My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 1

This has been my favourite carol for as long as I can remember, so it took no decision to choose it here.  I imagine I first liked it because of its opening imagery as I have always loved deep midwinter.  Other carols throw in the snow but this carol feels it. 

Then came my right-theology phase when every carol evoking snow was to be dismissed as nonsense - probably, as in this case, Victorian nonsense.  It was then that I realised that the poetry here is different - winter is not so much the pretty Christmas card type, it is the hard-as-iron type.  Snow is cold and therefore strangely dark. It therefore may be meteorologically inaccurate but it tells an accurate story in the same way that the Apostle describes Jesus being the Light born into the darkness.  Here he is hope being born into the dead winter death of the earth.

 

Later, in a verse almost invariably omitted (one suspects because of the shock factor of a breastful of milk - the truth is too much for us perhaps?), even the mythical ox, ass and camel are used primarily as a poetic device to highlight the awesome truth of the incarnation.

 

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

 

Like nearly all great carols it draws the starkest contrast between the proper setting of the Son of God and his incarnate setting with us lot; the exchange of heaven's glory for a maiden mother's kiss.  And it ends by giving us the opportunity, which every Christmas offers, to voice that we will give the one present that such a Saviour deserves.  This simple version by the late Dan Fogelberg captures the poem quite beautifully I think:

 

 

Presumably its author Christina Rosetti never heard it sung for it was written as a poem.  She spent time away from her Highgate home in the country at Holmer Green, just up the road from Wycombe, and maybe it was there that she saw the snow and hard-as-iron winter landscape?  Anyway it is a nice thought that my favourite carol has some connection to the place I now live.

 

Have a Happy Christmas with your favourite Christmas carol, whatever it is!

My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 2

Many people have tapped into the popularity of Christmas as a singing season and produced skilful or sad purpose-built carols.  John Rutter springs to mind as the most commercially successful, and Cliff Richard has his own commercial take on the genre.  On the whole I am not overly drawn to designer carols as evidenced in my other choices which are really poetry set to music or folk songs from no-one notable.  Nevertheless at No 2 I have just such a carol, written by the once hugely popular Graham Kendrick.

Like a candle flame
Flickering small in our darkness
Uncreated light
Shines through infant eyes

God is with us, alleluia (Men)
God is with us, alleluia (Women)
Come to save us, alleluia (Men)
Come to save us (Women)
Alleluia! (All)

Stars and angels sing
Yet the earth sleeps in shadows
Can this tiny spark
Set a world on fire?

Yet his light shall shine
From our lives, Spirit blazing
As we touch the flame
Of his holy fire

Graham Kendrick
Copyright © 1988 Make Way Music,
www.grahamkendrick.co.uk

It is my second choice because it is, in my opinion, utterly beautiful.  Added to which it is simple and somehow combines the simplicity of the Christ-child with the power of the Holy Spirit, the latter scarcely ever meaningfully referenced in carols which seem to often lead to Easter but never on to Pentecost.



My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 3

The Virgin Mary had a baby boy
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy
And they say that His name is Jesus.

He came from the glory
He came from the glorious kingdom
He came from the glory
He came from the glorious kingdom
Oh yes, believer!
Oh yes, believer!
He came from the glory
He came from the glorious kingdom.

The angels sang when the baby was born
The angels sang when the baby was born
The angels sang when the baby was born
And proclaimed Him the Saviour, Jesus.

The wise men saw where the baby was born
The wise men saw where the baby was born
The wise men saw where the baby was born
And they said that His name was Jesus.

I love this carol!

 

It is great fun to sing; it tells the story and shows that the story is to be believed and not just listened to; it comes from the Caribbean and takes us away from the North European carol tradition.  It's just great.

Happy Birthday WA!

You may be accustomed to this blog's tradition of celebrating birthdays on this date. As well as Horatius Bonar and Edith Piaf, today is the birthday of W.A. Criswell.  W.A. was the first Pastor I worked with when I left Spurgeon's College and moved to Dallas, Texas and as long as my memory lasts it will be my privilege and joy to recall working with him.

 

W.A. occupied a place of influence far beyond that of any British Baptist other than C H Spurgeon but to meet the man week by week, on a corridor or a catfish restaurant or his somewhat palatial church house was to realise that, for all his reputation in American and Texan politics, in Southern Baptist controversies and in fund raising on a mind-boggling scale here was a man whose greatest excitement was seeing, one by one, ordinary people come from the darkness of sin into the light of Christ's salvation. 

 

It is amazing how many lesser men I have met before and since, especially on this island and in its religion, who have nowhere near as huge a story but nonetheless have somehow managed to lose the plot.

 

 

You can listen to one of his Christmas Sermons here.



My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 4

The purist might observe my fifth choice was an Epiphany Hymn rather than a carol, and this one - my fourth choice -is an Advent Hymn.  But then again, one reason I like it is that it is as old as Christmas.  Not the Mary-giving-birth Christmas but the regularised celebrating of the birth in the Christian Calendar as a separate event which, like Prudentius's hymn, dates from the fourth century.  Baptists don't know what to do with it (let's be honest - we struggle to know what to do with anything before Charles Wesley or possibly five years ago's Soul Survivor) so we don't sing it. That's our loss though.

