Time doesn't exist. Pain, problems, and perdition have become void. You're functioning no longer from one moment to the next, you simply are. 

I wonder if that's part of what God means when He calls Himself the "I AM." He is perfectly sufficient, satisfied, and serene. If anybody knows best how to just be, it is God Himself. There is no worry, wondering, or want with God. How else can you put it except to simply say that He just is?

        When we are living life in all its fullness, and in an immersed state of rejoicing, I wonder if that is when we are most like God and experiencing just a taste of what heaven will be like. We are commanded to rejoice so much in the Scriptures. It would require no stretch of the imagination to believe that we were made for rejoicing. 

        The best part of it all is that the one thing that could and should keep us from rejoicing, our sin, has been taken out of the way by the death and resurrection of our glorious Savior! Friends, this day, of all the days in the year should be one of the most joyful for that reason alone. We have no more cause to mourn in the fullest sense of the word. Yes, on this earth there will be reason to grieve, but ultimately the believer's grief must always give place to an even greater joy.

 We can sing those lines from the Sussex carol confidently:

To think, we can and must rejoice because our Redeemer has indeed made us glad.

      So, whatever you do this Christmas, whether it's dressing up for Noir parties, swing dancing with that little sibling who's enthusiasm guides his feet, hanging homemade gingerbread on the Christmas tree, playing croquet with brothers who are determined to trounce you at whatever cost...do it all with joy and gladness...live fully in the moment because you have the freedom to do so, and in so doing you are blessing others and glorifying our Lord.

        Our Redeemer has indeed made us glad which is why the final carol for this season is a beautiful German Carol which I am posting in English for my listener's benefit (You're welcome), "All My Heart This Night Rejoices."

All my heart his night rejoices 

As I hear, far and near, 

Sweetest angel voices: 

‘Christ is born!’ their choirs are singing, 

Till the air ev’rywhere 

Now with joy is ringing. 

 

Hark! a voice from yonder manger, 

Soft and sweet, doth entreat, 

‘Flee from woe and danger! 

Brethren, come! from all doth grieve you, 

You are freed; all you need 

I will surely give you.’ 

 

Come, then, let us hasten yonder! 

Here let all, great and small, 

Kneel in awe and wonder! 

Love him who with love is yearning! 

Hail the star that from far 

Bright with hope is burning! 

 

Thee, dear Lord, with heed I’ll cherish, 

Live to thee, and with thee, 

Dying, shall not perish; 

But shall dwell with thee for ever, 

Far on high, in the joy 

That can alter never.

        Isn't that last verse beautiful? Actually, they're all beautiful. If you're going to learn a new Christmas carol this year and only have time for one, I would recommend this one. 

           Thank you for joining me on this twelve day journey of singing. Continue to rejoice with me as we celebrate the birth of our Lord.

             Merry Christmas!

                      ~ Christianna

        Each year I like to pay a bit of tribute to one of the more sobering elements of the Christmas story. We're all familiar with Lully Lullay, the lament over the baby boys of Bethlehem and, in our grief over slaughter of dozens of innocents, we often forget, I think, what a heart-wrenching thing it must have been for Mary and Joseph to pack up and flee to Egypt for an indeterminate amount of time. 

          We know that Jesus was about two-years old when they left. They'd obviously decided to stay on in Bethlehem, which worked out since that's where the magi were directed to when they reached Judea at about that time. People in those days didn't just up and move like we do today. To travel from Bethlehem to Egypt would have been unpleasant for multiple physical reasons, not to mention it would have been a humiliating journey by nature for a Jew, and especially for these two were both descendants of David. Every time the prophets spoke of returning to Egypt it was always given as a rebuke, a punishment, a sign of judgement. To go to Egypt was for Israel to regress beyond the time of Moses. To return to Egypt was a sign of a lack of trust in, and obedience to, the God of Jacob.

           I've often wondered if the Shepherds kept up a report with Mary and Joseph after the climactic events of His birth. Did one of them stop by every now and again to bring Mary a portion of meat and maybe try to wring a laugh or smile out of the baby? Did they catch up with Joseph on their way back to the fields to see how his carpentry was getting on?

