The Power of Music

By this time of the year, most ward choirs are preparing Christmas music to sing in December. I have been singing with my ward's choir over the past few weeks, and I have always left the rehearsal feeling uplifted. Music has great power and can help lift us closer to God.

In old times, music was very important to people in their worship of God. In the Old Testament we read:
"O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation"
(Psalm 95:1).

In these last days, the Lord commanded Emma Smith to make a "selection of sacred hymns." Following this commandment, the Lord declared,
"For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads"(D&C 25:12).
We have had a tradition of keeping a hymnal ever since then. In fact, the Church is currently in the process of producing an updated version of the hymnbook.

While I was serving on my mission, my dad wrote a Christmas poem that he sent to me. It is about the story of the angels who announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds, and why they were singing. His friend who writes music composed an organ accompaniment for the poem. My ward choir is preparing to sing this arrangement for Christmas this year. To my knowledge, it has not been sung before with the organ accompaniment. I have included a synthesized recording of the organ music as part of this post so that those in the choir with me can practice before we sing it in December.

Link (mp3)
Copyright 2014 Jerry James and Chad Staten
No redistribution

I hope you enjoy this fantastic music, and have a great holiday season.

Comments

Jesus Approves the Words of Isaiah

Earlier this year, I did some comparisons of chapters in the Book of Mormon which include quotations from Old Testament prophets (links below). It is interesting to see what the slight differences are between what we have in the King James Version of the Bible vs what the Nephites had in the brass plates . Christ with Three Nephite Disciples, by Gary L. Kapp The reading for the Come, Follow Me curriculum this last week covered 3 Nephi chapters 20-26 . These chapters contain commentary from the Savior on the words of Micah and Isaiah, as well as direct quotations from Isaiah and Malachi. Chapters 20 and 21 are (I think) the most interesting, as the quotations are interspersed with explanation from Jesus as to how the prophecies refer to the gathering of Israel in the last days. The other three chapters are nearly quoted verbatim, though I include them here for completions sake. Here are the links to the comparison pages for each the chapters in 3 Nephi 20-25....

"What Is Truth?"

I recently watched a video where science nerd Kyle Hill responded to the various social media conspiracies that have been popping up about the "fake snow" in Texas. Although I expected him to call them silly, foolish, or something worse, I was surprised when he instead talked about a more serious topic he calls the “information apocalypse.” Beyond being a good example of avoiding name-calling, it was an interesting discussion about information, truth, and our responsibilities as citizens of the world (13:00-17:20). We are indeed living in a time where there is so much information available, it can be hard to tell what is true and what isn’t. Some, like Pontius Pilate, may believe that it is not possible to determine the truth. He expressed this, perhaps cynically, perhaps dejectedly, when he asked Jesus, “What is truth?” ( John 18:38 ). Others may believe that there is no truth that applies to everyone. I believe that there are some facts which are always t...

Mothers Day 2023

A couple of weeks ago on Mother's Day, I gave a talk in church about how women in the scriptures exemplify attributes of Jesus Christ. I'd like to share it here so we all can appreciate together the great examples of righteousness we have in the scriptures. In church I had to shorten my talk somewhat, so you could consider the version here the "Director's Cut" :) Growing up I was grateful for my mom, for the same reasons that many young people are - she drove me to school, cooked dinner, and did the laundry. But there's a lot more to motherhood than doing chores, which I've been learning about in the past few years as I've watched my wife raise our 2 daughters. She sacrifices so much of her free time and personal desires for the benefit of our kids. I am continually in awe of her selflessness, and will be forever grateful for her. I was asked to speak about "Christlike Attributes shown by women in the scriptures". With it being Mother...

Gospel Cogitations

Search This Blog