Liturgy Lesson: December 6, 2020 (2nd week of Advent)
Morning Service (9 and 11)
Call to Worship: Psalm 96
Prayer of Invocation
Hymn of Adoration: Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
Prayer and Song of Confession
Word of Assurance: from Luke 1:67-68, 77-79
Hymn of Praise: See, Amid the Winter’s Snow
Advent Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16
Congregational Prayers
Reading of the Word: Isaiah 9:1-7
Advent Doxology
Sermon: Andrew Perkins
Meditation
Supper: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence; Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding
Benediction
I have a wonderful poem and a few great hymns to highlight this week, so I’ll get right to it. But before the hymns, I have one joke.
What does the Apostle Paul’s conversion have in common with the COVID-19 vaccine?
They are both on the way to De-mask-us!
Christmas (select stanzas)
by John Betjeman
And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare —
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
See, Amid the Winter’s Snow
Text: Edward Caswall, 1858
Tune: HUMILITY, John Goss, 1871
“See, Amid the Winter’s Snow,” originally titled “Hymn for Christmas Day,” is based on Luke: 2:8-11. It was written by Edward Caswall (1814-1878), who also wrote “When Morning Gilds the Skies” and the most popular English translation of Veni Creator Spiritus (“Come, Holy Ghost”). Caswall was an Anglican clergyman and hymn writer who converted to Catholicism. He wrote this piece as a poem in 1858, including it in his collection that was published the same year.
“Hymn for Christmas Day” was set to the tune “Humility” which was composed specifically for Caswall’s poem by Sir John Goss in 1871. It was then published nationwide in the hymn book “Christmas Carols Old and New.” Sir John Goss (1800-1890) was an English organist, composer, and teacher. He began as a choir boy at the Royal Chapel in London. For many years he served as organist at St. Luke’s Church in Chelsea and then eventually at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. “See, Amid the Winter’s Snow” is one of Goss’s most beloved melodies. Sir John also wrote the well-known hymn “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven.” Based on these two hymns alone it is obvious that Sir John was a superior musician who knew how to write for the voice. One need not second-Goss his talent.
This hymn was designed as a dialogue between storyteller and the shepherds. A solo (or unison) voice would sing the verses and then all would respond by singing the refrain. You can clearly see that pattern in many older hymnals (i.e. this 1918 2-page version here and here). We may try a bit of this responsorial singing on Sunday.
Because one of my perpetual weaknesses is to try to please everyone, I am including two very different versions of this hymn. One is for the high-brow three Kings type, and the other for the common folk who feel more at home with the shepherd mob. Whether your gift for the Christ child is fruitcake or frankincense, come and heartily join your voice in these fabulous refrains.
Hail, thou ever-blessed morn! Hail, redemption’s happy dawn!
Sing through all Jerusalem, Christ is born in Bethlehem!
– Cambridge Choir of King’s College
– Annie Lennox
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Text: Liturgy of St. James (5th cent.), paraphrased by Gerard Moultrie (1864)
Tune: French Carol (17th cent.)
When the Washington State Governor issued his ban on congregational singing a few weeks ago, I drafted up a short, sarcastic liturgy for the first Sunday in Advent. Fortunately, we didn’t end up using it. The order of service looked like this:
Prelude
Call to Worship: Isaiah 35:1-10
Prayer of Invocation
Opening Hymn: Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
…End of Service
It is indeed ironic and a bit humorous that a call to silence would begin a hymn text. Of course, the quiet that this hymn calls for is not to be taken literally. It is invoking a holy hush, a stance of awe and wonder at the incarnation, something akin to Job’s response after the Lord of Creation showed up and spoke.
“Behold, I am of small account;
What shall I answer you?
I lay my hand on my mouth.”
– Job 40:4
Taken on musical merit alone, this is a spectacular and superior hymn. It is probably on many musicians’ lists of favorite Christmas carols. I know it is on mine. The music is hauntingly beautiful and powerfully evocative. It is a French carol dating from the seventeenth century. I found its origins from the Baroque era to be surprising, since the tune itself sounds very much like an ancient chant. The minor mode expresses something mystical and transcendent. It feels medieval. There are very few Christmas carols like this one that capture the gravitas of the incarnation. With appropriate dignity and solemnity, this exquisite hymn reminds us of the purpose of Christ’s coming. The manger leads to the cross – Bethlehem is the first stopover in the earthly journey that ends at Calvary. As Margaret Clarkson puts it, Jesus’ birth is “Bethlehem’s pure oblation, freely offered up.” I find this hymn to be a sobering antidote to the kitsch that permeates so many holiday songs. In the midst of all the bright lights and holly jolly, a carol like this one stands out for all the right reasons. It’s a Rembrandt hanging in a Thomas Kinkade gallery.
