The Songs We Sing
A Closer Look at Christmas Carols and their Language of Longing
Benjamin Zander delivered a talk entitled, The Transformative Power of Classical Music, one of the most-watched TED talks of all time. Benjamin Zander was born in 1939 and became a Jewish refugee from Berlin to England. He began composing music at age 9 and was a virtuoso on several instruments by age 15. In 1979, he became the musical director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra where is presently still directing at age 84! The premise of Zander’s TED talk? We all appreciate and even love classical music, even those who assume they do not. He connects this love to the heartfelt longings we experience as music drifts from home to away and then back home again.
To demonstrate, before he performs a Chopin piece he preps the audience: “As I play, think of someone whom you adore who is no longer there—a beloved grandmother, a lover—somebody in your life whom you love with all your heart but that person is no longer with you—bring that person into your mind and at the same time follow the movement all the way to the end and you’ll hear everything that Chopin had to say.”
After he plays, as the camera pans the audience, there is not a dry eye in the room. The first time I watched this presentation, my wife, Katie, and I were puddles on the couch. Zander went on to explain he did this presentation in the 1990s amid conflict resolution in Ireland with a large group of Catholic and Protestant street kids. One of them, about fifteen years old, said the next morning: “You know, I’ve never listened to classical music, but last night when you played that piece, I was thinking of my brother, who was shot in the street. I never cried for him, but last night I felt the tears streaming down my face. It felt good to cry for my brother for the first time.”
Music is the language of longing. Good music starts at home, takes us away from home, then resolves in bringing us home again. One Advent Season several years ago, on a dreary day and in a stressful season, feeling anxious about a meeting and concerned for a family member who was struggling, I descended the BART escalator to the Advent hymn, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, being played on a tenor saxophone. I stopped to put a dollar in the musician’s saxophone case, then walked away with new perspective. What is it underneath music that gives it its otherworldly power? Music is the language of longing…
I am a fan of the band, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, firstly because they are boys from rural Alabama (I can relate!), but secondly, because their lyrics traffic in longing. Recovering from his religious fundamentalist background, the lead singer, in an interview on NPR, said: “Faith, for me, is deeply connected to music. There is something that music does inside of me that pulls me out of myself and into a new reality—it somehow suggests that there is more out there beyond what we can see…and I want to be a part of that….” Music is the language of longing…
Reflect on Herbert Kretzmer’s piece in Les Miserables, sung at the onset of the revolution: “Do you hear the people sing?… It is the music of the people who will not be slaves again. When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drum. There is a life about to start when tomorrow comes.” Music is the language of longing…
Author David Talbot, in his book, Season of the Witch, tells the 20th-century history of San Francisco through a musical anthology of musicians who either hailed from the Bay Area or brought their music to the region: Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, the Grateful Dead, Santana, Steve Miller Band, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Cream, Chuck Berry, the Doors, Bo Diddley, and the Rolling Stones. He wrote: “The music had the power. The music was the signal. It called out to young people everywhere. It lured them to San Francisco—if not to the city itself, then to its empire of dreams….” Music is the language of longing…
Why is music the language of longing? Why does it express love between lovers? Launch revolutions? Waft into the high arches of gothic cathedrals? Expand possibility and opportunity? Reverberate so deeply in the chambers of our own hearts? Jeremy Begbie, classical pianist and aesthetics professor at Duke Divinity School, posits a reason: “It is the sense of an ending…of a fulfillment…of a completion. The three movements—home-away-HOME—bring us rest.” In a manner only a musician can, Begbie describes home as the tonic—it is the tonic chord with a particular tonality we anticipate hearing again. We will then move away from the tonic, but we will return…and the tension builds as we await resolution. Begbie also suggests that while Eastern music is of a different tonal quality and pacing, most musical theorists suggest these three dynamics—home-away-HOME—still exist.
In a talk I heard Dr. Begbie give he said: “All the tension-resolution…pulls [us] into a dynamic desire, giving us an appetite for closure… toward a resting place…[toward] home.” He built this talk around how music uncovers this spiritual longing experienced by all—a longing for home. We have lost our home (a relationship with God), we live in the tension of being away, and all the while, God is gently singing to us and beckoning us to return home.
