Why Did Jesus Die?

By / Apr 18


I Thirst

By / Mar 29


Eternal Rest

By / Apr 5

Requiem aeternam, dona eis Domine, “Rest eternal grant them, O Lord.” These words are probably familiar, especially if you have attended a funeral at a Roman Catholic or Episcopal church. As Reformed Christians, quotations from the Requiem Mass can raise our spiritual hackles a bit, and rightly so. We do not believe that praying for the dead is something we should do. But taken on its own as a prayer, “Rest eternal grant them, O Lord” is quite appropriate. It all depends on who the “them” is!

St. Augustine highlights the universal need for rest in his Confessions, “You move us to delight in praising you; for you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” We need little convincing that we live in a restless world. Wars, pandemics, inflation, injustice, information overload, familial strife, job stress, emotional stress, or simply the dog barking next door, all contribute to the turmoil within most of us.

Rest is a very significant concept in the Bible. From the beginning God established rest as part of the regular rhythm of our existence in the Sabbath ordinance. God himself rested on the seventh day from his work of creation, blessed it, and made it a holy day.

The people of Israel were instructed to keep the Sabbath day as a holy convocation, a holy gathering, both because God had worked six days and rested one day (Exodus 20:11), but also because he had rescued them out of slavery in Egypt (Deuteronomy 5:15). God promised that when they inherited the land, they would have rest from their enemies (Deuteronomy 25:19). The point of this was to provide his people with a place to worship him which was unencumbered by the nations’ armies and gods. They would be distraction free.

God promises David rest from his enemies, and that he will build a house for him and establish his throne forever (2 Samuel 7:11-13).

Jesus, the Son of David, came offering rest: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

The author of Hebrews points to the fact that the “rest” offered in the book of Joshua pointed ahead to a greater rest, “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his” (Hebrews 4:8-10).

The book of Revelation says, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!’” (Revelation 14:13).

Finally, Revelation speaks more fully of the joy and blessedness of the redeemed: “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’ And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ He also said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’” (Revelation 21:3-5).

This year, the Good Friday Choral Concert features a work entitled “Requiem for the Living” by Dan Forrest. This five-movement work combines words from the traditional Requiem text with words from Scripture. Movement one is a prayer that God would grant eternal rest to all the living. Movement two sets words from Ecclesiastes emphasizing the vanity and hopelessness of those outside of Christ. Movement three sets the traditional “Agnus Dei” text, looking to Christ, the Lamb of God as the one who takes away the sin of the world. Movement four is a setting of the Sanctus, extolling the holiness of God and praising him for the salvation offered through Jesus Christ. Movement five concludes the work with Jesus’ invitation from Matthew 11 to come to him for rest and points forward to the eternal blessedness of those who die in the Lord.

The second work to be presented is the Te Deum by Herbert Howells. This is a stunning twentieth century choral setting of the ancient hymn extolling the Holy Trinity.

This is a wonderful opportunity to introduce a friend to Tenth and share with them the rest which can only be found in Christ. Join us as we praise our risen Savior together!



Good Friday Choral Concert 2016

By / Mar 25

Please join us for this year's Good Friday Choral Concert.

The Tenth Church Choir, Tenth Chamber Players and soloists Robin Leigh Massie, David Shockey, and Todd Thomas will present Saint Mark Passion by Charles Wood and part 3 of Messiah by George Frederick Handel.

The concert will be conducted by Thomas Hong and Colin Howland.



Good Friday Choral Concert

By / Apr 3


Good Friday Choral Concert 2013

By / Mar 29

Music of Gabriel Fauré

  • Requiem, op. 48
  • Cantique de Jean Racine, op. 11
  • Tantum ergo, op. 55
  • Pavane, op. 50
  • Elégie, op. 24
  • Fantasie, op.79
  • Sicilienne (from Pelléas et Mélisande)

 

Tenth Church Choir

Anne Williams, cello

Niles Watson, flute

Sarah Shafer, soprano

David Tahere, baritone

Tenth Chamber Players

Paul S. Jones, conductor



Good Friday Choral Concert 2012

By / Apr 6

Mozart: Mass in C Minor (Great)
Beethoven: Choral Fantasy

Tenth Church Choir & Soloists
Tenth Chamber Players
Thomas Hong, guest conductor
Paul S. Jones, piano/conductor

Mozart’s colossal unfinished Mass is paired with Beethoven’s rousing choral precursor to his final symphony. Eight wonderful soloists will join the choir and orchestra led by Paul Jones and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor Thomas Hong.