         I've laughed at myself for such imaginings but apparently I wasn't the only one. The carol I will share with today stemmed Hector Berlioz's image of the Shepherds bidding farewell to the family as they snuck off to the land of pyramids. It's a beautiful set of lyrics and captures some of the emotion I've always wondered about. It must have been very sad and very jarring to all involved. The Shepherds might not have known they'd fled until after they'd done it, but, perhaps, if they did give them a send-off, or, maybe help smuggle them all out of town, this is what they might have said or thought.

          Friends, for our next to last Carol this year, I give you Berlioz's Shepherds' Farewell.
 

      The handbook for shape note singers was a large, horizontally positioned volume titled "The Sacred Harp" after the philosophy that the voice was a harp of the highest and most holiest kind: a Sacred harp.

      The Carol I wish to share with you today is from that lovely tradition. It was a tradition with simple words and even simpler melodies. The harmonies were straight-forward and easy to learn. Combined, the sound was unusual but not unpleasant to the ear and gained a distinctive quality that one learns to recognize after a while.

       I have done some shape note singing with a local group in the past and have enjoyed the experience. 

I first heard this particular carol on a lovely CD given to us by good friends of ours and had to put it on youtube so you all could hear it too since it isn't to be found anywhere. Also, It's simple, but beautiful, like the people who made it popular. The carol might not be a good guide deep theology but the message is clear. We ourselves should be praising our Lord for the glorious gift of His son.

    Only two days left!

          ~ Christianna

        The fact remains, we really don't know at what time Jesus was born, yet Christ's mass was traditionally held at midnight, and people over the centuries have made all sorts of prognostications regarding the ungodly hour at which Jesus entered the world to save us.

        Not least of these is one of my favorite secular Christmas carols, "Past Three A Clock."

        It implies, at very least, that Jesus was born so late that it was early in the morning. Those of us who have spent significant time studying church history know that Christmas Eve is when Christ is traditionally supposed to have been born while Christmas day is the celebration of the event that has already come. 

This song pushes the birth out until three on Christmas morning. Now, the argument could be made that He was born earlier and the the Proclaimer of said tidings in the spirit of the song, didn't get out there until Three A.M. 

However it is, I find it highly amusing that the song is centered around this very equivocal point.

Be that as it may, I do love the carol and while I wouldn't approve of including it in a church service, I enjoy singing it for fun on other occasions, usually by myself in the woods. My favorite version of this song is, and will probably always be, the first way I heard it, through the crystal voices and clarion harmonies of The Colonial Singers of Williamsburg. 

Let me know if this song gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day!

1. Born is a Baby,
Gentle as may be,
Son of the eternal
Father supernal.

2. Seraph quire singeth,
Angel bell ringeth;
Hark how they rime it,
Time it and chime it. Refrain.

3. Mid earth rejoices
Hearing such voices
e'ertofore so well
Carolling Nowell. Refrain.

4. Hinds o'er the pearly,
Dewy lawn early
Seek the high Stranger
Laid in the manger. Refrain.

5. Cheese from the dairy
Bring they for Mary
And, not for money,
Butter and honey. Refrain.

6. Light out of star-land
Leadeth from far land
Princes, to meet him,
Worship and greet him. Refrain.

7. Myrrh from full coffer,
Incense they offer;
Nor is the golden
Nugget withholden. Refrain.

8. Thus they: I pray you,
Up, sirs, nor stay you
Till ye confess him
Likewise and bless him. Refrain.

   Not all of these verses are included in this version. Verses one, four, five, six, and eight seem to be, universally, the most popular ones, though the rest of the verses are fun as well. 

Imagine this sung out in the streets and taverns of England around Christmastime. They could relate with the cold, frosty morning. They understood what it meant to pay homage to a newborn king. This song was their song. We don't know who wrote it, but whoever did, wrote in a language the common people of that time could understand: A king is born, give Him honor because He is worthy.

        Until tomorrow, then!