Some of us remain skeptical of these longings. And when music taps into them we assume it is nothing more than an evolutionarily-derived, physiological impulse toward protection or survival. And as many of us now live in protected and secure environments, the tapped longings merely manifest in saccharine sentimentality.
But what if? What if you took a moment to rehearse past experiences in your life where music has unleashed its power within your heart and upon your life? Where music has brought to the surface extraordinary desires and otherworldly longings? And what if you asked the question: Where do these longings come from?
The Advent Season is a “wonder-full” moment in our calendar to contemplate these longings. The beginning of the Christian Year isn’t holly and jolly, instead, it is dripping with desire and laced with longing. In this regard, I appreciate the vulnerability with which Christianity presents itself: For 2000 years the people of God have been awaiting their Messiah. Then Jesus emerges and begins a good work. Yet, 2000 years later, we still await Christ’s coming again, to be faithful in completing that good work. Home–away–HOME; tension awaiting resolution. We inhabit the “in-between.” Christ has died. Christ has risen. Christ will come again. We live in the longing.
This Advent Season and Christmas Season we will explore the Christmas Carols many of us know by heart or are familiar enough with to sing along. Yet, these Songs We Sing will also explore us. They will search out and uncover some of our deepest desires and highest longings. They will plumb our past, meet us in our present, and coax us into a desired future. Join us as we consider: The Songs We Sing: A Closer Look at Christmas Carols and their Language of Longing.
Table of Contents
Our Advent Introductory Song
Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
Verse 1:
Come Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free
From our fears and sins release us
Let us find our rest in Thee
Israel’s strength and consolation
Hope of all the earth Thou art
Dear desire of every nation
Joy of every longing heart
Verse 2:
Born Thy people to deliver
Born a child and yet a King
Born to reign in us forever
Now Thy gracious Kingdom bring
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone
By Thine all sufficient merit
Raise us to Thy glorious throne
Origin
For countless Christians worldwide, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus signals the beginning of Advent.
It was first published in 1744 in Charles Wesley’s Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord, a little collection so popular that it was reprinted 20 times during Wesley’s lifetime. Published in two eight-line stanzas, this hymn is now generally sung in the Advent season rather than during the nativity of Christ as the title of the collection indicates.
The Wesleys published several small collections of hymn texts that were available to a wider number of people. They were usually on themes associated with a particular season of the Christian year or the sacraments. These volumes offered a way to disseminate Methodist theology and enhance the personal devotional life of those in Methodism. The collections also provided a corpus of songs to sing together when the church gathered for worship.
Interestingly enough, Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus appeared in an American Methodist hymnal in 1847, nearly 30 years before it was included in a British Methodist hymnal. Only the rare North American hymnal omits this hymn now. It is part of the fabric of our preparations for Christmas.
Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus has the quality of a petition—a prayer that implores Christ to be among us. Imperative verbs are used six times in the two stanzas found in the hymnal: “Come, thou long-expected Jesus”; “From our fears and sins release us”; “Let us find our rest in thee”; “Now thy gracious kingdom bring”; “Rule in all our hearts alone”; “Raise us to thy glorious throne.” The cumulative effect of these petitions is a tone of supplication. Wesley succeeds in recalling the deep longing of ancient Israel for the Messiah—the Promised One.
He also draws upon another cumulative technique, the repetition of a single word for effect. In this case, it is the word “born,” which appears four times. Each time “born” is sung, an aspect of Jesus’ mission to a troubled world is revealed: “Born to set thy people free”; “Born thy people to deliver”; “Born a child and yet a king”; “Born to reign in us forever.”
British hymnologist J.R. Watson notes that this hymn’s “uniqueness comes from its skillful conjunction of several elements into one simple-sounding discourse. Those elements include the Old Testament promise of the Messiah, ‘Israel’s strength and consolation’ who has been long expected and who will set his people free; the New Testament story of the birth of the child who is also a king (Matthew 2:6); and the idea of the Christ-child not only as the strength and consolation of Israel, but also the hope of all the earth, a Christ who is born for the Gentiles as well as the Jews.”
