pianist with four arms. Though a separate recording of this work does not exist, the Larson Video linked above uses our selection as the background music, so Larson obviously found it as appealing as I did. He has actually set this text and tune in 5 different publications for solo piano, voice and piano, various choirs, and duo piano. It has always spoken profoundly to him, and that passion will be apparent as you listen.
As the Chorister’s Prayer so beautifully pleads: “Grant that what we sing with our lips, we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts, we may show forth in our lives, through Jesus Christ.” May the light of the Transfigured Christ guide you through each day and shine through YOU each day until we gather again to worship our Creator and Redeemer.