               ~ Christianna

       Rutter's Angel Carol and Shepherd's Pipe Carol remain some of my all time favorite Christmas carols to this day, and the theme of those two holds true for this one. Rutter has captured the aura of Christmas in his carols. I might say that, in many ways, he is the Thomas Kinkade of choral music. He writes things of beauty full of color, texture, and heart that never fail to sweep you away every time you listen to them. 

I know many people dislike Rutter for the same reason they dislike Kinkade; "Once you've heard one song by Rutter, you've heard them all," they say. Of course I hotly contend this view. The thing about Rutter is that he is subtle in his writing he doesn't try to jump out at you and slap your face with his music. Instead he comes like a gentle breeze brushing your cheek, wiping away the sweat and cobwebs, lifting the fog from your eyes, and allowing you to throw back your head and smile. 

The modern listener who is used to being forcefully grabbed and shoved into the music must learn to lean forward and listen quietly. He must stop talking first if he wishes to hear the message of Rutter's Christmas carols. It's the same story, to be sure. Christ is born to save us. However, it is never old, and never tired. 

Thus I present to you, Rutter's Nativity Carol. Make sure that when you listen to this you're sitting in a quiet place where you won't be disturbed until you're through. Pause a little, take in the silence around you. Don't let it oppress you, enjoy it for a bit. Then, play this carol. Hopefully then you will hear it as I do. At any rate, it's worth a try!

       Experiences such as this have taught me to be sympathetic to the mother and definitely makes me appreciate the sheer number of times lullabys or songs more or less encouraging little babies to sleep, pop up in traditional literature. One of my favorites for the Christmas season is, more or less, excellent in terms of lyrics despite the fanciful nature of the song.

And then you get to that one line that reminds you how Catholics like to add a fourth person to the godhead, and you wonder how many other otherwise excellent songs they spoiled.

I usually tweak the second line of the last verse to something that isn't heretical. I suppose we protestants have a long history of doing that, either with lines or entire sets of lyrics. 

I'll give you my edition in parentheses below the actual line in the lyrics, and enjoy this otherwise beautiful lullaby from the fifteenth century set to music by Gustav Holst.

Whatever image one has in his head, I've noticed it tends to be a jolly middle-aged or older gentleman wearing bright colors and speaking good cheer to everyone about. If nothing else, it makes for a jolly good set of imagery. 

The song for today is based off of this personification which predates the middle ages. It's a song that conjures up the image of great halls and roaring fires with a noble stranger coming by to wish  the inhabitants good cheer and proclaim the good news of Christmas. A noble song, story, and message.

His name is Sir Christemas. (Pronounced: Chris te mas)

It's a happy song; a song of rejoicing. It proclaims the Christmas clearly and succinctly. Half in English, half in French, the words very obviously sixteenth century or modernized from even before, Sir Christemas gives us the ultimate message of Christmas: A Saviour is born. Rejoice, and be glad!

If I were attempting to herald the news of a saviour born in Bethlehem in the first century, Shepherds would have a lot wracked up for them in the cons list and not much on the pros in terms of potential announce-es. Shepherds had multiple issues; one, about the only education they had consisted of courses on sheep. Two, while several of them probably did have families of their own, being a Shepherd in those days required you to be strong, tough, rough, and not the greatest visitor to a newborn baby's bedside. Then, they most definitely smelled very strongly of sheep which is not nearly as pleasant as the smell of a roast lamb shank on the dinner table, they tended to have plenty of colourful words on their tongues, be rather loud, definitely dirty, and certainly had very little of what we would call a bedside manner. 

Why, in all creation, would you send a host of angels to these guys? It's worse than casting pearls before swine.

Yet, God did it. And, the marvelous thing about it all, is that even though the shepherds probably made quite a disturbance that night, rushing madly into town, barging into the stable, probably startling poor Mary and Joseph out of whatever quiet respite they were enjoying after a long journey and a painful delivery, still the one thing we're left with in the gospels is that the shepherds went on their way rejoicing and praising God. 