Although we live in a different time than did Charles Wesley, the longings of people’s hearts are just as deep. We long for security, love, relationships, meaning. To those who open themselves up to its message, this hymn identifies with the longings at the deepest levels of our being. And for the Christian, these longings collude with Hope!
And where will our longing, our hopeful waiting lead us? Where is the ultimate home of our hope? In the final line Wesley takes us there: “Raise us to thy glorious throne.”
Sources
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Wikipedia
Advent Week 1: Hope
Isaiah 7:10-14; Matthew 1:18-23
O Come O Come Emmanuel
Verse 1
O come O come Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Chorus
Rejoice rejoice Emmanuel
Shall come to thee O Israel
Verse 2
O come Thou Dayspring come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
And death’s dark shadows put to flight
Verse 3
O come Thou Wisdom from on high
And order all things far and nigh
To us the path of knowledge show
And cause us in her ways to go
Verse 4
O come Desire of nations bind
All peoples in one heart and mind
Bid envy strife and quarrels cease
Fill the whole world with heaven’s peace
Origin
This hymn, originally written in Latin, takes us back over 1,200 years to monastic life in the 8th- or 9th-century. Seven days before Christmas Eve monasteries would sing the antiphons (“short sentences”) of this canticle (“hymn or chant”). John Mason Neale (1818-1866), the architect of the Oxford movement, which brought ancient Greek and Latin hymnody into English Anglicanism, discovered this Latin hymn in the appendix of an early 18th-century manuscript and translated it into English.
British hymnologist J.R. Watson provides rich context for the Latin antiphons: “The antiphons, sometimes called the ‘O antiphons’ or ‘The Great O’s’, were designated to concentrate the mind on the coming Christmas, enriching the meaning of the Incarnation with a complex series of references from the Old and New Testaments.”
Each antiphon begins as follows:
O Sapentia (Wisdom) – Proverbs 8; Matthew 11:18,19
O Adonai (the Hebrew word for God) – Isaiah 25:7,8 and others; Philippians 2:6-11
O Radix Jesse (stem or root of Jesse) – Isaiah 11:1,10-12; Romans 15:1-13
O Clavis David (key of David) – Isaiah 22:20-24; Revelation 3:7,8
O Oriens (Dayspring) – Job 38:12; Luke 1:78
O Rex genitium (King of the Gentiles) – Isaiah 66; Luke 22:24-30
O Emmanuel (God with Us) – Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23
Placed together, the first letter of the second word of each antiphon spells SARCORE. If read backward, the letters form a two-word acrostic, “Ero cras,” meaning “Tomorrow, I will be here.” The “O Emmanuel” antiphon was traditionally sung on the night before Christmas Eve, revealing the meaning of the liturgical riddle through the completion of the acrostic. All of the Latin attributions to the coming Messiah are from the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians often refer to as the “Old Testament”), and then appear in the Greek Scriptures (“New Testament”) as designations for Jesus.
When we begin to see the Old Testament as God’s plan to prepare for the coming of Jesus (Ephesians 1:7-10), a plan that even angels were excited to see unfold (1 Peter 1:10-12), we start to see that the Old Testament is much more than a history of Israel’s place in the ancient Near East. The Old Testament becomes for us a way to see and savor the glory of Jesus Christ in the types, shadows, and promises that predicted His coming. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel invites us to grow in this knowledge while experiencing it deeply through song.
Further, when we sing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, we offer our prayer to God, longing for God’s return through the second coming of Jesus. The first two periods of time in which this hymn roots us are in the past. But this hymn is also expectant and forward-looking in its composition (see verse 4). It declares the first advent of Jesus even as it stokes our desire for the second coming of Jesus. We live in the inaugurated kingdom of God that is hurtling toward its great consummation at the end of all time when Jesus will return to make all things new. Come soon, Lord Jesus!