Behold the Lamb of God

By / Apr 22

Introduction

Perhaps you have had the experience of being among a crowd when someone called out, “Look! There is… (a famous name)!” Everyone looks with wonder. Or perhaps you did not know the person, and someone had to explain to you the significance of that individual. So one day among the crowd that he was baptizing and preaching to, John the Baptist spotted an otherwise unknown face in the crowd and called out “Behold!” “Look!”

As the crowd turned to see who he was pointing to, he then added these startling words, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The words were startling for a couple of reasons. One is the very claim that this unknown man would take away sin; the other is that no one was looking for such a man.

The Jews were looking for the Messiah, to be sure. But in that Messiah they were expecting a king to deliver them, a shepherd to guide them, even a priest to reconcile them to God. They were looking for the Lion of Judah. But no one was looking for the Lamb of God. And yet it is by such designation that the prophet John identified the Messiah.

Today we are going to explore what it meant to be the Lamb of God, using the texts that Charles Jennens chose for the second part of the Messiah. These will be the first words we hear tonight. It was Jennens who approached Handel with the concept and text for the Messiah. He meditated upon these words of John the Baptist, and to behold the Lamb of God he turned to the Old Testament.

Text

Turn with me to Isaiah 53. Jennens, of course, used the King James Version; but the English Standard Version we are using follows the translation closely. The Messiah is divided into three parts, part one presenting the birth of Christ and the salvation he brings. It is quite uplifting. As it comes to a close, we are told of the miracles he performs, how like a shepherd he gathers his lambs in his arms, how we who are burdened and heavy laden can find rest for our souls, for his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

So an audience may go into intermission feeling peaceful, perhaps sentimental. And then Jesus appears on the scene again, not as gentle shepherd but as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Our burden may be light but only because of the weight that he carried. Who was he as Lamb?

He was “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3) In 50:6, he describes himself as one who “gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting (Isaiah 50:6).

How could this be? If you read the texts of part one, you will read how Jesus came to comfort God’s people by proclaiming their sins pardoned. He is Emmanuel, the very embodiment of God now living among his people. His coming is glorious news; he is the light that has come to his people who had been dwelling in darkness. His birth is announced by angels; he is the long awaited king. He performs wondrous miracles. He speaks words of comfort.

How then could such a man be despised and rejected? For all of this wondrous and comforting news about him and what he brings to his people, his own people reject him. They do not recognize him as the Son of God. They consider him a charlatan; they think he is dangerous. And so they turn against him.

But here is the irony. The grief and sorrow they heap upon him actually serve his purpose. For, yes, Messiah did come to do all those things – to comfort, to bring light, to declare good news, and to bring pardon for sin; but the very means of accomplishing this work would be to suffer, even to die.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…5 But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

For us he suffered. For our sins he was wounded and crushed. He took upon himself the punishment due us. To understand more clearly, for the sake of the very persons afflicting him he suffered. It was mankind that oppressed and afflicted the Messiah; it was for mankind that he was “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (v. 7).

The lion became a lamb, the king a servant in order to suffer. But to suffer for a purpose: and with his stripes we are healed (v. 5). The Lamb of God suffered so that we might be healed. Of what?

When Isaiah spoke of the Lamb being “wounded for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities,” he did not mean that the Lamb somehow fell into the wrong place and the wrong time. There are those who are unjustly punished for another’s crimes. With DNA testing, we have read of innocent people who have served years in prison for crimes they did not commit.

Jesus, of course, did not commit any crimes, not even the slightest sin. Nevertheless he was punished. He literally received stripes upon his back, thirty-nine to be exact, before his punishment culminated in death on a cross, the ultimate Roman execution for criminals.

But it is precisely because he was an innocent victim that his stripes brought the kind of healing most needed for the rest of us – healing from the inner devastation of our own sins. Our sins have wracked our souls with pain and sickness. And our sins have placed us under the just wrath of God, who, if he is to be just, must bring judgment down upon us. That judgment, the Lamb of God willingly took upon himself as an offering and sacrifice to God.

