Sunday, December 20, 2009

The reason we sing

The Reason We Sing
Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church
4th Week of Advent, 12/20/09

Luke 1:39-55
 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
 And Mary said,

‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   
and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him
  
 from generation to generation. 

He has shown strength with his arm;
  
 he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
  
 and lifted up the lowly; 

he has filled the hungry with good things,
   
and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel,
   
in remembrance of his mercy, 

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’


I took Maisy to see Santa at the mall yesterday.  And it is a strange thing to be the adult in this scenario.  To uphold a weird lie, that all the other adults around you are pretending is true as well, to watch your kid struggle with questions and doubts but keep
shushing them with explanations for why we’re not at Santa’s house and we’re in between Herbergers and Games by James instead, and where the reindeer and sleigh might be, and answer things like why we can’t bring Santa pumpkin bread like we did for our teachers and friends, and witness the mixture of built up excitement and strange disappointment as she tries to wrap her little mind around what is not quite right about this Santa, why it doesn’t feel like she thought it would to come and talk to him.
I watched a parade of dressed up kids and stressed out parents, the lady in front of me saying her husband had been out of work for a year and a half, but choosing to shell out the $17 for the 3x5 picture of her 9 year old with Santa anyway, because it might likely be the last year he believes it is real and she wants to hold onto the magic.  So we lined up behind velvet ropes and shelled out money and made up fake answers to their real questions to make things seem special.  And I wondered what she would say to her son if he asked Santa for a job for his dad.

How is Christmas – any story of Christmas-  not just this scenario?  Pretending, upholding the narrative, denying our real experience to maintain the integrity of the story, so we can all feel good and smile and make things feel special for a while?  How is the “magic” of Christmas not just some horrible illusion we create for people, whether the illusion is Santa Claus bring presents down our chimney while we sleep or Jesus Christ, God incarnate, being born in a manger two thousand years ago to save us all?  
What difference does it make which story we’re peddling if it’s just a story, if we’re just frantically pretending to believe in it so that it can mean something for our children, or if we have made it into something generic and broad – like good will towards all people and trying to remember those less fortunate than ourselves when the ghost of Christmas past or future gives us a temporary holiday jolt out of our selfishness.  And we say that if you’ve been good you will get what you ask for, but we mean as long is it isn’t something real, like a job or a spouse or your health.

“Have you been a good boy this year?”  I told my son Santa would ask that. And he answered, “No. I have been mean to my sister, I sometimes hit her or say mean things.”  And I could not convince him to answer “yes.”  And in the end, for many reasons, he decided not to go see Santa, this boy who, though he desperately wanted to play the game, couldn’t. Though part of him believes enough to send the message of what he wants for Christmas with his sister to pass on to Santa, he is ultimately too honest and self-aware to do his part, to insist he has been a good boy and tell this pretend magic man that he deserves to be rewarded.  And so the fantasy we played out with our visit was simply not for him.

Who is the fantasy for?  Us? Are we, the ones sitting here the Sunday before Christmas, the ones who are willing to play the game, keep the tradition alive, tell the story, feel good, even if it means being a little dishonest, or artificial? Are we here to sing the songs and spread the cheer and gaze at the sweet baby Jesus in the virgin’s arms, and domesticate the fiery words of Mary’s magnficat, so that we don’t really have to feel the disconnect from real life?

How do we deal with such a story? What makes Christmas anything worth singing about? What makes it real, powerful, and not just soft glow nostalgia surrounded by frenzied shopping? When we sing these Advent and Christmas hymns, what makes us able to sing, with conviction, these words of hope? Of wrongs being made right, justice prevailing and peace reigning? What makes us able to do that without being delusional or hypocritical or in complete denial of our real experience and the world around us?  What makes us able to speak out about a reality we don’t yet often see and not be completely ridiculous, or false and cheery, or out of touch?

Someone told me this week that they never liked the Magnificat, because they couldn’t believe that was really Mary’s response.  When she is a pregnant and unmarried girl that God has done this to, would she really sing of how blessed she was, and how God tears down the mighty and lifts up the weak? What makes her song anything but insincere and contrived?