Many of our hymns transcend centuries, cultures, translations, and many variations until we find them in the form that we sing. With this hymn, the essence of the original Latin text remains. By singing “O come, O come, Emmanuel” with the antiphons interspersed, Christians today participate in a sacred Advent ritual at least 11 centuries old! As we sing, let us remember that during Advent, monks in monasteries throughout the land chanted these lines each night in anticipation of Christmas.
Sources
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Joe Holland, Ligonier Ministries
- Wikipedia
Advent Week 2: Peace
Micah 5:1-4; Luke 2:4-6
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Verse 1
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight
Verse 2
For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep
The angels keep their watch of wondering love
O morning stars together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God the King
And peace to men on earth
Verse 3
How silently how silently
The wondrous gift is given
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven
No ear may hear His coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive Him still
The dear Christ enters in
Verse 5
O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born in us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
O come to us abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel
Origin
Many hymns written originally for children capture the imagination of everyone. Such is the case with O little town of Bethlehem.
Phillips Brooks, long-time Episcopal rector, wrote this beloved Christmas hymn for the Sunday school children at his Philadelphia parish, Holy Trinity Church, following a pilgrimage to Bethlehem in 1865.
According to the story, Brooks traveled on horseback between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. In his journal, Brooks wrote: “Before dark we rode out of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with a cave in it, in which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. . . . Somewhere in those fields we rode through, the shepherds must have been. As we passed, the shepherds were still ‘keeping watch over their flocks,’ or leading them home to fold.” Later that evening Brooks participated in the Christmas Eve service, “conducted in Constantine’s ancient basilica (326 A.D.) built over the traditional site of the Nativity, a cave. The service lasted from 10 P.M. to 3 A.M.!” This sequence of events provided the backdrop for Brooks’ children’s hymn.
The Holy Trinity Church organist, Lewis Redner, put the lyrics to music. Redner would note that the “simple music was written in great haste and under great pressure almost on the Eve of Christmas. It was after midnight that a little angel whispered the strain in my ears and I roused myself and jotted it down as you have it.”
Later, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) paired this text with the British folk tune Forest Green for The English Hymnal (1906), a marriage that Australian hymnologist Wesley Milgate called “one of the many happy inspirations of the music editor, Vaughan Williams.” This tune is dominant in Great Britain, and the American tune, St. Louis, has been derided by British hymnologist Erik Routley as “broken-backed and paralytic.” Such is the difference in musical tastes of two countries an ocean apart.
Regardless of the feelings about the tune, hymnologists on both sides of the Atlantic agree on the poignancy of the text. Dr. Watson sums it up well: “Not only does the hymn beautifully describe the little town asleep in the December night; it also gracefully modulates from a description of Christmas into an examination of the meaning of Christmas: first in its encouragement of charity and faith, and then into the coming of Christ into the human heart.”
Sources
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Joe Holland, Ligonier Ministries
- Wikipedia
Advent Week 3: Joy
Haggai 2:6,7; Luke 2:13-15
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Verse 1
Hark the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled
Joyful all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With th’angelic hosts proclaim
Christ is born in Bethlehem
Hark the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King
Verse 2
Christ by highest heav’n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of the Virgin’s womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail th’incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with men to dwell
Jesus our Emmanuel
Hark the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King
Verse 3
Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace
Hail the Sun of Righteousness
Light and life to all He brings
Ris’n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King
Origin
The opening lines of this favorite Christmas hymn echo Luke 2:14, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace. . .” (KJV). Immediately, Charles Wesley, the hymn writer establishes a cosmic connection between the heavenly chorus and our hope for peace on earth. While many Christmas carols recount in one way or another the Christmas narrative, Wesley provides a dense theological interpretation of the Incarnation.
Wesley begins not with the prophets, the Annunciation to Mary, the journey to Bethlehem, or the search for a room, but in media res – in the middle of the action.
Rather than concluding with the final phrase of Luke 2:14, “good will toward men,” Wesley offers his theological interpretation: “God and sinners reconciled.” This conviction was a natural addition since the hymn was written within a year of Charles Wesley’s conversion.
