One of the great traditions of our Christmas celebrations is the singing of Christmas Carols. It’s a tradition that most people I know thoroughly enjoy and in fact, over the years I’ve met more than one person who feels that it isn’t really Christmas until they’ve heard and sung Christmas Carols. And because it such a great and well-loved tradition, many Christmas Carols are very well-known. So well-known in fact that many people seem to know them off by heart. Or do they?
One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is just how wrong people can get Christmas Carols, they can get the tune wrong, and they can get the words and punctuation wrong and in doing so, they can completely change the meaning of the words and of the carol itself. And they can do this with some of the best-loved and most well-known carols.
Take O come, all ye faithful, for example. People get the tune of this carol wrong so often it’s actually a surprise when anyone sings it as the music is written. In the last line of the verses, in the last bar, there are only two notes, F and D. But for some reason people insist on singing an E in between them. So, in the first verse when we sing ‘born the king of angels’, the word ‘angels’ should be sung on a descending F and D, an-gels. But people almost always sing it on a descending F – E – D, a-an-gels. Why do people sing this phantom note that isn’t really there? I do remember very well a choir practice at Mirfield when the pianist was almost apoplectic with rage because of the choir’s insistence on singing this phantom note, he was thumping the piano with all his might and singing himself at the top of his voice in an attempt to get the choir to sing the carol correctly. Actually, I think he just made things worse because the angrier he got the louder the choir sang the phantom note just to wind him up even further.
But perhaps it is only an organist, pianist or professional singer who would take such annoyance at something like that. For the most part, I think the far greater problem with people’s singing of Christmas Carols is getting the words and punctuation wrong.
For example, in another well-known carol, God rest ye merry, gentlemen, people do insist on getting the comma in the wrong place in the first line and instead of singing ’God rest ye merry, gentlemen’, they sing ‘God rest ye, merry gentlemen’. But that changes the meaning of the words.
What this carol is actually saying is that gentlemen should rest and be merry because of the birth of Jesus Christ. But what people actually sing implies that gentlemen who are already merry, should rest because of Christ’s birth.
But when it come to changing the meaning of a well-known carol by getting it wrong, to me, the best, or perhaps that should be worst, example is people getting the words at the end of In the bleak mid-winter wrong.
Those who know this carol will know that the last verse goes,
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 can I give Him: give my heart.
Except that it doesn’t. The last line doesn’t say ‘Yet what can I give him; give my heart’, it actually says ‘Yet what I can I give him; give my heart’. But when they sing this carol, people almost invariably miss out the first ‘I’ in that line and that completely changes the meaning of what’s being said. Missing out the first ‘I’ makes that line a question of what we could give Jesus, but what it’s actually meant to be is a statement of what we will give him, a pledge that we will give Jesus our heart. Missing out that first ‘I’ makes that line a matter of what we could or might give to Jesus should we choose to, rather than a promise that we will give Jesus our all, our love, our deepest, most profound commitment, a promise that we will put Jesus above all else. What we’re really saying in this Christmas Carol is almost identical to what we say in one of the best-loved and most well-known Passiontide hymns, When I survey the wondrous cross where, again in the last verse, we sing,
Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far too small
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
I think that the way we can get the tunes, words and punctuation of carols so wrong though is a symptom of a blasé attitude towards them. And we can be, and often are, very blasé about these things because we’ve sung them so often before and think we know them so well that we don’t really pay proper attention to what we’re singing, nor what we’re supposed to be saying through what we sing.
And I think that in itself is a symptom of a blasé attitude towards Christmas itself. And by that I don’t mean that we don’t love Christmas, but we don’t pay proper attention to it; we don’t give proper attention to what it means and how important it is.
We think we know the Christmas story so well don’t we? We’ve heard it so many times before that we don’t need to think about it too much. And yet, I once set a Christmas Quiz for a parish and the questions were about the Christmas story as it appears in the Bible.
Not the popular understanding of Christmas with all its accumulated traditions and frippery, but the pure biblical story. We held the quiz at a social night so people couldn’t take the quiz home and consult their Bibles to get the answers, it was a test of just how well Christians did know the Christmas story. As I recall there were 12 questions in the quiz and the winning score was —- 7. The person who knew the biblical Christmas story best, only knew just over half of it. And it wasn’t the vicar. He got 5 out of 12 questions right. And really, as one person commented at the time, it was shameful.
Christmas Carols, the Christmas story itself, we think we know these things so well. We think we know these things so well that we become blasé about them, and we don’t pay proper attention to what were doing and saying, nor to Christmas itself. And for Christians, that is shameful. Christmas is one of the most wonderful things that has ever happened. If we were to make a list of the most wonderful events in history, Christmas would be second only to Easter. It’s an event and a story that should demand our full attention no matter how many times we’ve heard it before. It’s a story so important that it demands our full attention every time we hear it just in case we missed something in the past or have forgotten something since last time. In a time for giving, as we like to call Christmas, the greatest gift of all is God’s gift to us of his Son, the very Word of God come to earth and made flesh in the babe of Bethlehem. It’s something so wonderful and so important that we should never tire of hearing about it or celebrating it, nor become blasé about hearing it and celebrating it.
At the start of our Christmas Carol service, we heard these words;
‘Through Scripture and silence, prayer and song, let us hear again the wonderful story of our redemption; and, hearing, let us rejoice and respond with lively faith.’
So, as we celebrate once again the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, let’s give the story our full attention so that we really do hear it. And, hearing, let’s rejoice in the full measure befitting such a wonderful event and story. And let’s respond to the wonder of Christmas with lively faith. Not a faith that simply asks us to consider how we might respond to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, but with a faith that urges us to pledge our heart to Jesus, as the Carol says.
Amen.
Propers for the Nativity of the Lord, 24th and 25th December 2023
Entrance Antiphon: Midnight Mass
Let us rejoice in the Lord, for our Saviour is born to the world.
True peace has descended from heaven.
The Collect: Midnight Mass
Eternal God,
who made this most holy night to shine with the brightness of your one true light:
bring us, who have known the revelation of that light on earth,
to see the radiance of your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings: Midnight Mass
RCL (St Gabriel’s)
Isaiah 9:2-7
Psalm 96
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14
Entrance Antiphon: Christmas Day
A child is born for us, a son given to us; dominion is laid on his shoulder,
and he shall be called Wonderful Counsellor.
The Collect: Christmas Day
Almighty God,
you have given us your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him,
and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin:
grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace,
may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
The Readings: Christmas Day
Missal (St Mark’s)
Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 97:1-6
Hebrews 1:1-6
John 1:1-18
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 