Ark and Dove Presbyterian Church



December 9, 2019Blessed by a SongThere is one great country singer. That title belongs only and ever to John R. Cash. Johnny Cash blessed us with many songs, but this is not what makes him distinctive. What makes him distinctive is who he blessed with song. Johnny Cash sang for the lost, locked up, and left out.Early in his career, Cash attained the goal of every country singer: performing at the Grand Ole Opry. At the end of this seminal concert, the audience was on their feet with applause. This made Cash happy, but it was an applauding audience of inmates that gave him chills. Years after his Opry performance—disgraced by addiction—Cash performed at maximum-security Folsom Prison. He walked onstage with a set-list that included a song written by an inmate in attendance. The audience was a stifled and stiffened crowd threatened by armed guards patrolling an overhead ramp. Seeing the prisoners in their low state and cognizant of his own, Cash sought to uplift them with song. “Hello, I’m Johnny Cash,” he said before he launched into a set invigorated by the energy of the audience. Cash followed up Folsom with a show at San Quentin, a death row prison with a horrific reputation. In the middle of his set, Cash introduced a song that attempted to empathize with the convicted in attendance. It began, San Quentin, you’ve been livin’ hell to me and Cash continued, You’ve cut me and you’ve scarred me thru an’ thru. And I’ll walk out a wiser, weaker man; Mister Congressman, why can’t you understand? These lines evoked chilling cheers and Cash felt within him an immense power. The Folsom Prison and San Quentin live albums sold millions of copies and topped pop charts. Cash became a superstar. He was a broken man, but in blessing those convicted men with songs about their concerns Cash secured his place in the halls of fame. In singing songs about sin and guilt, crime and punishment, Cash tapped into something universal—something experienced by prisoner and free alike. The concerts at Folsom and San Quentin launched Johnny Cash into stardom, but—most importantly for him—it turned him to the Bible and the faith found therein.More famous than any song Cash ever composed is Ave Maria. The tune was arranged by Franz Schubert in the 19th century and has been sung by Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion, and Luciano Pavarotti. The words contain lyrics of a prayer sometimes sung, often recited by billions over centuries: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. And this prayer repeats the humble lyrics sung by Elizabeth to Mary: Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.Elizabeth, like John Cash, blessed the lowly with a song. Unlike Cash, Elizabeth lived a righteous and regulated life. Her bloodline was that of priests, as was her husband’s, Zechariah. Good genes and good behavior certainly set her up for success. Success for a woman, in Elizabeth’s day, was calculated according to male attachments and the fruit of the womb. Elizabeth was married—she had that going for her—but she long suffered a major blow to her reputation: she was barren and getting on in years.She was like the mighty matrons of her faith—Sarah, Hannah—who went years without child. She was most like Rachel, the wife of Jacob, who was the object of reproach for her barrenness. When Elizabeth discovered she was pregnant, she offered thanks in the same way Rachel did when she eventually conceived, saying, the Lord took away the disgrace I have endured among my people. Then she went into seclusion for five months.Well into the second trimester, now with a baby bump, Elizabeth is surprised by a relative visiting her home in the Judean hill country. Mary, much younger and unmarried, has come all the way from Nazareth on her own. Seventy miles—at least a few days on foot—across a hostile and unforgiving terrain, young Mary has traveled and now stands—short of breath and shining—in the entrance of Elizabeth’s house and says, Hello. At hello, Elizabeth knows something about Mary maybe only mothers can intuit and intuit only by the Spirit. The baby inside Elizabeth jolts—we might as well say leaps (that’s how Malachi would have put it)—there is a feeling of immense power inside her. Then a blessing erupts from Elizabeth as spontaneous praise. This Mary, Elizabeth’s inferior in almost every way, is revealed to be the mother of the Lord and Elizabeth exalts her as such. Mary—we must be mindful—has made a pilgrimage to Elizabeth. People make pilgrimages if not to places, then to people who they admire and esteem. Mary looks up to Elizabeth and is about to bow herself before her elder. Not only an elder, Elizabeth also has a holy ancestry and her marriage to a priest elevates her status. It would have been customary for Mary to bow low before Elizabeth. It would have been expected as Mary—an unwedded girl—was expecting. Mary was ready for rebuke and prepared for disgrace. This much she would surely get in her hometown. Elizabeth, however, honors Mary with a song of blessing. Elizabeth has known