Hanukkah: Cause us, O Lord

On this first Night of Hanukkah and Second Sunday of Advent, I have posted our anthem from Choral Evensong here.

Cause us, O Lord our God, to lie down each night in peace
and to awaken to renewed life and strength.
Lord, help us to order our lives by thy counsel,
lead us in the paths of righteousness.
Lord, be thou a shield about us, protect us,
save our world from sorrow, from hate, and from war.
Curb thou within us the will to do evil;
shelter us beneath the shadow of thy wings. Amen.

(text: a Jewish prayer)

As I mentioned a fortnight ago, I played the Prière of César Franck as the prelude. It turned out well enough, but there are plenty of good recordings on YouTube so I will not post mine. I did not select this anthem with the idea that it would be sung during Hanukkah; I chose it to fit the Lessons for tonight’s Evensong – Amos 6 and II Thessalonians 1. But it is a Jewish text, and far more timely than I had imagined. “Save our world from sorrow, from hate, and from war…”

We are Christians, of the household of God only by adoption, whom St. Paul describes as wild olive branches grafted to the rootstock. But Hanukkah was our deliverance, too. If the name of Israel had been erased from the earth in those days, there would have been no Messiah.

Thus, I selected Jewish images for the YouTube clip; a photo of a Menorah from a college Hillel center’s blog, and what I find to be an evocative Cubist painting from a modern artist (1970).

There is much more that I would like to say, but it must wait for another time. For tonight, for this Feast of the Dedication when the Lord granted his people deliverance when all seemed to be lost, it is enough to pray together.