In 2020, the church I was serving as pastor participated in an Advent program put together by Marcia McFee of Worship Design Studio. Marcia had created a beautiful Advent program with the theme “I believe even when …” “I believe in the sun, even when it’s not shining” is the beginning of a poem written on the wall of a cell in a concentration camp during World War II. The “I believe” theme of the Advent series was accompanied by a program focused on the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Each week we reflected on movies telling of a time when the Ode to Joy had brought comfort, encouragement and resilience to people at a time of suffering and grief. [1]
Of course, December 2020 was a time of suffering and grief. Like most other churches, our congregation met on Zoom instead of in person. People missed being together, they missed the beautiful, tangible traditions of Advent. And many were facing a Christmas alone and without their most significant loved ones. It was a dark time. The “I believe” series along with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was exactly what we needed.
As I look back on that time, I offer you some excerpts from my sermon for the third Sunday in Advent that year. That sermon, no surprises, also took Mary’s song, the Magnificat, as the focus scripture.
Scripture: Luke 1:26-38, 46-55
The Magnificat has resonated with many Christians through the ages. It has been arranged to music, of course, and has served as a hymn from the very beginnings of the church. Usually it is presented as a medieval chant. It is sung with a haunting melody, often by a single female voice, or a choir of unaccompanied monastic tones.
But what if, the Magnificat was performed in a different way?
What if it was heard as a rallying cry, or a protest song, like “We Shall Overcome”? What if the Magnificat was sung to the tune of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, with the power of a full orchestra, and thousands of voices?
The music of the Ode to Joy comes from the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Beethoven composed this movement to include voices, soloists and full chorus, which was quite unusual for his time. He took a poem “Ode to Joy” written by a German poet, Frederich Schiller, for the words of this movement. It is amazing to think that Beethoven was almost completely deaf when he composed the Ninth, which is considered to be his greatest work.
“Following the Ninth” (https://www.amazon.com/Following-Ninth-Footsteps-Beethovens-Symphony/dp/B00PV3FVUA) is a documentary movie that demonstrates the power of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony and the anthem to joy, for people who are deeply immersed in places of struggle and suffering.
….
Lene Ford grew up in East Berlin during the Soviet era. She was a well-behaved young girl, dutiful to her country the party. And yet she also wondered what was beyond the great wall that divided her city.
When she began High School she could see that the wall was patrolled by armed soldiers, who looked down from high towers. She was terrified by the idea that she might be shot if she got too close to the wall. And she weeps as she tells the story of friend’s brother who was shot and killed as he attempted to cross “no man’s land” between the East and West sides of the wall.
As a teenager, Lene enjoyed writing to pen pals all over the world and developing her language skills: English, Russian, and Spanish. But her curiosity about the outside world aroused suspicion and the Stasi started to observe her as though she was a spy.
In 1989 Checkpoint Charlie was opened. After decades of oppression, Lene and her friends were allowed to walk openly through to West Berlin. They were welcomed with hugs and kisses by the people: she remembers this moment and pure joy.
On December 25th 1989 Leonard Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Berlin. The “Berlin Celebration Concerts [took place] on both sides of the Berlin Wall, as it was being dismantled. [They] were unprecedented gestures of cooperation, the musicians representing the former East Germany, West Germany, and the four powers that had partitioned Berlin after World War II.”[2]
Bernstein changed the words of the Ode to Joy, substituting the word “freedom” for “joy.” As the story of the Ninth is told, viewers may well begin to think that the words freedom and joy are interchangeable. Indeed there is some speculation that the poet Schiller intended this.
….
In Japan, thousands of choirs and orchestras gather during the month of December, to rehearse the Ninth Symphony and the Ode to Joy. The New Years tradition of performing the Ninth – Daiku in Japanese - originated during the First World War, when prisoners of war from Germany brought Beethoven’s music with them.
The Japanese chorus members practice and practice until they can articulate the German words and music. Christmas is not a major holiday for them, but the Japanese love to sing Daiku as they look forward to the New Year with hope. Daiku is the holiday music in Japan.
In March 2011 a massive earthquake struck the coast of Japan and caused an enormously destructive tsunami. This tsunami sent the Fukishima nuclear power plant into meltdown. This was a major catastrophe for Japan, as many as 20,000 lives were lost.
And so, as Japan looked for ways to heal, a massive Daiku concert was put on in Tokyo. The performance included a chorus of 5,000 people in a huge stadium. The idea was to raise funds for the victims of the disaster, and also to bring Japan together following the earthquake and tsunami.
As Iwanaga Yuji, a Daiku performer, says, the Japanese culture embraces harmony. Daiku allows them to sing together as one. The message that “we are all brothers” was a powerful message of solidarity for those in the disaster area. Yuji says the Daiku performance proclaimed “Let’s rebuild Japan.”
As we sang the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” (to the tune Ode to Joy) I invited the congregation to remember the stories of the ninth symphony we had heard throughout Advent, and to remember Mary, brave, resilient and strong.
Even during that December, as the light at the end of the tunnel was coming into view, with the newly approved vaccine, there were concerns. There were doubts about who would receive the vaccine and whether it would be distributed equitably. And we wondered how we would emerge from the pandemic. Which institutions and businesses would be entirely lost? How would a generation of children overcome missed schooling and other missed opportunities? And how would we begin to grieve the ones who were gone? How would we heal?
At the time I thought “This is why we need to sing. Like Mary and all those who sing around the world, we need to raise our resilience to defy the odds. We sing the call to rebuild a just and equitable world: better than before … Because in Jesus, God brought freedom and joy, God brings freedom and joy, and God will bring freedom and joy.”
In our post-pandemic world many of those concerns are still present, we still sing the hymn, we still seek to build a just and equitable world, may we sing once more:
[1] https://www.worshipdesignstudio.com/
[2] https://www.leonardbernstein.com/about