disgrace, so she is able to empathize with Mary. When being humiliated by her people for her inability to bear a child, Elizabeth wanted to be recognized and respected in her own right. Elizabeth was not content to do just this for Mary. Seeing Mary in a low state—knowing who God sees her to be—Elizabeth uplifts Mary with a song. The song is a blessing.Blessing is a word in need of recovery. We often say a form of the word without knowing what we mean. Legend has it that people started saying bless you after a sneeze because such a symptom was an indication of impending death. That fear is gone; now our blessing is just an expression of good manners. And if you have spent time in southern states—as I have—you must know that when even the sweetest soul says, O bless your heart, it is more of a curse on your name. A biblical blessing has neither of these connotations, of course.A person is blessed when they are the object of favor. That is the biblical meaning. Not in the sense that they are preferred by another—that they are the favorite. People receive favor whenever they are affirmed and approved for who they are (not by what they’ve done). A blessed person is happy because they are found favorable in another’s sight. The Bible is full of such persons. Joseph finds favor with his Egyptian jailer. Ruth finds favor with Boaz. Esther had her king’s favor. These and more are blessed by another. But the Bible is mainly about people who find favor with God. Though God saw the wickedness of humankind, Noah found favor in God’s sight. Under the weight of slavery, God favored Israel. In exile, Isaiah proclaimed God’s favor. When Elizabeth finally conceives, she finds herself in this line of blessing: God has looked favorably upon her. The long history of her people is one where God chooses, approves, and upholds the bound and burdened.God has always favored those in need. These have been the blessed. When Elizabeth looks upon Mary, she knows that she is blessed because God always looks with favor on the lowly. Mary will later sing about this. It will become the center of her own son’s message: blessed are you who are poor, hungry, weeping, hated, and disgraced, for you will find favor with God. Elizabeth sings a blessing over Mary in her lowliness because she believes in a God whose gaze is especially fixed on such persons. It is not that God favors anyone over another. It is just the case that God blesses those living with curses as a mother cares for a sick child when the rest are well. Of course, blessing is not something saved for Godself. Ever since God created Israel from the barren womb of Sarah, God intended them to be a blessing. That is why Elizabeth sings to Mary. It is why John Cash sung to prisoners. God intends us to look upon the lowly with favor and offer a blessing. A couple years before he died, Johnny Cash labored over a song entitled The Man Comes Around. He wrote around 40 alternate verses before he recorded a few ones ripe with biblical imagery. It is a song anticipating the coming of Christ—in all its judgment and grace. U2’s Bono described the voice of this song as locusts and honey. And surely Cash sounds like John the Baptist as he aches out: Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers/ One hundred million angels singing/ Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum/ Voices calling and voices crying/ Some are born and some are dying/ It’s alpha and omega’s kingdom come.Remembering what it was like to write this song, Cash confessed in the shortened breaths of his last days: I needed help to make that last record…I called upon Jesus. He stood with me. I can never praise Him enough for all his blessings. But I tried to praise Him with The Man Comes Around. If someone is still listening to my music fifty years from now, if someone is listening at all, I hope they’re listening to that song. Of all the songs he sang, Johnny Cash wanted people to listen to the one promising, in Elizabeth’s words, a fulfillment of what was spoken by the Lord. Cash knew Matthew 25, which warns that when the Son of Man comes around he will be wondering why his followers aren’t visiting prisoners and honoring those like them. Christ will come around again to find the lost, free the locked up, and gather in the left out. And if Christ favors the least, then we can believe that his favor is for all. This just might be the reason Cash hoped someone would still be listening to The Man Comes Around, for it is a song that praises God for the blessing that is before us at the end. God blessed Johnny Cash in his lowest state and so he stood on the promise that God will come again in Christ to bless us all—beginning with the last and the least.We still listen to Elizabeth’s song because it too is a song that praises God for blessings. You may be in a place to carry her tune today. Or you may be one in need of a blessing song. Someday, when the Son of Man comes around, we will all be singing: Blessed are we, for God has looked with favor upon us. ................
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