Today’s scripture shows the point in the story where two narratives intersect and merge.  It picks up with Elizabeth, the barren and elderly wife of Zechariah, a priest, living in the hill country of Judea.  The two of them are far closer to the grave than a cradle, but God puts a child in her womb after all these years, and tells them this child, John, will prepare the way for the One who is to come and redeem all people. Her husband is struck mute for the entire duration of the pregnancy because he did not believe the angel who told him this would happen, and the woman, though she celebrates and declares that the Lord has taken away her shame, has not shown herself to anyone for five months, as her body changes and the baby grows, she stays hidden, holding this secret inside herself.

When she is in her sixth month, the story shifts to Nazareth, a week’s journey away, to a young woman of no consequence, a virgin engaged to this guy named Joseph, a girl names Mary, who happens to be related to Elizabeth.  God sends an angel to her one day out of the blue, who tells her that she will be pregnant and bear the Savior of all.  How? she asks. How can this be? Since I am a virgin, I am not even married, barely an adult, my story hasn’t even begun, how can this possibly be?
And the angel says, “Your cousin, Elizabeth, even now she is six months pregnant. Nothing is impossible with God.”  And Mary answers, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord. Let it be according to me as you have said.’’

And then what do you do? After you agree to such a thing? After the moment passes and the angel leaves and the nausea sets in?  What does a young girl do alone and pregnant with the strangest story, a crazy story, and a blasphemous story? What do you do when everything has changed, but nothing is different? 

She gets up, packs up and flees to one who knows, one who can share her story,
Mary runs to Elizabeth.  The fear, the unknown hovering around her, thoughts racing, legs racing faster, just get there, just get there and explain what happened to you and see if something has happened to her.  Just go.
She flies into the house and calls out to Elizabeth.
And she doesn’t have to say another word.  Elizabeth just knows. She hears Mary’s voice and the baby leaps inside her and by the power of God’s Spirit she knows, and she rushes to Mary and grabs her in her arms, calls her blessed, affirms her faith, and confirms her experience, while mute Zechariah looks on in amazement.

What a moment – when Elizabeth embraces, announces, corroborates and blesses Mary, suddenly Mary is filled with such joy, this thing is no longer quite so terrifying and is even more real, and she sings. And what comes out is a powerful, threatening, booming pronouncement, a prophesy, begun in gratitude and spinning out from herself to encompass the whole earth, the vindication of the people of Israel, the lowly will be raised and the mighty brought down! 
This song doesn’t come from the angel’s pronouncement or Mary’s great personal faith or strength. It comes from sharing the mystery with someone else, from witnessing it to be real in another and having them see it in her.

These two women are the church before there was a church.
The life of Christ, the promise of God’s salvation lives in them, and between them they carry this incredible secret that the whole world is being saved and nothing will ever be the same.

Before Mary came, Elizabeth hadn’t set foot out of the house. She believed God’s promise, had seen and felt the changes in her own body as this child grew. She had every reason to go and proclaim it to anyone who would listen. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave the front door.  But now, here comes the other, who knows and shares the secret, who also is vulnerable and chosen, who is also participating with God. 

When Mary comes Elizabeth is no longer a pity or an oddity, no longer a hidden secret-bearer, she becomes a prophet as well.  The Holy Spirit speaks through her and she declares outloud with words what Mary has been told and is almost afraid to believe. And coming from Elizabeth it sounds like better news, it sounds powerful and hopeful, exciting and REAL, it sounds real. When Elizabeth says it, it
And then Mary can believe it and let herself know it and feel it and share it.

In one another, God provided sanctuary, the space for the promise to grow.  For the three months that followed, until Elizabeth was ready to give birth, they lived side by side, sharing this promise, this mystery, bearing this secret inside their very bodies. They were not alone.  With one another they found the strength to keep going. Strength not only to bear the children, face the questions, imagine the future, but strength they would need to parent these chosen children, these unusual offspring who were destined for a particular role.  With one another they could be reminded of the bigger picture, could literally see in each other what God was doing for the future of the world.