As verse 6 explains: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

We the sheep, the grown-up lambs, have gone astray. We have not followed the Shepherd. We have each turned to our own way, rejecting the authority of our Lord, doing what is right in our own eyes, most of which is not right. We have piled sin upon sin mindlessly, heedless that every sin is recorded and remembered until our account reaches its full measure for final judgment. Those sins, every one of them, are laid upon the back of the Lamb of God.

How then did we respond when this noble act of sacrifice was made on our behalf? Jennens takes us to Psalm 22:7-8 for an account:

7All who see me mock me;
   they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8"He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;
   let him rescue him, for he delights in him!"

The Lamb of God is mocked for his efforts. And he is mocked for the very thing by which he was able to carry out his work – his trust in the Lord. That is the trait by which anyone is obedient to the call of God, for one cannot obey the call if he does not trust the One who gives the call.

They mock as well his belief that God delights in him. Jesus had unabashedly spoken of God as his Father; how he only did the Father’s will; how the Father loved him, the Son; how the Father is in him and he in the Father. And now he hangs on a cross, the very symbol of which is to be cursed of God.

And so the Lamb of God suffered for our weighty sins; he suffered in mockery; and he suffered in great sorrow. We are led to Psalm 69:20:

Reproaches have broken my heart,
   so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none,
   and for comforters, but I found none.

Jesus had predicted his own sufferings. He knew what would happen. He knew of the reproaches; he told his disciples that they would abandon him. But knowing these things did not lessen the pain of his spirit. We were not there for him. There was his mother, to be sure. There was one disciple who came back to be at the cross. But he hung on the cross alone surrounded by mockers, deserted for the most part by his followers. And it hurt.

But the heaviest pain to bear was the turning away of his Father. Jennens could have included the first verse of Psalm 22, which the Lamb of God cried out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Were there ever such sorrowful words uttered? The text that is included, Lamentations 1:12, begs this question:

Look and see
if there is any sorrow like my sorrow

In that sorrow he dies – the final act, the final blow:

he was cut off out of the land of the living,
   stricken for the transgression of my people?

“Cut off” is the term to express the covenant judgment. Circumcision, the sign of the covenant, signified this judgment. Whoever violated the covenant that God had made with his people was to be cut off, sent away into exile out of the land where God dwelled with is people. He would become an outcast and disinherited from the promises.

It is what was seen so vividly on the cross. The crucifixion took place out of the city of Jerusalem, which itself was a sign of rejection. He may have hung with criminals on either side, but he died alone. And all that witnesses could see was that he must have been rejected by the very God whom he called Father, for even the sun was shrouded in darkness.

Lessons

You and I know that that is not the end of the story, as tonight’s concert will make very clear. But let us take time to meditate what took place on the cross. For understand this, Christ’s death was neither a senseless act of violence nor a story play-acted by a great actor. It was real – the pain, the suffering, the sorrow; and it was the greatest act of redemption.

His very suffering on the cross signified that he was carrying out his Father’s will to make atonement for our sins. It was Satan who tempted him in the wilderness to rule the world without the cross; Satan, who speaking through Peter, tried to persuade him to give up his resolute march to Jerusalem. No, the sufferings all fit into the plan to bring us healing and remove us from under our righteous judgment.

The greatest test for Jesus was not yielding himself to the cross, but doing so as an unblemished lamb. It is only such a lamb that God will accept as a suitable offering. One sin – one stain on the conscience – and his work would be in vain. But when he breathed his final breath and committed his spirit into the hands of his Father, he did so as an innocent, perfect offering, knowing that his sufferings and death were not in vain.

There are two misconceptions about the sufferings of the cross. One is that Jesus was a victim of wicked men. He had come to bring peace, but his mission was thwarted as such missions usually are. Wickedness gained the upper hand. Another perspective is that Jesus did come to suffer, but the suffering was only to show how much God loved us. We then are to take heart in such great love as we go through our own sufferings. There is some truth to these ideas. Jesus was given over to wicked men who did plot his death. But as Peter would explain in his Pentecost sermon, Jesus was delivered over “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). And, yes, Jesus’ suffering on the cross does show divine love, but, as another disciple John would explain, he was “to be the propitiation for our sins.” There was purpose in his suffering – purpose to heal, to save.