 

Of the Father’s heart begotten
    Ere the world from chaos rose,
He is Alpha: from that Fountain,
    All that is and hath been flows;
He is Omega, of all things
    Yet to come the mystic Close,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

By his word was all created;
    He commanded and ’twas done;
Earth and sky and boundless ocean,
  Universe of three in one,
All that sees the moon’s soft radiance,
    All that breathes beneath the sun,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

He assumed this mortal body,
    Frail and feeble, doomed to die,
That the race from dust created
   Might not perish utterly,
Which the dreadful Law had sentenced
  In the depths of hell to lie,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

O how blest that wondrous birthday,
    When the Maid the curse retrieved,
Brought to birth mankind’s salvation,
    By the Holy Ghost conceived,
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
    In her loving arms received,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

Sing, ye heights of heaven, his praises;
    Angels and Archangels, sing!
Wheresoe’er ye be, ye faithful,
    Let your joyous anthems ring,
Every tongue his name confessing,
    Countless voices answering,
      Evermore and evermore.

 

Written in Latin originally the poem sets out the meaning of the Son of God becoming flesh as thoroughly as can be imagined in a few lines: no snow here - just an amazing contrast between the soaring dignity of the Creator and the dusty doomed-to-die state of the human race to which he came.  And then it soars back to the glory. The tune to which it is sung is haunting yet melodic and rare in being duple metre.

 

Here it is from St George's Cathedral in Southwark. 

 

 

If you watch the video moderately closely you'll quickly gather that the congregation there couldn't sing it either, though the choir does great.  The best bit comes in the devastating third verse (2:00 on the video) when inexplicably (albeit on a live broadcast) the director pans to two ladies who appear to be discussing the way to the bus home and a little chap in a Santa hat pops up behind them as the choir sings about the human race subjected by the old Law to lie in hell. 

 

No matter how awesome the words of a carol we always seem to be able to puncture them when we celebrate Christmas . . .

My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 5

Just ten days to go!

This year I've decided to come clean about Christmas Carols.  You could never guess which ones I like by what I choose for services for those choices are constrained by all kinds of factors.  So yesterday as I played stoically through another Bethlehem Carol Sheet's worth of carols in a local shopping centre as we gave out Christmas invitations I decided I'd think through my favourites. 

 

In the event it was surprisingly easy. 

 

In fifth place is a carol that I like for several reasons. 

---

We three kings of Orient are;
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.

 

O star of wonder, star of light,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light.

 

Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
Over us all to reign.

 

Frankincense to offer have I;
Incense owns a Deity nigh;
Prayer and praising, voices raising,
Worshipping God on high.

 

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

 

Glorious now behold Him arise;
King and God and sacrifice;
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Sounds through the earth and skies.

 

 

Here is an interesting version: 

 

 

Mungo Jerry shows one reason I like it - the tune, which is rhythmically memorable both in the minor key (the verses) and the major key (chorus) and very adaptable - it works fast and slow, loud and soft or both.  Some carols have VERY boring tunes.

 

More surprisingly MJ also grasp some of the song's theology by the way they portray the death and resurrection of Christ near the end.  And that's what I love about this interpretive carol.  Whilst we may argue whether the gifts meant exactly all that Hopkins claims it has depth and truth and points the singer to the cross and resurrection, to the Saviour and to the Gospel.

 

What more could you ask of a carol?

 

 

Mandela

It is a rare thing for quite so many people to be honouring one human being in his death as are now lining up to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela.  It is easy to be cynical about this when no politician can afford to be other than fulsome in their tribute of the man.  If anything resembling this honour had been afforded him in his imprisonment he would have been released far more quickly.  In other political times equally heroic people have passed unnoticed into oblivion.

 

On the other hand, his story of forgiveness and reconciliation (not tolerance, as some have tried to suggest - don't western politicians love that word?) is a heart-warming and affirming one to celebrate and to imitate.  This is humanity at its better end.  When we see it cheered it cheers us all.

 

Humanity at its most humane is an awesome creation.  It is easy to focus on the times when the animal world seems to hold higher virtues and standards - and frankly in South Africa that has probably been sometimes true.  However, the image of God has vestiges enough in the human frame that we see glimpsed many lights in a dark landscape and, like the Christmas lights in December, they warm our hearts.  We pray for our leaders and so now we thank God for what he showed us in Nelson Mandella who will remain a lasting hero for so many of us.  Admittedly that is partly because he was outstanding for doing so often the right thing after suffering the wrong thing.  How nice it would be if that was normal instead of shockingly good.

 

I thought I'd wait until the third day to write about Nelson Mandela.

I think he is a true hero of humanity.  But on this third day as we await his funeral and know that what the apartheid regime couldn't defeat death has, I would not want anyone to mistake who is humanity's only truly victorious hero.

And he's living today and is still forgiving and reconciling human beings day by day.