Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-25-17

I want, as I am wont to do sometimes, to offer a different point of view on topics. Sometimes we, as Christians, need a reminder that matters of faith are more joyful than we realize. When I was a young boy, it struck me how worshipers reciting prayers or the liturgy, or singing hymns, spoke “Hallelujah” as if it were a funeral dirge. No smiles, nor louder voices.

And sometimes we need to realize that things that we celebrate – or observe – and about which we prepare in festive modes… are far more serious than we think, or don’t think. I am not saying they are grim; but are worthy of spiritual contemplation. Those second thoughts, deserving of meditation, is what I aim for here.

So. Not a “downer,” not at all. But if we realize some things about Christmas, for instance, that we seldom think about, we might appreciate the day in a new way.

It is interesting to note that Christmas – “Christ’s Mass” – was not a major holiday in the church for most of its history. Yes, it was observed; it was a holy day (holiday); but it did not eclipse the other church holy days as it does today, with the exception of Easter. Ascension Day, marking the absolute confirmation of Christ’s divinity, scarcely is observed in most Christian churches, and is more significant. Despite the Magnificats and Christmas oratorios, Christmas had not the dominance it does today.

Cards, children’s activities, and commercialism changed a lot of this beginning about 175 years ago. I have a dear friend who works for Hallmark Cards, and I truly appreciate the role of greeting cards, seasonal cheer, and the “sentiments” they generate in Kansas City… but they and Norman Rockwell and Haddon Sundblom, illustrator of the Coca-Cola ads, likely have shaped peoples’ impressions of Christmas as much as the angels and shepherds did.

Do we realize that the birth pangs of the first Christmas were not Mary’s alone? Herod believed the Prophecy of the Savior’s birth – even if people today are more indifferent – and decreed that all baby boys in a wide perimeter of Bethlehem be slaughtered? Historians’ numbers vary wildly on the number of slaughtered sons – from triple digits to multiple thousands, mostly based on population estimates and the area stipulated in Herod’s sweeping decree – but it was a frightening time, whether mothers hid in fear or mourned. Birth pangs that accompanied the Nativity.

The haunting Coventry Carol is not a beautiful lullaby but a mothers’ lament for their slaughtered babies… what history records as the Slaughter of the Innocents.

I have made the point (my own imagining, really) that Bethlehem surely had rooms during the Census, but were told, as the Bible relates, that there were no lodgings. I have a suspicion that that couple were denied rooms because Mary, likely still unwed and at any event a young teen very pregnant, were not respectable to innkeepers. The manger, despite the fluffy, antiseptic setting in Hallmark cards, was a trough of straw from which animals ate, therefore full of bugs and spittle.

Mary and Joseph had to escape the slaughter by fleeing ignominiously to Egypt. Christians seem little concerned about that escape or the subsequent years (although Anne Rice has written interesting speculative fiction about Jesus’ boyhood there). Much in the Bible is symbolic, even down to numbers (3, 7, 40 – you must notice), certain metals and woods, and of course symbolic places: the Promised Land, Crossing Jordan, and the Land of Egypt. The world Moses left and where Jesus found escape.

And so forth. Other symbolism we might draw ourselves, without being in Bible concordances or commentaries. For instance, we might – I say we must – consider more carefully the Slaughter of the Innocents.

We can look at the symbolism to the Slaughter of Innocents today. The abortion nightmare kills babies too – in a scenario crueler than under Herod. Today, mothers sanction the murder of their own babies. Today, these deaths occur not to accompany the birth of a Savior, but to reject His saving power, His miracles, His ability to bless in the face of hopelessness. I am in no way callous to the angst of these mothers when they make tortured decisions; believe me I am specially tender, but always opt for life.

Can that view of the widespread slaughter of babies not be a learning experience from the Christmas Story when we stop, in this busy world at this busy time? To open (metaphorically speaking) the greeting card, beyond the pretty manger scene, and think of the many other implications of the Christmas story? …what really happened back then? …and what can happen in our hearts today, seriously, because of that Birth?

Look to the Bible, friend; not to greeting cards.

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The lyrics Coventry Carol were written in 1534 for the Pageant of the Shearman and Tailors Guild in the English town of Coventry. The mother’s soothing words over a sleeping baby, “Lully, Lu Lay,” are the basis of “lullaby.”

Click: Coventry Carol

12-22-12

An early Christmas present. If you are one of the many celebrants who finds joy or solace or peace, each season, by playing Handel’s “Messiah” or letting the TV screen show the never-ending burning Yule log, here is an alternative.

Thanks to uncountable technologies, and innumerable traditions, you can enjoy a marvelous musical and spiritual experience by watching, or just listening to, the “Christmas Oratorio” of Johann Sebastian Bach. One of the greatest pieces of music in Western culture, in or out of churches, Bach’s oratorio is a full composition, like Handel’s, in many parts. There are full orchestra and full choir movements, solos, narrations, and instrumental sections. The words are from the Bible’s story of Christ’s birth; the music is some of the most stirring you will ever hear.

The very first part, “Exult! Rejoice!” (Jauchzet, Frohlocket in German) is an astounding cascade of choir and orchestra led by the motif of tympani drums’ notes.

Like the “Messiah,” it is in several parts and lasts almost three hours. It originally was performed in Bach’s St Nicholas Church, and some nights in St Thomas Church, in Leipzig, in 1734-35, essentially through the 12 nights of Christmas, in parts, beginning on Christmas Day.

Of several excellent performances on the web, I have chosen to share a recent video recorded at that very St Nicholas Church. See the grand Baroque setting as it appeared when first performed… listen to the period instruments, simulating the actual sounds of Bach’s music… enjoy the camera’s examination of the church’s details, and the community’s reverent models and landscapes of the Christmas story.

There are no English subtitles of the German texts, but you know the old, old story! You will hear the names of Jesus and Mary, Abraham and Old Testament prophets, and references to God and angels. The order of the six constituent cantatas’ subjects are: the Birth; the Annunciation to the Shepherds; the Adoration of the Shepherds; the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus; the Journey of the Magi; the Adoration of the Magi. I thought it better to be “home” in Bach’s own church, and to see the re-creation of a Baroque celebration, than to choose a performance-only video, or one of the versions with one old painting on display over the entire performance.

I hope this brings extra joy, special comfort, and stirring inspiration to you this Christmas season. Bach has been called “the Fifth Evangelist,” and works like this illustrate why. Georg Christoph Biller leads the Thomanerchor and the Gewandhausorchester Leizig.

Click: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio