PROCLAIMING
Blest are they who in the Lord’s name announce the holy gospel, proclaiming the good news that our liberation comes.
This is the last line, translated into English, of Guillermo Cuéllar’s Santo, Santo, Santo (part of his La Misa Popular Salvadoreña or Salvadoran Folk Mass). I commend to you a brief article on the history of this hymn: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org.
I was moved by Cuéllar’s description of the horrors he witnessed as war raged in El Salvador, and it struck me that the most powerful proclamation emerges from the most despairing of circumstances.
How can we experience the profound beauty of the good news–how can we proclaim it ourselves–if we haven’t also experienced a desperate need for the good news Jesus comes to bring? How can we sing with joy if we haven’t also wept with lament? How can we dance to the altar if we haven’t also fallen to our knees at the open grave?
Wounded ones…
Weeping ones…
War-torn ones…
…your liberation comes.
Amen.
* Listen to Santo, Santo, Santo at https://www.youtube.com/.
* Here is the entirety of the English translation (Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymn #762):
Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy is our God,
God, the Lord of earth and heaven. Holy, holy is our God.
Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy is our God,
God, the Lord of all of history. Holy, holy is our God.
Who accompanies our people, who lives within our struggles,
of all the earth and heaven the one and only Lord.
Blest are they who in the Lord’s name announce the holy gospel,
proclaiming the good news that our liberation comes.
Text: Guillermo Cuéllar, b. 1955; tr. Linda McCrae
Copyright 1993, 1994 GIA Publications, Inc.