One writer says, “without Mary, Elizabeth would just be an urban legend, and without Elizabeth, Mary would just be a lying hussy.[1]”  But their lives together, side by side, tell a bigger and fearfully compelling message that God is up to something undeniable.

God is up to something undeniable.  And we are participants.  Christmas is our story. It is our song.  It is the promise that we hold within us and keep between us that Christ is alive, that God has come, is with us now and will return. 
And without one another, without witnessing to the reality of God’s activity in each other’s lives and in the world, without looking back recognizing and interpreting God’s faithfulness in the past
 and looking forward expecting God’s involvement in the future, Christmas is just a sappy legend. 

And without our real lives being aloud, and EXPECTED to ask questions, to share doubts and fear, to struggle, and wonder, and refuse to play pretend, we risk letting Christmas become just a fantasy we are peddling to keep our children happy and make the world a little bit more cheerful for a while.

But like Elizabeth and Mary, together we are bearing within ourselves The Story, we are seeing it unfold in each other, and we are sharing it with the world.  Like Elizabeth and Mary, we are chosen to participate with God.
When we can say to each other, “I have not been good, I have been mean.”,
and when we can say, please God, my dad needs a job, or my wife is sick, or I am having trouble remembering things like I used to, or I feel afraid, and when we can have faith for each other when we cannot believe for ourselves and things feel dark and overwhelming,
and when we can help each other to step out bravely into the difficult and wonderful things God is calling us to
Then the life of Christ, the promise of God’s salvation lives in us, and between us we carry this incredible secret that the whole world is being saved and nothing will ever be the same. 

Amen.






[1] Rev. Mandy Sloan Flemming, St. Mark United Methodist Church, sermon Advent 4, 2008

