“Brightest and Best” performed by The USC Thornton Chamber Singers
Today’s hymn may be in your hymnal but it won’t be arranged to a rollicking folk melody as Shawn Kirchner has in the video above. It’s a song about the Magi finding the infant King of the Jews after a long trek in pursuit of the star. It was written by Englishman Reginald Heber (1783-1826) while he was rector in the village of Hodnet, Shropshire.
“The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (PS 34:18 ESV)
Refrain Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Dawn on our darkness and lend us thine aid; Star of the east, the horizon adorning, Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid.
2 Cold on His cradle the dew-drops are shining, Low lies His head with the beasts of the stall; Angels adore Him in slumber reclining, Maker and Monarch and Savior of all.
3 Shall we not yield Him, in costly devotion, Odors of Edom, and offerings divine, Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean, Myrrh from the forest, and gold from the mine?
4 Vainly we offer each ample oblation, Vainly with gifts would His favor secure; Richer by far is the heart’s adoration, Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.
“Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” is the most fully theological of the popular Christmas hymns, and hence my favorite.
I prefer Sissel’s rendition, but her live performance with the Heretic Tabernacle Choir is truncated to two verses. So I looked for something with more.
This version from Celtic Woman is a tad glitzy for my taste, but they do several verses and do not “improve” the lyrics to suit our times. On that basis I share it with you.
Her sweater was all warm and cozy With a scene that was Christmasy poesy. The sermon so sweet Almost put her to sleep For she sat in the pew somewhat dozy.
Editor Sam O’Neil has been stoking the fires for limericks on Sunday for a while now, and today being Christmas Eve, I chipped in with the limerick above. #LimerickSunday
It’s Christmas Eve. This Christmas carol was written in the 14th century to a medieval German folk tune. It’s in the vein of songs that teach doctrine. The video above weaves another song, In Dulci Jubilo (“In sweet rejoicing”), and the fun they have with it recommended it above other recordings.
“And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them” (Luke 2:20 ESV).
1 Good Christian men, rejoice, With heart, and soul, and voice; Give ye heed to what we say: Jesus Christ is born today; Ox and ass before him bow, And he is in the manger now. Christ is born today! Christ is born today!
2 Good Christian men, rejoice, With heart, and soul, and voice; Now ye hear of endless bliss: Jesus Christ was born for this! He hath oped the heav’nly door, And man is blessed evermore. Christ was born for this! Christ was born for this!
3 Good Christian men, rejoice, With heart, and soul, and voice; Now ye need not fear the grave: Jesus Christ was born to save! Calls you one and calls you all To gain his everlasting hall. Christ was born to save!
Heap on more wood! the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Letters:J.R.R. Tolkien wrote and illustrated letters to his boys as Father Christmas. They were originally published in 1976, the third anniversary of his death. Here’s the start of the one from 1925, copied from BritishHeritage.com.
My dear boys,
I am dreadfully busy this year — it makes my hand more shaky than ever when I think of it — and not very rich. In fact, awful things have been happening, and some of the presents have got spoilt and I haven’t got the North Polar Bear to help me and I have had to move house just before Christmas, so you can imagine what a state everything is in, and you will see why I have a new address, and why I can only write one letter between you both.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honour to the holy night;
On Christmas Eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas Eve the mass was sung:
Historic Peace: Here’s a review of Tom Holland’s Pax, a history of the Roman Empire. It covers from the end of Nero to Hadrian, about 70 years. “He is the rare breed of serious historian who is fluent in the material, confident in his interpretations, and able to write with a novelistic flourish. Honestly, all 400+ pages of Pax are just so fun to read.“
Hadrian’s Wall: Speaking of Emperor Hadrian, the 200-year-old sycamore tree that stood to the side of Hadrian’s Wall between two hillocks was cut down in September by vandals, but the tree is not lost. “The National Trust confirmed that the seeds from the 200-year-old tree are expected to be able to grow new trees.” And the stump will likely grow again too.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The Lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of ‘post and pair’.
