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Sermon - December 23rd, 2007
Reflections on John Rutter’s Carols
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Luke 2
Fourth Sunday in Advent
Prayer: We give thanks, O God, for sacred stories and sacred music. Through it you nurture our imaginations, increase our awareness, and challenge our assumptions. May the words, music and meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
ANGELS’ CAROL
John and I will be taking turns giving short reflections on each carol before it is sung. And it is only fair, with all the work he has done with the choir that I reflect on four and he reflects on three. We offer these in the attitude of worship. We are not your entertainment. We are participants in the message, in proclaiming the good news. We won’t bring you perfection. We will bring you our best which will be authentic and very real. If you want to thank God for this offering of ourselves through music, I invite you to say “Amen” rather than applauding.
The “Angels’ Carol” begins with the questions: have you heard and have you seen? These questions are sung with eagerness and brightness, as if we have anticipated something happening. And we have been waiting in anticipation. It is the season of expecting. It was a long time waiting--like a woman waiting for the birth of her baby. Like waiting for winter to be over. Like waiting for the sun to come up in the morning. Something is going to happen but we have to wait. The Angels’ Carol asks us, have you heard the angels voices? Have you seen the star? Have you heard the news?
What voices? Angels voices, sweet and clear. What star? A star bright enough to be seen as a sign from God. What news? News that he is come in peace, like a gentle snowfall in the gentle night. He is come to bring new light to a world filled with darkness. He is come to bring hope, to bring joy. He is come. And the choir bursts into a beautiful, angelic, and joyful “Goria in excelsis Deo.” The music is exciting and satisfying. It announces that the wait is over. The time is here. The time is right now. It is beautiful, for the angels are singing, “Christ is born.”
LOVE CAME DOWN AT CHRISTMAS
The words of this carol, “Love Came Down at Christmas” are by Christina Rossetti, who wrote them in the 1855. You’ll find this carol in our hymnal set in a traditional Irish melody. John Rutter wrote very tranquil music for the words that tell us that love is here. Love has come down to us. Love incarnate. Love divine. Love is our token. Love is yours. Love is mine. Love to God and all human kind. Love for plea and gift and sign.
God comes to be revealed in a quiet, natural and totally human way. Unlike any power we know, this power is confident enough to be vulnerable. God is confident in us enough to be vulnerable to us. Love comes down to us to reside in us. Love incarnate. Love divine. Love for plea and gift and sign.
Love came to claim us as love’s own. Love came as a gift, freely given to us, wastefully given to us in the life of a child. Love came as a sign of God’s generosity, God’s graciousness. This is God wastefully pouring out love with a power that is confident enough to be vulnerable. Love came down at Christmas to claim us, as a sign of God’s gift of love for us.
NATIVITY CAROL
He was born in a stable bare, long ago, faraway, beneath the light of a star. He was visited by the humble shepherds and the noble wise men. He was cradled by his mother tenderly and angels filled the sky. He was a child so rare, born on Christmas Day. It is a story that is full of meaning and power in its simplicity, a story that fills our hearts with warmth. On Christmas Day Christ was born into our hearts.
The Nativity story is about how love is born into our hearts every day. Our lives may be stark and bare. The world may be harsh and dark. But there is a star shining even in the darkest night. Love is born even in the midst of a messy world. Tenderness happens even in the midst of the harshest conditions. Peace is present in the midst of conflict. Beauty is found in the ugliest places. Every place is holy. We all have a spark of divinity in us. We are all part of the nativity story, about God coming to live with us and in us.
WHAT SWEETER MUSIC
What sweeter music can we bring than a carol to sing? Music to honor such a king as this who turns December into May, who turns a chilly winter morning into a field singing with corn, or the smell of a fragrant summer meadow. We see him come with showers and sunshine, turning the patient ground into flowers. And we find the room to welcome him. What sweeter music can we bring, to sing a carol to a heavenly King?
We welcome the child. We find a room to welcome this special child, a heavenly King. But every child is precious and holy. Every child is worthy of sweet music. We sing carols not only for the heavenly king born in a stable, but for all of humanity. What sweeter music can we bring than a carol to sing? A song for hope, for peace. A gift of love for all to hear.