Saturday, December 19, 2009

On Seeing Santa

 "Have you been a good boy this year?" 
"No. I haven't.  Sometimes I hit Maisy. And sometimes I am mean to her."
But honey, you've been a good boy. You've apologized when you've been mean to your sister, and she has forgiven you. It's ok. You have been a good boy this year.  When he asks, you can say yes."
"No Mom. I have been mean to my sister. I have not been a good boy."
   We were prepping for our visit to Santa, and I found myself in the middle of several ethical and theoretical dilemmas.  My dear, introspective five year old could not bring himself to say that he had been a good boy (whatever that means anyway).  This discussion had followed immediately on the heals of a strange conversation about why we could NOT bring Santa some pumpkin bread as a gift.  Why not?  Their teachers got pumpkin bread. We gave it to our friends. Why in the world wouldn't we bring some for Santa?
   The whole reason we were going anyway, is because my two and a half year old had gotten it into her head that Santa would be coming to visit. And we would give HIM presents, and a big hug. In that order.  For days she said, "I am so excited for Santa to come, so I can give him presents and a big hug."  No amount of explaining - including her brother informing her that "Santa isn't real, Maisy, it's the grown ups who bring presents", which she summarily dismissed - would deter her from her anticipation at the Man's visit.
   So I decided we'd better go to the mall and see Santa.  
   Second question, "What do you want for Christmas?"
Maisy announced that she was going to ask for a teddy bear and a baby doll. Owen, after much internal wrestling, had decided to ask for new legos.  Maisy was giddy with anticipation. Owen had just remembered that he'd seen Santa last year, and he wasn't all that.  Actually, he was a little scary.  At the last minute, Owen backed out, saying he'd rather stay home, but he gave careful instructions to his sister to pass on his Christmas request when she saw the Man in Red.
   We got to the mall and hurried to the Santa area.  Maisy was confused as to what Santa was doing in a shopping mall, and why we weren't at his home.  I had no answer for her. I'd given up defending and explaining this bizarre and slightly disturbing ritual of putting our kids on a sweaty stranger's lap, all the adults lying and pretending and all the kids suspicious and confused. 
   We arrived at the line, easily twenty people deep, children crying or swinging from the velvet ropes, parents looking haggard.  Many of the children wore dresses and tights, buttoned up shirts and fancy shoes.  My daughter looked up at me and asked, "Where's Santa?"  So I asked and the woman behind the camera told me he would be back at 2:15.  It was 2:10.  That seemed ok.  Then the woman in front of me turned around and said she'd been waiting for a half hour, and they told her he'd be back at 2:00. Her nine year old son stood patiently next to her.  
   Finally at 2:25 HE came strolling through the mall, a ripple of relief went through the line, and my daughter squealed and clapped her hands.  He climbed around the ropes, smothered his hands in Purell and pulled on his white gloves.  He spritzed breath freshener into his mouth, adjusted his hat, and settled into his chair.
   As the line inched forward I learned that the boy in front of us still believed in Santa; his big brother had lost interest. Despite the fact that her husband had been out of work for a year and a half, the mom was willing to shell out the $17 for the cheapest photo package (two 3x5s) to keep the magic alive for him for one more year, because even though she brought it just in case, the giant sign in front of us said she would not be permitted to her to use her own camera.
   At one point I noticed another "Santa".  Coming down the escalator, eyes upon the Santa scene below, was an old, plump man with a full white beard and a full head of grey-white hair in jeans and a black sweater.  He watched all the way to the bottom of the escalator, then rounded the corner and tucked himself underneath the escalator where he stood gazing at the Santa scene for several more minutes. I imagined he was an interviewee who didn't get the job sizing up his competition, or a prospective Santa, working on the beard and the gut this year so that next year he might audition for the role himself. Lurking to pick up some pointers.  Or maybe hoping some kid might notice him and think he was the real thing checking up on the fake. Or maybe he was.
   I looked back at the one who had gotten the job, as he slid a child off his lap, removed his thick fur hat and mopped his bald head with it before putting it back on.  What if Santa had a heart attack or stroke? I wondered. This seemed like a kind of grueling ordeal for someone of his age.
   After fielding several more Santa questions - "Where are his reindeer and sleigh?" (on the mall roof, if you could peek out that skylight, you'd see them) - Maisy's turn came.  She marched up to the Man, chin reaching just above his knee as he perched on his giant green throne, and said to him, "Hi Santa."  
He was very sweet with her. Engaged her in conversation. Asked her baby doll's name, and what she wanted for Christmas.  He never asked her if she'd been a good girl.  That question must be out.  (Owen would've been safe). Finally I picked her up and set her on his bright red knee, and backed up so they could snap a picture. 
   I could see it all over her face. It wasn't what she thought it would be. Mechanical deer bobbing its head next to her and furry snow all over the mall floor.  She clammed up, finally giving us a obligatory half-smile in response to my and the picture lady's screeching ("Smile honey! Like a princess!  Say CHEESE!"), and Santa gently set her down on the floor.  He reached over and folded a crown of paper antlers and placed them on her head.  She waved and said, "Bye Santa," and then took my hand and we walked away.  A few steps later she stopped and gasped. "Oh! I forgot to give him a hug!"  I looked back at the scene - line wrapping around the piles of snow and red velvet rope, the picture lady screeching at the child screaming in the bright red man's arms. "It's ok, honey.  You sat on his lap.  That's enough."






Sunday, December 6, 2009

Advent's Audacity












Preparing and Waiting: Second Sunday of Advent










Malachi 3:1-4
See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.




Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the Lord,
  
 make his paths straight. 

Every valley shall be filled,
  
 and every mountain and hill shall be made low,

and the crooked shall be made straight,
  
 and the rough ways made smooth;

and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’


We’re knee deep into Advent, a word that means “coming,” a season where we prepare for Christ’s coming at Christmas and enter into a spirit of waiting.  Last week we gathered at St. Joseph’s Home for Children – a place where children go when they’ve got nowhere else to go, from horrific circumstances and situations, a place without a lot of hope,
and we lit our first Advent candle, the candle of Hope. 