C.S. Lewis: A 1946 Christmas sermon for pagans by the author of The Abolition of Man. “When something is wrong, Lewis suggests, the post-Christian Englishperson points to the Government or the education system or to God or whatever as the problem. Rarely does a post-Christian carry around a sense that they might be at fault.”
England was merry England, when
Old Christmas brought his sports again.
‘Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale;
‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man’s heart through half the year.
Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace, Poor, simple, and of low estate! That Strife should vanish, Battle cease, O why should this thy soul elate? Sweet Music’s loudest note, the Poet’s story,— Did’st thou ne’er love to hear of Fame and Glory?
From “A Christmas Carol,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Despite being unqualified to make such a pronouncement, I doubt Coleridge’s “A Christmas Carol” is a very good poem. The verse is clunky, and I worry that the theme boils down to something John Lennon would approve, but perhaps it’s a good theme for this year. Would we rather glory in war or in the Prince of Peace?
Coleridge wrote “A Christmas Carol” in 1799, after he had taken up Unitarianism officially, and it was set to music many years later when the English were reviving the singing of carols. The words do seem to call for a tune with four lines and a couplet in each verse.
“Joy rose within her, like a summer’s morn; Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.”
The world doesn’t understand peace; many believers don’t either. We are too worldly. We don’t follow Christ in making peace as much as possible, and we don’t understand the necessity of being prepared for war. In the poem, the shepherds come to Mary and she rejoices in their tale. Then, the poet steps in to ask her why she should rejoice in the Prince of Peace (note the verse above).
She responds, “War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled, / That from the aged Father tears his Child!” Strife and Battle break the world and waste everything. “A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, / He kills the Sire and starves the Son.” Yes, yes, but this is personification. War isn’t a person; it’s a description of things people do. We fight each other for power, money, and fame. The Roman founders saw they needed women to be a successful colony, but instead of appealing to their Sabine neighbors, they fought them and took their women. Who taught them to take the path of war instead of the path of peace? No one. It would have been a natural choice for anyone.
I suspect Coleridge was like many who want peace as the absence of war, but the Prince of Peace says he gives a different peace, a peace that follows from seeking the Kingdom of Heaven first. It isn’t one we earn per se. It’s one that follows us, like goodness and mercy. The Lord may put us in a troubled time, and we may even be called to fight for the peace we want to see, but the Lord gives us a peace in knowing his kingdom has no end.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:7 ESV)
I’ve been writing for this blog so long that I think I can probably reanimate some of my old post topics. A search of our archives shows that it was in 2010 that I last wrote about the Christmas hymn, “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” I’m not going to denounce it. In fact, I kind of love it. But it’s not really a Christmas hymn. It’s more of a Christmas song, like “The Christmas Song” (the Chestnuts one, you know) or “Silver Bells.” Because it’s not about Jesus, and was never intended to be.
The putative hymn was written by Edmund H. Sears, a sensitive-minded Unitarian minister who worked in Toledo for a while, before suffering a breakdown (perfectly understandable, under the circumstances). In time he ended up serving a church in Wayland, Massachusetts. He wrote “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” in 1849, and it was published with a tune by Richard Storrs Willis in 1850. His motivation seems to have been his depression over the Mexican War, which raised considerable opposition in the country (Lincoln famously voted against the war, and lost his seat in Congress because of it).
The hymn goes:
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, good will to men
From heaven's all-gracious King" –
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o'er its Babel-sounds
The blessed angels sing.
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; –
Oh hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
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; –
Oh, rest beside the weary road
And hear the angels sing!
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.
Do you notice something missing in this so-called “Christmas Hymn?” It says nothing about Jesus. Not a word. You’ve got angels and peace, which hearken back to Luke’s account of the Nativity (verses 8-14):
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
So you’ve got the angels and you’ve got the peace, demonstrating that the poet had Christ’s birth in mind. So why didn’t he mention Christ Himself?
