This week we begin a new and brief sermon series for the season of Advent:
Songs for a New World: Advent Reflections on the Spirituals
Did you know that our Presbyterian hymnal has thirty-five songs that are African American spirituals? This music, for most of us, may not come from our background and culture, but it shares so much in common with the Biblical people of God who also had experienced the horrors of slavery and violence were longing for a Savior. In this season of waiting and anticipation, what might these songs have to teach us as we seek to connect with Jesus in a new way during this Advent and Christmas?
We begin with a non-Christmas song: “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”, but it connects well with the themes of Advent scriptures urging us to stay awake and prepare ourselves because the world is about to be changed. This world is not our true home, and God is at work bringing something new for the restoration and healing of us all. Just like many of our Christmas songs (in scripture and in popular culture), the spirituals are not just sweet songs of some faraway dream. Rather, they are prophetic words of hope about what God is doing right now for the cause of human freedom and how we are called to be agents of that hope.