Let all mortal flesh keep silence, and with fear and trembling stand.
Ponder nothing earthly minded, for with blessing in his hand
Christ our God to earth descendeth our full homage to demand.
The text is a formidable match for the tune. Scholars cannot agree on the actual date or source material, but most agree that “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” may date back to at least the fifth century. It comes from the Liturgy of St. James, a Syrian rite in the Greek Orthodox church. The four verses are based on a prayer that is chanted by the priest when the bread and wine are brought to the communion table. The eucharistic emphasis is obvious in verse 2.
King of kings, yet born of Mary, as of old on earth he stood.
Lord of lords in human vesture, in the body and the blood.
He will give to all the faithful his own self for heavenly food.
The passion of that second verse then gives way to the triumphant tone of the third. This is where the hymn starts to flex its muscle. The text hints at the celestial vision found in Revelation 5:11-12, where “myriads upon myriads” of angels are worshipping; however, it now imagines those angels in military formation as heaven advances upon Earth.
Rank on rank the host of heaven spreads its vanguard on the way
As the light of lights descendeth from the realms of endless day
That the pow’rs of hell may vanish as the darkness clears away.
That alone would feel like a sufficient close, but there is one final verse that acts as an ovation. However, instead of marching forward, the fourth stanza reaches back…all the way to the scene in Isaiah 6:1-3.
At his feet the six-winged seraph, cherubim with sleepless eye
Veil their faces to the presence, as with ceaseless voice they cry
“Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Lord most high!”
Isaiah tells us that when the angels cried out, “the foundations of the thresholds shook, and the house was filled with smoke.” The building was not the only thing that was shaken. Isaiah himself was overcome. “Woe is me!” he cried, “For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” He was undone by the terrifying glory of the Lord, and his own guilt was laid bare. But the dumbstruck prophet’s anguish would only be temporary.
“Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.’” I imagine at that moment Isaiah was no longer mute. Through his seared lips he may have exhaled a faint echo of the angelic song. The gaping sin-wound had been cauterized. Isaiah had felt the Refiner’s fire (Mal. 3:2). He had now encountered not only the majesty of the Lord, but also his mercy.
There are many wondrous paradoxes of Christmas. God become man. The Creator created. Word made flesh. Ancient of days, a newborn. Eternity folded into time. All this while Mary was, as Milton put it, becoming her Father’s mother. But the greatest paradox of them all is this: The Author of life was born to die. He who is “Older than eternity, now he is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed to my poor planet, caught that I might be free…brought to this birth for me to be new-born, and for him to see me mended, I must see him torn” (Lucy Shaw, “Mary’s Song”).
The melody for this hymn is called PICARDY. It includes a signature gesture that is known in music circles as “the Picardy third” – a tonal shift from minor to major on the final chord by simply raising the third by a half step. This gives the piece a hopeful, even redemptive, ending. From a Christian perspective, the Picardy third is a unique musical depiction of the resurrection. That one, pivotal note in the Triad (a.k.a. person of the Trinity) is raised, and in that raising the whole world shifts toward brightness and glory.
You will hear this Picardy third when we finish singing this hymn during communion this week. In the Lord’s Supper we celebrate the true mystical nature and ultimate purpose of the incarnation. The word made flesh, Emmanuel, come to taste our sadness and restore to us abundant life eternal. Yes, homage is demanded, reverence is due, but considering the enormity of this moment, songs of praise are more than apt. Let all mortal flesh not simply stand in fear and trembling, but join with the angels in ceaseless Alleluias! For Christ our God has descended with infinite blessings in his infant hands. This is the great little one, “whose glorious birth lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.”
Scripture References:
Verse 1 = Hab. 2:20, Zech. 2:13
Verse 2 = Rev. 19:16, Luke 22:19-20
Verse 3 = Matt. 16:27
Verse 4 = Isa. 6:2-3
– Sheet music
– Recording, arr. Fernando Ortega
– Recording; a brilliantly layered choral rendering by John Rutter. Listen to that glorious Picardy third at the end!