Most of the hymns we sing have been adjusted and edited throughout the years. George Whitefield (1740-1770), a powerful preacher and friend to the Wesley brothers, made several changes to the hymn in his Collection (1753), changes we recognize today. One such change was the first line itself. The familiar first line we now sing sets up the opening stanza as an expansion of the song of the angels in Luke 2:14.
With Advent’s Week Three focus being joy, we note the joyful arraigning of the nations as they join the jubilation of the angels. Students of the Old Testament would hear echoes of Haggai 2:6,7: “This is what the LORD Almighty says, ‘In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the LORD Almighty.” This passage is explicitly referenced again in verse 4, a verse not often sung today. Verse 3, the final stanza in most hymnals, paraphrases the beautiful citation from Malachi 4:2: “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings” (KJV).
As Jesus’ incarnation brought the hope of healing to all, those from every nation joined the angels in joyful adoration.
Sources
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Wikipedia
Advent Week 4: Love
Isaiah 2:4; Habakkuk 2:14; Luke 1:50-53
It Came upon the Midnight Clear
Verse 1
It came upon the midnight clear
That glorious song of old
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold
Peace on the earth goodwill to men
From heaven’s all gracious King
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing
Verse 3
And ye beneath life’s crushing load
Whose forms are bending low
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow
Look now for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing
O rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing
Verse 4
For lo the days are hastening on
By prophet bards foretold
When with the ever-circling years
Comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling
And the whole world give back the song
Which now the angels sing
Verse 5
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long
Beneath the angel strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong
And man at war with man hears not
The love song which they bring
O hush the noise ye men of strife
And hear the angels sing
Origin
This may be the only commonly sung Christmas carol that does not mention the birth of Christ. The focus, much like that of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, is on the song of the angels, “Peace on the earth, goodwill to men” (Luke 2:14).
The historical context sheds some light. Massachusetts native Edmund Hamilton Sears (1810-1876) earned a degree from Harvard Divinity School and was ordained a Unitarian minister in 1839. As a Unitarian, Dr. Sears was quick to exclaim: “Yet, I preach the Divinity of Christ!” Edmund was working on this hymn as the tension of an impending Civil War mounted. The hymn’s central theme contrasts the scourge of war with the angels’ song of peace.
The original stanza three, missing from our hymnals, sheds light on the poet’s concerns about the social situation in the U.S. in the mid-19th century:
“But with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song, which they bring:
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!”
Our current stanza three poignantly articulates the situation of so many with images of those “beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow….” The second half of this stanza offers hope that the song of the “blessed angels” who “bend on hovering wings” would soothe the “Babel sounds” of a suffering world.
With unrest in Taiwan, as well as wars in Ukraine and Israel and Palestine, this hymn bears our longings this Advent Season. We sing for the peace of the angels to hush the noise of strife. We sing for the power of God’s love to prevail over hate. We long, “For the earth to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).
Sources
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Wikipedia
Christmas Eve: Expectation
Isaiah 9:6; Luke 2:6-7
Silent Night
Verse 1
Silent night holy night
All is calm all is bright
Round yon virgin mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace
Verse 2
Silent night holy night
Shepherds quake at the sight
Glories stream from heaven afar
Heav’nly hosts sing alleluia
Christ the Savior is born
Christ the Savior is born
Verse 3
Silent night holy night
Son of God love’s pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord at Thy birth
Jesus Lord at Thy birth
Origin
The lyrics to Silent Night were written by Josef Mohr, a man whose name was unloved in his hometown of Salzburg. Mohr was one of three illegitimate sons to Anna Schoiberin, while his father, Franz, was a mercenary soldier who eventually abandoned the family. To make matters worse, Josef’s godfather was the town executioner.