 The shepherds, to an extent, understood what Jesus had come to do better than a lot of people would have. Who goes to see a baby wrapped in a manner that indicates his parents are on a budget, lying in an animal feeding trough and thinks, "this baby has come to redeem my people" even if an angel host did just snap into vision scaring everything sensible out of you?

And yet, the shepherds went on their way rejoicing. They believed the angels. These rough, work-hardened, burly men saw the truth more clearly than many wiser men would and still do see it to day. Perhaps that's one of the multiple reasons God chose shepherds. We know he likes to use the fool to confound the wiseman. Also, it happens very often that someone we consider stupid or ignorant often gets something profound that takes us snobs far longer to comprehend. 

Most importantly, friends, if God didn't despise shepherds, neither should we. What kind of people do you consider the lowest of the low? Maybe it's the hypocritical salty lady who sits two rows behind you in church who finds fault with everyone who doesn't look like a model Christian. Maybe it's the pastor who talks out of both sides of his mouth. Maybe it's the construction worker who flunked out of highschool at fifteen, and thinks everyone who finished it is the biggest fool there is. Perhaps it's the neighbor who can't think past the next football game, or the homeless man who lives to buy another lottery ticket. 

We all have people we despise for various reasons, many of which are good reasons, but, I wonder if God visiting the shepherds first doesn't set an example that while we can despise whatever sin or flaw that makes said person so despicable, we should still love and respect the person.  

There are plenty of people out there who are easy to like despite their position in life...what's harder is the people who are difficult to like because of their position.

Even those people are called with the Shepherds to wend their way to Bethlehem and kneel before a baby in a manger who has come to save the lowest of the low. If we are honest  we will walk by their sides, knowing that we are no better. If we love Christ we will take their hands and lead them to Bethlehem, urging them to abandon whatever flocks and herds they've accumulated because this is more important. 

Because, personally, when it comes down to the Christmas story and who I'd rather be. I wouldn't want to be Joseph and definitely not Mary. I wouldn't want to be a magi, or, heaven forbid, King Herod. I'd rather be sitting with the Shepherds the night Jesus was born, in the cold, the wind, among all the smells and dirt and bad manners. I'd want to be sitting there in time to witness that moment when God rent the heavens and set grown men, who faced death on a daily basis, flat on their faces in fright. I'd want to be one of the throng that thundered into Bethlehem, probably upsetting a guard or two and startling the nice ladies, and I'd want to be able to look at the babe in the manger and see Him for who He was, the Lord of all creation, come to save me from the consequences of my rebellion against Him.

On that particular night there's no where else I'd rather be.

This particular carol needs no explanation. A traditional tune and words whose author was never remembered, reminds us that we must all be the Shepherds, abandoning their flocks to seek a Saviour lying in a feeding trough.

       Who will you follow today? What are you willing to leave behind for the sake one who left behind everything for you?

Will you rise up and follow Him to Bethlehem?

          ~ Christianna

         I know it has for me. We're not Catholics, we know better than to worship Mary, but, it also behooves us to acknowledge that she was quite a courageous young woman. I doubt she fully understood the import of who Jesus was and what He came to do...then again, maybe she did. Either way, however, she knew something about the whole thing seeing as babies don't conceive themselves, and most people don't receive visits from angels. 

Ultimately when I think about what might have been going through Mary's head, or, at very least, what would have been had she known all, could be summed up in a set of lyrics set to a lovely tune by Bach. I have posted this several years ago, I think, but it's been so long, I wish to remind my readers of this magnificent carol once more. 

O little one sweet, O little one mild,
Thy Father's purpose thou hast fulfilled;
Thou camest from heaven to mortal ken,
Equal to be with us poor men,
O little one sweet, O little one mild.

       Just the very fact of putting Himself on a level with men is staggering to me. You don't make that kind of thing up. The God of the universe doesn't just decide to redeem His rebellious subjects by becoming like them. That just isn't done, and yet our God did it.