This week when the president announced he will be sending 30,000 more troops into a war we’ve been in for 8 years, when the suicide rate of soldiers is at an all-time high and the Iraqi and Afghan civilian body counts continue to rise,
we light our second Advent candle, the candle of Peace.

And I can’t help but notice the irony of Advent.  Is it some foolish and out of touch tradition? Some religious mumbo jumbo that makes us feel good and has nothing at all to do with real life?  Something to make us feel better about Christmas shopping and gift giving, which is what this season is really about?

And I am sure that next week when we light the candle for “joy”, and the week after that one for “love,” there will be plenty of reasons to feel those things are sadly lacking in our world too and the irony of the Advent practice will continue to burn brightly.

Last week at the family dinner table, we lit our first Advent candle for Hope. 
“What is ‘hope’?” I asked. 
“What?” Owen asked back.
And then Maisy chimed in, “I hope for a present.”
Andy answered her, “No, Maisy, that’s a wish. You wish for a present.  Hope is always about wrongs being made right.”
“Ohhhh…..” said Owen.  “Then I hope for no more nightmares.”
“And I hope for cancer to be destroyed forever.” Andy responded.
“And I hope for peace – for no more wars or fighting ever.” I said.
  Hope. Anticipating, believing, longing for things that are wrong to be made right.

When we went to St. Joe’s for our worship service, we gathered here for a meal together first, and then piled into cars and headed over to their chapel.  We set up and began a small art project, which the kids joined us in doing as they arrived.  When it came time for worship we gathered in a circle and I said, “instead of having church this morning in our church building, we decided to come and have church together with you.” And then we worshiped together. 
And the message was,
Here alongside you, here with you, and even without you if you’d prefer, we will be praying. We will be singing about God’s faithfulness, and trusting that God cares, and believing that I and you matter to God, and bringing our lives to this place with one another before God.  And you are invited into this, and you are part of this.

As we lit the Advent candle of Hope, we talked about how Jesus came and there is nothing we go through that God does not share.  And Jesus is with us now in everything we go through, and we also hope for Jesus to come back and make all things right.  So during Advent, we wait in hope, we wait, feeling the need for things to be made right, and knowing that one day they will.  We are people of Hope, we said.  And we read John 1 and talked about the light coming into the world’s darkness, and darkness never, ever overcoming it. 

And the most powerful point in the evening came when we prayed. We brought out candles and our sand and we did our prayers the way we do here, and one by one we came forward with our prayers, just as we do here.
For my friend with cancer who had a hard Thanksgiving. 
God in your loving mercy, hear our prayer.
 I’m thankful for family from far away coming to visit. 
God, in your loving mercy, hear our prayer. 
For someone who needs a job. 
God in your loving mercy, hear our prayer. 
For another friend who is sick.
God in your loving mercy, hear our prayer. 
And then the first child came up, carefully lit a candle, and said, “I pray for my mom.” 
God in your loving mercy, hear our prayer. 
And the second, “I pray for my mom and dad.” 
God in your loving mercy, hear our prayer. 
And with the same care and tenderness, the same seriousness and Hope, we lifted all of our prayers up to God.

And what we did last week was an act of defiance.   Advent, the season of waiting for Christ’s coming, is an act of protest.  It names the things we wait for, it names them and says they are coming, and declares that even now we see and feel them and assert them to be real.  And if we’re brave we also name the things we wait in, our fears, our war, our struggles and sadnesses, and so say that these things too belong to God and that we belong to God as we wait. 
Last week we named Hope and then we shared it, sat in it, sat with it; even as we shared our own hopelessness and theirs, Hope was real.

So in no way is Advent a passive, sentimental, silly, shallow waiting.  It is a confident, active, aware and audacious waiting.  We wait because he who came and who comes even now IS COMING – we proclaim that, we affirm that. We light these candles in the darkness and say that no matter how dark the darkness gets, it cannot put out the light.

