More than most, I am steeped in church music, specifically hymns, with many becoming even greater treasures as the years pass. A subset of favorite hymns are beloved Christmas carols, which here is meant to include songs of Advent, the anticipation season, as Christians prepare for Christmas.
Childhood Christmases always included the church pageant, recreating Christ’s birth, joining with other children in singing “Away in a Manger”. Frankly, I have few meaningful recollections of these years, although I vaguely recall a homemade spotlight beaming through what appeared to be a large coffee can from the balcony of a darkened sanctuary amid strains of “The little Lord Jesus / Asleep on the hay.”
Preparing for a Christmas Carol Songfest, Sunday AM, December 24th, when I’ll accompany the singing of a dozen seasonal “chestnuts”, I was struck by the “Great Questions of Christmas” marbled throughout these carols. Four examples when questions seek to engage us. About protocol: “O Lord, how shall I meet you, / How welcome you a-right?” About timing: “O Morning Star, / O radiant Sun, / When will our hearts behold your dawn?” About identity: “What child is this, who laid to rest, / On Mary’s lap is sleeping? / Whom angels greet with anthems sweet / While shepherds watch are keeping?” About decorum: “Why lies he in such mean estate / Where ox and ass are feeding?”
Namesake of my denomination, Martin Luther, often posed questions to emphasize key points, as in his classic text, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come” (14 verses!): “Look, look, dear friends, look over there! / What lies within that manger bare? / Who is that lovely little one?” Two additional Luther queries, same carol, first, about our response: “You turned not from our needs away! / How can our thanks such love repay?” Second, about Christ’s humanity: “How did you come to be so small, / To sweetly sleep in manger-bed / Where lowing cattle lately fed?” Of course, Luther wrote in German; translations quoted here came much later.
The second verse of “Angels We Have Heard on High” seeks answers about motivation… of shepherds, yes, but presumably, also of us: “Shepherds, why this jubilee? / Why your joyous strains prolong? / What the gladsome tidings be / Which inspire your heav’nly song?”
Some carol texts burst through both to my ears and to my heart with lyricism, pageantry, and beauty. I marvel at writers’ abilities to convey complex concepts in strong yet smooth phrases, sometimes in translation. I respond to the Advent challenge, “Up, pray and watch and wrestle…” (“Rejoice, Rejoice, Believers” originally in German) and revel in repetition: “Born thy people to deliver, / Born a child, and yet a king; / Born to reign in us forever, / Now thy gracious kingdom bring.” (“Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”)
I’m powerfully moved by the concluding stanza of “Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying,” (Wachet Auf, the King of Chorales, Nicolai translated by Winkworth): “No eye has seen, no ear / Has yet been trained to hear. / What joy is ours! / Crescendos rise; your halls resound; / Hosannas blend in cosmic sound.” Hearing is also cited in “O Little Town of Bethlehem”: “No ear may hear his coming; / But in this world of sin, / Where meek souls will receive him, still / The dear Christ enters in.” Meanwhile, perpetuity is central to one of my favorite carols, “Of the Father’s Love Begotten”: “He is Alpha and Omega, / He the source, the ending he, / Of the things that are, that have been, / And that future years shall see, / Evermore and evermore.”
I conclude this ramble as I began, with simplicity grasped by even the youngest child: “Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask you to stay / Close by me forever and love me, I pray.” (“Away in a Manger”).
So, which carols speak to you? My hope is that they speak with exceptional clarity throughout this season.