{"id":502,"date":"2006-12-07T05:20:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-07T05:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html"},"modified":"2006-12-07T05:20:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-07T05:20:00","slug":"the-original-ch-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html","title":{"rendered":"The Original Christmas Carols (p3)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 1.2em\">Improvisation <\/span>in the Magnificat<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/.shared\/image.html?\/photos\/uncategorized\/jazz_singer_hoon_1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"212\" alt=\"Jazz_singer_hoon_1\" src=\"https:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/jazz_singer_hoon_1.jpg\" width=\"125\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a>I am mesmerized by the Magnificat.&nbsp; How did Mary master the skills of improvisation at such an early age?&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Jazz singers take old songs and standards and make them new&#8211;that is exactly what Mary was doing&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>When the angel Gabriel told Mary that she was carrying the Son of the Most High she sought guidance from the scriptures.&nbsp; She went searching for somone who had a similar experience with God.&nbsp; After searching through the prophets and psalms she found solace in I Samuel 2 and the story of Hannah.&nbsp; They are similar and yet contrasting in their encounter with God.&nbsp; Hannah was older; Mary younger.&nbsp; Hannah wanted a child; Mary didn&#8217;t want one yet.&nbsp; Hannah was married; Mary was not.&nbsp; Both of them experienced a miracle in their womb.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah sang a song and Mary took that song made it new through the art of improvisation.&nbsp; Take some time and read them side-by-side.&nbsp; How are they similar?&nbsp; Different?<\/p>\n<p>The meaning of the Magnificat is not only in what Mary is saying but in what she is doing.<\/p>\n<p>What amazes me about Mary&#8217;s song is that she has not one Old Testament reference, but twelve!&nbsp; When Elizabeth said, you are blessed; she broke into song spontaneously improvising off of Hannah&#8217;s song and eleven other passages.<\/p>\n<p>She knew the scriptures by heart.&nbsp; Do we?&nbsp; Will our children be able to do this?&nbsp; Mary was barely a teenager and yet had such a heart knowledge of the scriptures that she was able to renew them for what God was doing in her life.<\/p>\n<p>This Christmas season, take Mary&#8217;s song to heart and sing it until it becomes a new song.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Improvisation in the Magnificat I am mesmerized by the Magnificat.&nbsp; How did Mary master the skills of improvisation at such an early age?&nbsp; Jazz singers take old songs and standards and make them new&#8211;that is exactly what Mary was doing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Original Christmas Carols (p3) - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Original Christmas Carols (p3) - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Improvisation in the Magnificat I am mesmerized by the Magnificat.&nbsp; How did Mary master the skills of improvisation at such an early age?&nbsp; Jazz singers take old songs and standards and make them new&#8211;that is exactly what Mary was doing&#8230;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-12-07T05:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/jazz_singer_hoon_1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Original Christmas Carols (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Original Christmas Carols (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"Improvisation in the Magnificat I am mesmerized by the Magnificat.&nbsp; How did Mary master the skills of improvisation at such an early age?&nbsp; Jazz singers take old songs and standards and make them new&#8211;that is exactly what Mary was doing&#8230;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html","og_site_name":"The Jazz Theologian","article_published_time":"2006-12-07T05:20:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/jazz_singer_hoon_1.jpg"}],"author":"Robert Gelinas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html","name":"The Original Christmas Carols (p3) - The Jazz Theologian","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/jazz_singer_hoon_1.jpg","datePublished":"2006-12-07T05:20:00+00:00","dateModified":"2006-12-07T05:20:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/jazz_singer_hoon_1.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/jazztheologian.typepad.com\/findingthegroove\/images\/jazz_singer_hoon_1.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2006\/12\/the-original-ch-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Original Christmas Carols (p3)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/","name":"The Jazz Theologian","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Gelinas on Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01","name":"Robert Gelinas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","caption":"Robert Gelinas"},"description":"\"For more information visit: Jazztheologian.com Robert Gelinas is Lead-Pastor (and resident Jazz Theologian) of Colorado Community Church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da multi-cultural, interdenominational community of 3000+ followers of Christ in the Denver area. Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}