Perhaps due to his mother’s poverty, the curate of the local Catholic cathedral took Josef in as a foster child. Josef had a proclivity toward music, which was encouraged by the church, and he eventually decided to pursue the priesthood. He was ordained August 21, 1815, and was sent to Oberndorf, just north of Salzburg. He there met Franz Xaver Gruber, a local schoolteacher who would become organist at Old Saint Nicholas Church the following year. Gruber came from equally humble origins, and himself took comfort in his music. The friendship of the two is what led to the creation of Silent Night.
Silent Night—or Stille Nacht in the original German—was created because Mohr needed a carol for worship. On Christmas Eve of 1818, Mohr visited Gruber with a poem he had written a few years earlier. Gruber quickly arranged the song to be played on a guitar with a choir because the church organ was damaged by a flood. That evening at Midnight Mass, Gruber strapped on his guitar and led the congregation at St. Nicholas in the first rendition of Silent Night. Given this unusual instrumentation, it was birthed with serene, humble beginnings.
But the song was an immediate hit, later being sung by traveling tours and performed before King Frederick William IV of Prussia. Later in the 1800s, the hymn was translated into English and made its way to America by way of a book called Sunday School Hymnal, though with only three of the original six verses.
Today, Silent Night is perhaps the most famous Christmas carol in history. It has been translated into most languages, and the Bing Crosby version is the third-bestselling single in history. A rebuilt Silent Night Chapel in Oberndorf is now a cultural landmark (a replica can be found in Frankenmuth, Michigan). It is assumed this hymn will be sung by more churches throughout the world than any other song. It is usually sung on Christmas Eve, often with accompanying candlelight.
Sources
- Ryan Reeves, The History Behind “Silent Night”
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Wikipedia
O Holy Night
Verse 1
O holy night the stars are brightly shining
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn
Chorus 1
Fall on your knees
O hear the angel voices
O night divine
O night when Christ was born
O night O holy night
O night divine
Verse 3
Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we
Let all within us praise His holy name
Chorus 3
Christ is the Lord
O praise His name forever
His power and glory
Evermore proclaim
His power and glory
Evermore proclaim
Origin
In Roquemaure in France at the end of 1843, the church organ had recently been renovated. To celebrate the event, the parish priest persuaded poet Placide Cappeau, a native of the town, to write a Christmas poem. Soon afterward, in that same year, Adolphe Adam composed the music. The song was premiered in Roquemaure in 1847 by the opera singer Emily Laurey. Transcendentalist, music critic, minister, and editor of Dwight’s Journal of Music, John Dwight, adapted the song into English in 1855. This version became popular in the United States, especially in the North, where the third verse (including “Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, And in his name all oppression shall cease”) resonated with abolitionists.
Back across the pond, legend has it that on Christmas Eve 1871, amid fierce fighting between the armies of Germany and France, during the Franco-Prussian War, a French soldier suddenly jumped out of his muddy trench. Both sides stared at the seemingly crazed man who lifted his eyes to the heavens and began singing O Holy Night (“Cantique de Noel”). Then a German soldier stepped into the open and answered the Frenchman’s song with Martin Luther’s “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.” The story goes that the fighting stopped for the next twenty-four hours while the men on both sides observed a temporary peace in honor of Christmas Day. Perhaps this story had a part in the French church once again embracing “Cantique de Noel” in holiday services.
But the story of the song continued. Years later on Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden–a 33-year-old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison–did something long thought impossible. Using a new type of generator, Fessenden spoke into a microphone and, for the first time in history, a man’s voice was broadcast over the airwaves: “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed,” he began in a clear, strong voice, hoping he was reaching across the distances he supposed he would.
Shocked radio operators on ships and astonished wireless owners at newspapers were amazed as their normal, coded impulses, heard over tiny speakers, were interrupted by a professor reading the Christmas story. To those who caught this broadcast, it must have seemed like a miracle to hear a voice somehow transmitted to those far away. Perhaps they may have thought they were hearing the voice of an angel. Fessenden was probably unaware of the sensation he was causing on ships and in offices; he couldn’t have known that men and women were rushing to their wireless units to catch this Christmas Eve miracle. After finishing his recitation of the birth of Christ, Fessenden picked up his violin and played “O Holy Night,” the first song ever sent through the air via radio waves.