Because he was a Universalist. He didn’t really think Jesus was that important. He believed Jesus simply represented a universal principle of peace and love, which gives us hope for a coming time (“the age of gold”) when Mankind will have evolved to the point of outgrowing war.
In many more orthodox hymnbooks, the words have been altered a little. The changed lyrics substitute “the time foretold” for “the age of gold.” And they say “the new Heaven and earth shall own the Prince of Peace their King,” instead of “when Peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling.” I don’t generally care for meddling with original texts, but I like those changes just fine.
Still, the hymn still leaves me a little melancholy.
Beautiful, though.
I looked for a good video of the hymn/song to embed above. But everybody had to get cute with it one way or another (worst are the English, who use the wrong tune!). So I had to settle (yet again) for the Heretic Tabernacle Choir. Which is kind of appropriate, I guess.
Clare Coffey talks about the annual criticism people shovel at one of the best Christmas movies of all time, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. She said she could dismiss most of it as small-minded or stuck in its own bitter slough from which no reply could deliver. But one criticism, that of Mary’s role, seemed to stick. Why did Mary need George to save her from a single life? She was a vibrant young woman in her own right. If George hadn’t been around, she would have chosen another path for herself.
But after seeing the film on the big screen, Coffey noticed something that changed her mind.
The scenario that the counterfactual world presents us is explicitly foreshadowed by Mary’s playful, obviously ridiculous rejoinder, “to keep from being an old maid.” Once I realized this, it became my interpretive key to the problematic later scene.
From the beginning, it is Mary who chooses George, not the other way around.
A Facebook friend alerted me to the movie trailer above. “There’s Something In the Barn.” It’s not one I worked on, nor have heard of it before. Not my kind of thing, really, but some of you might find it amusing. As I’ve often mentioned, I just don’t get horror. I think this springs from being a coward. It takes a braver person than I to enjoy being scared. Let alone to laugh about it.
The take on the “barn elf” here is an interesting one. One would never actually call them barn elves in Norway, I’m pretty sure. As mentioned in my novels, the Hidden Folk don’t like to be called by name. You call them the Good Neighbors, or the Little Old Men, or something like that. And, as the movie emphasizes, offending them is nothing to be undertaken lightly.
It’s basically a reversal on the sweet – but overly sentimental – picture offered in the classic commercial below, released by the Tine Dairy Products Company back in 2017:
You can make a good Christian argument that the horror version is more appropriate. The church traditionally has considered the Hidden Folk to be demons (probably).
There’s a theory that all horror is conservative. I’m not sure that’s true, but I think you can make a good case that Horror as a genre is conservative in its essence, if not in all its instantiations. (Instantiations is a lovely word I learned in Library School).
Got my tree decorated today. And I found a section in The Baldur Game that I think I’ll have to cut, or at least reduce to its bare bones. Like a victim in a horror story.
Our first hymn of the advent season is the Latin version of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. These words have been traced to the eighth century when the medieval church chanted ‘O’ Antiphons during Vespers on the final days of advent. At least, that’s when they were established in church liturgy. There is a bit of evidence suggesting they were prayed or chanted before that. The tune we use is from a Requiem Mass in a fifteenth-century French Franciscan Processional.
The English words we’re familiar with come from Englishman John M. Neale in 1851. I have copied the words sung below the next video, showing a processional in the Basel Cathedral of Switzerland.
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14 ESV).
Veni, veni Emmanuel; Captivum solve Israel, Qui gemit in exilio, Privatus Dei Filio.
Refrain Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel, Nascetur pro te, Israel!
Veni o Jesse virgula! Ex hostis tuos ungula, De specu tuos tartari Educ, et antro barathri. Refrain
Veni, veni, O Oriens; Solare nos adveniens, Noctis depelle nebulas, Dirasque noctis tenebras. Refrain
Veni, Clavis Davidica! Regna reclude caelica; Fac iter tutum superum, Et claude vias inferum. Refrain
