What’s on Your Playlist?

(For November/December 2018 Wayland UMC newsletter) I just added two new songs to my iTunes playlist for Bernie Williams, a Latin jazz musician, to whom I am not related. Most recently, his music gives me energy for my morning routine. And with five of his songs on my playlist I now can go on a healthy walk to the rhythm of his songs.

Playlists can be helpful that way. They can focus our attention on particular activities. Perhaps you have a playlist for your physical work out or a walk or household chores. Athletes use music to focus their concentration on the game or match or challenge ahead. If a song is on your playlist, hopefully, it’s because it resonates with you.

I like the way Carole King’s “Jazzman” depicts a Christ figure:

Lift me, won’t you lift me above the old routine;
Make it nice, play it clean jazzman
When the jazzman’s testifyin’ a faithless man believes
He can sing you into paradise or bring you to your knees

And the way “Listen to the Music” by the Doobie Brothers expresses a longing for good news:

Don’t you feel it growin’, day by day
People gettin’ ready for the news
Some are happy, some are sad
Oh, we got to let the music play
What the people need
Is a way to make ’em smile
It ain’t so hard to do if you know how
Gotta get a message
Get it on through…

Songs inspire us or bring us into a positive mental, physical, or spiritual state. They have therapeutic and healing qualities. And music is not the only source for this kind of transformation in our lives. There are rehearsals of familiar written and spoken messages that focus our attention and inspire us for faithful living. This is the potential before us every year at Advent. The season of Advent starts a new church year and this year the first Sunday of Advent is December 2. Each year in some fashion we replay messages of peace, joy, love, and hope that we find in Jesus.

This year is the 200th anniversary of the release of the song, Silent Night, Holy Night. From our Worship Design Studio resource:

“This hymn has become the best-loved worship moment of many Christians–even those who only come to church once a year. Something mystical occurs as we light our candles and sing the hope of “all is calm, all is bright”–peace and light for the world.”

We sing Silent Night, Holy Night every Christmas Eve along with Christians throughout the world. We resist the violence, fear, and deception that assault our spirits, minds, and bodies as we return to the good news that can focus our attention and inspire us for faithful living. In seemingly futile times, we affirm that the peace, joy, love, and hope that we find in Jesus are ultimately the strongest powers in the world.