Since “O Holy Night” was first sung at a small Christmas mass in 1847, the song has been sung millions of times in churches in every corner of the world. And since the moment a handful of people first heard it played over the radio, the carol has gone on to become one of the most recorded and played spiritual songs.
Sources
- Ann Gabhart, The Story Behind the Song: O Holy Night.
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Wikipedia
Christmas Week 1: Celebration
Luke 2:25-35
Joy to the World
Verse 1
Joy to the world the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let ev’ry heart prepare Him room
And heav’n and nature sing
And heav’n and nature sing
And heav’n and heav’n and nature sing
Verse 2
Joy to the earth the Savior reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods
Rocks hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat repeat the sounding joy
Verse 3
No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found
Far as the curse is found
Far as far as the curse is found
Verse 4
He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
And wonders wonders of His love
Origin
The popular carol Joy to the World was penned by Isaac Watts (1674-1748). Though Watts never intended for the hymn to be sung merely during Advent and Christmas, most hymnals properly list it as an Advent carol. The threefold Advent of Christ in the incarnation, the dwelling in our hearts by His Spirit, and His glorious return at the last day are each portrayed in Watts’ hymn.
The hymn conveys the resounding message of Psalm 98, “Shout for joy to the LORD all the earth” (Psalm 98:2). The Psalm continues: “The LORD has made his salvation known, and revealed his righteousness to the nations” (Psalm 98:4). Joy to the World traces the redemption story throughout history, from the promise in the garden (Genesis 3:15) to Christ’s glorious return: “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”
Joy to the World addresses our ultimate, eternal purpose: To worship God! Our daily and weekly worship is a foretaste of the eternal worship of the Lord before His throne, where we will for all eternity “repeat the sounding joy.” May your singing of this carol comfort and encourage you as you remember that your joy is in your Savior and Lord, who has given you the delightful duty to “repeat the sounding joy” of the “wonders of His love” now and forevermore.
Sources
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Wikipedia
Christmas Week 2: Epiphany
Luke 2:36-40
O Come All Ye Faithful
Verse 1
O come all ye faithful
Joyful and triumphant
O come ye O come ye to Bethlehem
Come and behold Him
Born the King of angels
Chorus
O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord
Verse 2
Sing choirs of angels
Sing in exultation
O sing all ye bright
Hosts of heav’n above
Glory to God all
Glory in the highest
Verse 3
Yea Lord we greet Thee
Born this happy morning
Jesus to Thee be all glory giv’n
Word of the Father
Now in flesh appearing
Origin
This favorite Christmas hymn appears to be the result of a collaboration of several people. What we sing is a 19th-century version of a hymn written in the 18th century.
The Latin text comes from the Roman Catholic tradition, found in an 18th-century manuscript in the College at Douai. The college was located in northern France beginning around 1561 and continuing until it was suppressed in 1793. The college was exiled to England at the time of the French Revolution (1789-99).
One possibility is that John Francis Wade (1711-1786) was an English musician at the college. Methodist hymnologist Fred Gealy notes: “Seven manuscripts containing the Latin hymn are known; they are dated 1743-61. All appear to have been written, signed, and dated by John Francis Wade, an Englishman who made his living by copying and selling plainchant and other music.”
The English language translation of stanzas one, two, three, and six is the work of Frederick Oakeley (1802-1880), a translator of Latin hymns during the Oxford movement who worked closely with Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890), a leader in the movement. Oakeley became a Roman Catholic and was known for his ministry to the poor at Westminster Abbey. Oakeley’s stanzas, penned in 1841, first appeared in F.H. Murray’s Hymnal for Use in the English Church (1852) under the title “Let us go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass” (Luke 2:15). Abbé Etienne Jean François Borderies (1764-1832), who was inspired upon hearing the hymn, translated three additional stanzas, of which four and five are included in most hymnals today. These stanzas round out the Christmas story.
Sources
- Dr. C. Michael Hawn, History of Hymns, UMC Discipleship Ministry
- Wikipedia