Next time I see a nativity, next time I think of the Christmas  story, I hope I think first of the tremendous nature of it all. That the awe for such an event, however many times it has been told, might strike home once more. God in a manger. What scandal, what a breach of etiquette, what a contrary act. Born as a man, born to die the worst death a man could receive. Oh, even though I know why, sometimes I still wonder anyways. 

           How can I do anything but fall at his feet and worship at His manger bed with the Shepherds, "O Little One sweet, O little One mild."

      I title my blog posts after the twelve days of Christmas, though, in technicality, the twelve days of Christmas come afterwards while what I have are really "the twelve days of advent." 

Ah well!

Today, I want to share a lovely advent carol I learned recently. We sang it as a choir not too long ago and I love the imagery it uses. I'm always looking for the songs, many of them older which utilize a different(and good) perspective regarding a well-known subject.

    People Look East is one of those songs. Not only is the poetry itself beautiful but it speaks from the perspective of farmer folk. You can see them during the winter even when everything is dying and growing cold, looking out hopefully to see the coming of a new spring. It is a different sort of spring, but still, the spirit is the same.

      I have little to say about this advent carol. It explains itself more or less. However, I do want to point out the progression of the last lines, all the different adjectives for love, each one building on the one before:

Love the guest, the rose, the bird, the star, the Lord is on the way...ultimately this is the message of Christmas, and advent specifically, isn't it? Love has come down to us, love so beautiful, love the Lord of all. Let us look east with joy and anticipation this Christmastide and make this advent something to remember because Love, God's greatest gift, is on the way.

One small apology for this version. My favorite arrangement is the one we sang by Malcom Archer, but there are very few decent recordings of this online, so I went with something where the lyrics are on screen, and they're not racing off to put out a fire.Hopefully you can get the basic idea and know that this carol can sound so much better. 

Even so, it is lovely. You're welcome if this gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

       Happy Advent!

           ~ Christianna

        I'm sharing this one because I realized something about it for the first time this year which I've never noticed before. I don't know about you, but I have spent a lot of time over the past ten years watching the King's College choir Lessons and Carols services from both present and past decades, as many as I could find on youtube. Often I would watch two or three services a year. This has stood me in very good stead here in Scotland. I know all the British versions to many of the classic Christmas carols which are sung to different tunes in the States. The selections for the carols were always widely varied from year to year, but nothing ever changed: the opening song.

        I've been guilty of skipping it every now and again because not only had I heard it dozens of times, but they always performed it the same way.

         Also, it wasn't the most lyrically rich song in the Christmas repertoire and I had it memorized after the third or fourth time hearing it.

        You get extra points now if you already know to which carol I am referring. 

        It was only this year when I got to be part of a traditional service(the one I referred to yesterday) and sing the song myself that I realized its meaning and importance. 

       We stood there, in a back corner of the drafty stone cathedral. The audience's voices reverberating in the cavernous space. With a choir folder in one hand, a lit candle in the other, and my hair streaming loose behind me, I was praying that the soprano behind me would be very careful with her candle.

      The organist rolled out the opening chord, and the assigned soloist, unaccompanied, began to sing. There was no silencing of the audience, no welcome or thanks for being there. The organ's notes quieted the throng, and as my choir mate sang the opening notes the entire building hushed. You could have heard a pin drop as she sang.

Music speaks a language too high and too complex to render comprehensive translation into the base tongues of men, and I trust that every musician reading this will know to what I am referring. The rest of you, I ask, to take it on faith. Suffice it to say, that while this begins the start of my annual Christmas carol blogposts, I feel as though I have been steeped very deeply in the Christmas carol world now for the past three weeks.

This is a wonderful thing, by the way!

Today marks the twelfth day to Christmas. I intended to begin yesterday and, as is my wont, make the twelfth day before Christmas, but alas, there really was no time. I say this with solemn honesty.

To kick off the series, I want to give a little insight into the practice of a typical choir here in the UK. By typical I do not mean the extremely prestigious ones such as the King's College Choir in Cambridge or the Cambridge Singers, nor do I refer to the local community choir, though there are plenty of those, and many of them are quite good. I am thinking of the multitude of cathedral, church, and chapel choirs maintained in the tradition of centuries past hundreds of beautiful stone buildings which for centuries have decorated British landscape, many since the days of King Harold and before. 