I spent a morning this week with a friend who has an 8 day old baby.  She is living into becoming a mother, the physical and emotional transformation that occurs and makes you able to truly love and care for a child, that changes you so that you can never go back to not being with and for this other being. 

She was describing a puzzling experience she’d been having the last few nights, and prefaced it by saying she knew her body was flooded with hormones and she was astonishingly sleep-deprived, but each evening she got to a completely weepy point, where she held her little son and was flooded with amazement that she got to care for him that he had a family and was loved, and she thought about all the children out there who didn’t have anyone to love them, who were uncared for, she sat in stark realization that even as she held her new baby and he was warm and safe and full, there were children hungry and cold and alone somewhere out there in the world, and it made her cry uncontrollably. Her husband didn’t know what to do with her, and she herself was quite bewildered by this phenomenon.

And as time passes, and she adjusts, and finally gets some rest, and goes back to work, and the baby grows and is naughty and amazing and ordinary, and life continues on, she will be lulled again into the dull myopia we all have, and she wont cry for the parentless children every night any more.  But right now, for this moment, she is aware, she is raw and vulnerable and aware that things are not as they should be.  That we are as helpless as we are responsible, and that we are in desperate need of a savior. 

Have you noticed, as we read our Advent texts, that when the prophets speak of our savior’s return it sounds as much like a promise as it does a warning? “The messenger of this covenant in whom you delight? Sure! He is coming! And when he does, who will be able to endure it? Who can stand when he appears?”  Malachi asks.  Because he is going to be like refiner’s fire, burning away all that wrong not just around but also within us.

There is a scene in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia book, The Lion the witch and the wardrobe, when the children are with the Beavers, and they are talking about the return of Aslan the lion, the true King of Narnia. And the beavers have described him so kind and just and noble, that finally Lucy asks, because he is, after all, a lion, “Is he safe?”  And Mr. Beaver answers, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe! But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.'"
Advent isn’t meant to be sentimental and safe.  Because we don’t light a candle and sing and talk about holiday hope and greeting card peace like a bunch of idiots who can’t see the forest for all the Christmas trees, making hope and peace into some schmaltzy seasonal goo we tape up our expensive, obligatory gifts with.

Instead, Advent is voice in the wilderness, far away and a little crazy, calling out, barely noticed above the din of the piped in carols and laughing mall Santas and bombs dropping and hungry children crying.
Advent says, Hope is coming, hope is here. 
Peace is coming, peace is here.
The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.


So in the first year of the presidency of Barak Obama, when Tim Pawlenty was governor of Minnesota and Nouri Amalaki was Prime Minister of Iraq, and Ehud Olmert was Prime Minister of Israel, and Bruce Reyes-Chow was finishing his term as Moderator of the PCUSA, and Dancing with the Stars, NCIS and Glee were the top TV shows and everyone was talking about Tom Petters and Tiger Woods…the word of God came…
Prepare the way of the Lord.  Make his paths straight.  Live into his coming now -  Because he who came is coming.  And when he does, everything that is wrong will be made right, and all creation will see the salvation of God.

Amen, and Come, Lord Jesus!

******************************

 Advent song: Someone Comes, by Brian Wren.

Someone comes to make things right,
Tomorrow, today, tonight.
Jesus comes to make things right,
Tomorrow, today, tonight.

Angry people will shake hands,
They wont learn war any more.
They wont learn war any more.
Melt your guns and turn them into plows.
Don’t learn war any more.
Don’t learn war any more.

Hungry people will be fed.
They wont be hurt any more,
They wont be hurt any more.
See the children playing in the street? –
 They wont be hurt any more
They wont be hurt anymore.

Hurting people will be healed,
They wont be afraid any more,
They wont be afraid anymore.
No-one’s dirty or unclean,
So don’t be afraid anymore.
Don’t be afraid anymore.

Someone’s coming, coming soon,
 We wont be alone anymore,
We wont be alone anymore.
God is with us, all the time.
We wont be alone anymore,
We wont be alone anymore.

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