LOOK: Supper at Emmaus medallion from the Tabernacle of Cherves
Detail of The Supper at Emmaus from the Tabernacle of Cherves, Charente, France, ca. 1220–30. Champlevé enamel and copper, overall 33 × 37 3/4 × 10 3/4 in. (83.8 × 95.9 × 27.3 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
He is born There’s a reason now to carry on Toot your horns Write another song Love is here Seated at your table now Not livin’ in a stable now Love is king
So let us sing Let us sing Love is king Love is king (Repeat)
He is born There’s a reason now to carry on Toot your horns Write another song Love is here Seated at your table now Not livin’ in a stable now Love is king
Angels sing About the king Let it ring Love is king
So let us sing Let us sing Love is king Love is king
This post is part of a daily Christmas series that goes through January 6. View all the posts here, and the accompanying Spotify playlist here.
James Ensor (Belgian, 1860–1949), Christ Exorcising the Evil Spirit, 1921. Color lithograph from the portfolio Scènes de la vie du Christ (Scenes from the Life of Christ).
And immediately there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit. And he cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” And at once his fame spread everywhere throughout all the surrounding region of Galilee.
—Mark 1:23–28
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SONG: “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down” | Traditional, performed by Willie Nelson on Country Music (2010)
This spiritual was first recorded and released by Blind Joe Taggart in 1931. An alternative version, “Satan, We’re Gonna Tear Your Kingdom Down,” is #485 in the African American Heritage Hymnal.
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Haste to me, Lord, when this fool-heart of mine
Begins to gnaw itself with selfish craving;
Or, like a foul thing scarcely worth the saving,
Swoln up with wrath, desireth vengeance fine.
Haste, Lord, to help, when reason favours wrong;
Haste when thy soul, the high-born thing divine,
Is torn by passion’s raving, maniac throng.
Fair freshness of the God-breathed spirit air,
Pass through my soul, and make it strong to love;
Wither with gracious cold what demons dare
Shoot from my hell into my world above;
Let them drop down, like leaves the sun doth sear,
And flutter far into the inane and bare,
Leaving my middle-earth calm, wise, and clear.
This post belongs to the weekly series Artful Devotion. If you can’t view the music player in your email or RSS reader, try opening the post in your browser.
To view all the Revised Common Lectionary scripture readings for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, cycle B, click here.
Art & Theology 