Friends, these choirs make American chorals look like wimps. I don't have any other way of saying it. I auditioned for the Chapel choir on a Saturday, received the letter of acceptance on Monday, rehearsed for the first time on Tuesday evening, rehearsed the other half of the repertoire on Wednesday afternoon and sang in the first service on Wednesday evening. 

No, we were not all in unison.

Yes, we sounded pretty good.

 No, nobody was panicking.

Yes, the music was new to most of us.

The fact is, as I suspected before I came here but could not confirm until I did, the people of the British isles are a singing people. They take incredible pride in their sight singing abilities, and many of my choir mates had been singing in choirs such as this since they were children, or in their early teens. 

You see, the only way you can pull off a stunt like the one I mentioned above, and have it sound good, is if almost every choir member not only is already fully functional in the world of choral music but already understands how to sing in a small ensemble such as this was. Every week for the past two and a half months we have been given new music on Monday during a one and a half hour rehearsal, gotten one more rehearsal on Wednesday afternoon by which time we were expected to know the music so we could focus on the polish and presentation, and then decked out in choir robes to sing evensong or chapel service on Wednesday evening. 

Every now and again a piece of music we were singing would be changed the day of and we'd have to learn something completely new which we'd be singing in just a couple of hours. Being a soprano didn't help one bit. As the highest voice, mine was one of those most exposed, and, as such, making a mistake was costly.

The first couple of weeks were difficult even with my ability to pick up melodies easily. I was forced to become a better musician and sight reader. However, as time went on and I did get better I discovered that what we were doing felt perfectly natural. Almost like something I ought to have been doing my entire life and hadn't been.

Since when did we decide to only use our voices together in harmony on a couple occasions every six months? Why has it become such a novelty when a few people can spontaneously break out into four part harmony, sometimes from memory, sometimes improvising? How did we, non-professional singers, decide to stop singing?

As you ponder these questions, I'll answer one which I'm sure you've been wanting to ask me since I started down this track: "What does this have to do with advent?"

Well, everything. Remember how I said earlier that music was a higher language? Why do you think the Psalms talk so much about praising God with singing, with musical instruments, with every voice? God doesn't command everyone who is musical to go hence and join a choir that sings for the public and usually for a fee every six months. He doesn't say that they can opt out if it's not the thing these days. In fact no one who has a voice gets a free pass. We are all commanded to sing, there is no distinction between the trained and the untrained singer, though, it would be interesting to see how many more people could actually sing well if everybody actually just sang more. What if singing were a way of life like reading, writing, mathematics, or cooking? What if you sang a song all the way through with no pretense every evening and every morning? What if you sang one three times a day before mealtime?

What if singing could be as natural as breathing? Imagine what this advent would be like if four random strangers standing in the queue at the checkout counter could break out into Angels We Have Heard on High in parts and sound good even though they'd never sung together before in their lives because singing was as natural to them as holding a conversation? 

What a Christmas season that would be!

I'm going to stop there, because I think you get the idea. It's about honor, worship, and using the abilities God gave us; the God of the universe who did not hesitate to take on humanity and become like a worm in order to save us. This God deserves more than a few trained singers in the Christmas eve service. He deserves the entire congregation, the whole world, lifting up its voice to blend in glorious harmony. 

Today's Christmas Carol is the lovely Swedish advent hymn, Prepare the Way O Zion. What if we all prepared the way for Him this Christmas by using our voices. I know your friends and family might hate me for saying this, but I'm going to say it: I don't care if the Chihuahua can sing better than you, sing anyway!

I, at least, will appreciate the effort, if that counts for anything, but most importantly you will be offering a sacrifice of praise to the Most High God who did the impossible for our sake. Let's prepare the way for Him with singing.

        Let us lift our praise abounding this Christmas tide. I should like to hear the whole world sing!

                   Happy Advent!

                  ~ Christianna