SERVANT SONG ^_[1]

SUPERB MUSICAL TAPESTRY

1.  For our Divine Lesson today, I invite you to meditate on the Servant Song of Isaiah's prophecy. Granted, this song is not set to the harmonic scale. Yet, it is very much a song. What is the melody line of the prophet? Isaiah sings of God's two-fold gift of wisdom and proclamation. God commissions the prophet to know Him and to make Him known. The prophet comforts the Sovereign Lord's exhausted people. Each morning God lifts the veil of slumber from Isaiah's closed eyes. Hear like the learned, God says. Open your ears, he declares.  [cf. Isa 50:4-5]  Never rebellious or aloof, the prophet recalls that his fidelity to Lord invokes the wrath of the godless. Those who hate God despise him. The servant's tormentors shame him, spit upon him, strike and scourge him. They pull out his beard. In the midst of affliction, the prophet remembers that the Sovereign Lord will come to help him. Though in mortal danger, he sets his face like flint  [cf. Isa 50: 7]  knowing that he will be vindicated. God will shield him from shame. Having heard Isaiah's song, we must ask ourselves a question. Is it possible for a song to have more than one melody? The answer is yes. When a composer writes one or more separate melodies on the staff above or below a given melody, the technique is called counterpoint. Each melodic line stands alone, but all are intended to be played or sung simultaneously. Bach's glorious doxology, Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, beautifully illustrates the art of harmonizing melodies. Leonard Bernstein, in his light opera West Side Story (1957),^[2] combines simultaneous melodic lines in the showstopper "Tonight" sung by Tony and Maria in the finale of Act I.  Their duet is framed by the ominous counterpoint of the Sharks and Jets preparing for gang war. The chordal progressions and harmony are at once a glorious and ominous foreshadowing of inexorable tragedy:  "We're gonna rock it tonight, We're gonna jazz it up and have us a ball! They're gonna get it tonight; The more they turn it on the harder they'll fall!" Although the cast members sing different melodies and lyrics, the complex counterpoint melds to create a superb musical tapestry of youthful aspirations, tenement life and ubiquitous human violence. With some effort, then, we may discern in Isaiah's song the presence of another voice and a second melodic line. The counterpoint to the prophet's message is, of course, the gospel of Jesus Christ. His passionate proclamation forms the second melodic line. These verses from Isaiah comprise one of four songs of the suffering servant:  "The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him that is weary. Morning by morning he wakens, he wakens my ear to hear as those who are taught."  [Isa 50:4]  The voices of prophecy and gospel, promise and fulfillment converge at the moment when Christ announces in the synagogue at Nazareth:  "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."  [Lk 4:21]  Listen to the voice of Christ above Isaiah's own. The Son of God, who learned from the Father in heaven, is "full of grace and truth".  [Jn 1:14]  He offers his weary people a word of healing, reconciliation and everlasting life. Each night he entrusts himself to the father in sleep. Upon waking each day, the father feeds his servant-son with heavenly food. "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted...to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified", prophesies Isaiah.  [Isa 61:1-3]  "I am the resurrection and the life," answers Christ, "he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die."  [Jn 11:25-26] 

ANTHEM OF FAITH

2.  Jesus does not turn his back on the Father's plan for mankind's salvation. He continues to hear and obey his heavenly Father. With quiet firmness, he insists that he is absolutely blameless. Our Lord does not rebel against God or man. Offering his life as a worthy sacrifice for mankind, Jesus sets his face like flint. He is not ashamed, for God stands with him. Jesus courageously faces his accusers. Prophecy and gospel mourn the suffering of Christ who, as the Incarnate Word of God is reviled by the human family he comes to save. Whether he makes it, shares it, or mangles it, man loves music. He hums quietly to himself. He whistles aloud. He sings while bathing. It matters little if one cannot sing on key. Each of us has a favorite song, a cherished hymn, a beloved anthem. We naively suppose that songs should have one melody line supported by chord variations; after all, a performer cannot sing two melodic lines simultaneously. Whether we can read music or not, however, we can appreciate the art of counterpoint. Music composition helps us to express the complexity of our relationship with God and each other. Sacred Scripture reveals that God fashions you as an instrument for his divine ensemble. He composes a melody for you. It is yours to sing. Should you turn away from God's changeless, eternal love, you are nothing but a "noisy gong or a clanging cymbal".  [1Cor 13:1]  Should you neglect to care for yourself as God's instrument, or fail to practice your part in God's divine plan, a world of debased and malignant individuals awaits you.^[3] Hearing begets obedience. If you desire to live in harmony with God and man, you must listen to the Father. To hear the Father, you must turn your face toward him. The more you listen to God, the more he speaks his word to you. The martyr St. Ignatius of Antioch, writing in about 107 AD, recognized the tranquility of spirit that graces the Church when the faithful abide in right relationship with their bishop: 

THAT IS why it is proper for your conduct and your practices to correspond closely with the mind of the bishop. And this, indeed, they are doing; your justly respected clergy, who are a credit to God, are attuned to their bishop like the strings of a harp, and the result is a hymn of praise to Jesus Christ from minds that are in unison, and affections that are in harmony.^[4] 

People will oppose you for being Catholic. You may well be harassed and bullied. You may be persecuted for your faith. But you possess the steadfast love of Christ whose beauty and nobility no whip or fist can touch. Trial or suffering afflict all who journey in life, but we are given the grace to choose that for which we will suffer. By judging well, pointless suffering acquires meaning. Those who follow Christ choose the better portion.  [cf. Lk 10:41-42]  For Christians, death is no longer a pit, but rather a door; suffering is no more a flood but a highway, a holy stair pointed to heaven. Nevertheless, our God may not liberate us from hardship as we would wish. In the hour of courage, we may have pleaded, Lord, let this cup pass to another  [cf. Mt 26:39]  and disobeyed the Father. But from what did we walk away? Was it suffering? By no means. We will undergo difficulty and harsh conditions wherever we turn. Was it our accusers? Certainly not, for we face adversaries wherever we go. When we renounce Christ, when we no longer listen to the Father, work on the holy stair is suspended. It remains incomplete and unfinished. Our spiritual ascent comes to a standstill. Where, then, can we go but down? Faith, not cunning or wealth, determines the outcome. We trust the Son to conform the movement of our lives to the Father's divine opus. As citizens of the eternal Jerusalem, we conquer adversity in this passing world through the power of Christ, the "lamb standing as though it had been slain".  [Rev 5:6,12]  There is no shame for being harassed or attacked for our Christian faith. If we hide our face before our accusers, how can we keep our eyes on God? If we bow before those who would shame us, then through whom will God's power be shown? True shame is turning away from God and scheming to injure others. Jerusalem, My Destiny is one of many beautiful selections in our Catholic hymnal. Remarkably, the words and music of this anthem recapitulate the suffering servant's lament, his attentive ear to the Father's voice, and his absolute certainty that, while he suffers for God, he will not be put to shame. This anthem of faith, like Isaiah's song of the suffering servant, was written to strengthen those who travel the arduous road that leads to life.  [cf. Mt 7:13-14]  Making "...its pilgrim way in hope toward its goal, the fatherland above",^[5] the Church announces the victory Christ won on the cross two-thousand years ago:  "I have fixed my eyes on your hills, Jerusalem my destiny! Though I cannot see the end for me, I cannot turn away. We have set our hearts for the way; This journey is our destiny, Let no one walk alone. The journey makes us one."^[6]