Do you know you need healing? Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). If you look to the cross as merely a noble act that encourages you to make sacrifices, you have missed the point. Jesus came not to inspire us to greater heights but to heal us from deadly sin. Will you accept your diagnosis?

Do you know you need to be saved from judgment? If you take comfort in the love shown on the cross, but do not repent from the very sins that the Lamb of God died for; if you do not trust in Christ’s redemption to save you from your deserved judgment, then his work is of no avail for you. Jesus said that he must be lifted up “that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:15).

Don’t be guilty of play-acting. Don’t treat the coming of the Son of God and his dying on the cross as the Lamb of God as a symbolic story that teaches you some moral lesson. Don’t go through the motions and the rituals of a dead religion. The Son of God was not play-acting. God the Father is not the mere play writer of a symbolic drama. The Son suffered; the Father dreadfully permitted his Son to drink the last dregs of the bitter cup.

And this was done for us; done for us as we like sheep went astray, blithely following our own way, as even now we are guilty of doing. It is here at the cross where we may view our own nature rightly. It is here at the cross where we may grasp the deadliness of our sin. It is here at the cross, as we see the Lamb of God dying on the tree that we may see our Healer, our Redeemer. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!



Good Friday Choral Concert 2011

By / Apr 22

Handel’s beloved oratorio needs no introduction. We will perform the second and third parts, which fit so well in Holy Week. Don’t miss these outstanding soloists and the Tenth Choir singing this masterwork, sure to inspire you.



Good Friday Choral Concert 2010

By / Apr 2

Works of Handel, Barber, and Haydn
Handel – Gloria
Barber – Adagio for Strings
Haydn – Lord Nelson Mass

Sarah Shafer, soprano
Tenth Church Choir/Soloists
Tenth Chamber Players
Paul S. Jones, conductor

Our Good Friday choral/orchestral program will include three wonderful pieces. Barber’s famous Adagio suits this day well. Sarah Shafer will thrill you with Handel’s rediscovered Gloria, and the Haydn Lord Nelson Mass is a choral favorite.



Lifted Up

By / Apr 2


The Wages of Sin

By / Apr 10


Good Friday Choral Concert 2009

By / Apr 10

A Mendelssohn Bicentennial

Celeste Golden, violin
Rita McKinley Pride, soprano
Steven Condy, baritone
Tenth Church Choir
Tenth Chamber Players
Paul S. Jones, conductor

The annual evening of choral-orchestral music during Passion Week always draws a capacity crowd. come early to find a seat. Music of Mendelssohn will celebrate the 200th anniversary of his birth: the Violin Concerto, Psalm 42, Hebrides Overture, and two short cantatas.



Now You See Me, Now You Don’t

By / Mar 21


Good Friday Choral Concert 2008

By / Mar 21

Albinoni, Adagio for Organ and Strings in G Minor
Bach, Concerto for Piano in F Minor
Mahler, Adagietto (from Symphony 5)
Duruflé, Requiem

Bethany Brooks, piano, Christopher Garven, organ
Erin Holland, mezzo soprano, Todd Thomas, baritone
Tenth Church Choir, Tenth Chamber Players
Paul S. Jones, conductor

This annual evening of choral-orchestral music during Passion Week always draws a capacity crowd. Come early in order to find a seat.



Good Friday Choral Concert 2007

By / Apr 6

Ein’ deutsches Requiem
Violin Concerto (1st Mvt.)

Holly Cole, soprano
Todd Thomas, baritone
Hye-Jin Kim, violin
Tenth Church Choir
Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia
Tenth Chamber Players
Paul S. Jones, conductor

This annual evening of choral-orchestral music during Passion Week always draws a capacity crowd. Brahms’ masterpiece, A German Requiem, based on biblical texts, is one of the most glorious pieces of music in the Western canon, and his virtuosic violin concerto is particularly beautiful. Arrive early in order to find a seat.



Good Friday Choral Concert 2006

By / Apr 14

Soloists: Kristine Biller Mattson, Dan Bubeck, Stuart Neill, Branch Fields
Tenth Church Choir
Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia
Tenth Chamber Players
Paul S. Jones, conductor

The Good Friday Choral Concert is a new tradition at Tenth following the over-capacity performance of Mozart’s Requiem in 2005. Come hear the Passion/Resurrection sections of Handel’s timeless oratorio performed by these extraordinary soloists, chorus, and orchestral players.