Monday Morning Music Ministry

12-29-14

One of the most beautiful lullabies anyone has heard or sung is known as the Coventry Carol. A mother’s song to her child, its lyrics from the late Medieval era remind us of Olde English, when the presence of French still sweetened the tongue: “By by, lully, lullay,” its comforting choruses end.

It is soothing but eerily compelling, and even mysterious. Certainly, melancholia is a part of its appeal. Why? A lullaby (note the common roots with the comforting words of the chorus), identified with Christmas? Sad? Its tune, especially its oddly modern harmonies and dissonance, seems to transcend the ages.

In truth, no matter how re-purposed by contemporary performers or loving mothers at children’s bedtimes, the Coventry Carol is indeed melancholy: it was meant to solemnly memorialize an event full of sorrow, dread, and grief. The song imagines the lament of a mother protecting her child about to be slaughtered by soldiers of King Herod. As recorded in the Book of Matthew, the Roman-appointed ruler of Palestine was aware of the Wise Men’s prophecy that the King of the Jews would be born in Bethlehem… and that they had warned Joseph to hide the Child of Mary as a precaution against a cruel ruler’s deadly intentions. All this fulfilled Old Testament prophecies (Jesus’ parents fled with Him to Egypt).

In Herod’s bloodlust, and in fear that another king of the Jews would be his rival, he decreed that male babies under the age of one in Judea should be killed. Precise history or legend, this became known as the Slaughter of the Innocents or the Massacre, or Martyrdom, of the Holy Innocents.

In annual Christmas programs during the Middle Ages, Nativity plays akin to Passion plays of another time in the church calendar were performed in many chapels and towns. In Coventry, England, the Guild of Shearmen and Tailors between the late 1300s and the late 1500s traditionally staged Nativity plays. One Robert Croo is tentatively ascribed as the author; the tune’s origins are unknown. It became a day of observance, an event in the church calendar, of profound significance, a call to introspection – and is similar to many other spiritually momentous holidays (holy days) that our contemporary world scarcely recognizes any more.

But here we are: the “Innocents’ Day,” sometimes called Childermass – following Christmass – was celebrated around this time. December 27 for many of the ancient churches in the Middle East, the ancient rites of the Syriacs, Chaldeans, Maronites, Syrians. December 28 is the traditional observance date of the Roman Catholic church, the Lutheran and Evangelic churches, and the Church of England. Eastern rites, most of the Orthodox churches, celebrate the day on December 29. In a German tradition of that time, youngsters exchanged roles with adult clergy and teachers on Childermass; sometimes students for the priesthood presided over worship services, with clergy in the pews.

My purpose today, however, is not to open our eyes to obscure or neglected history, despite its fascinating features or appealing music (please click the link, below, to a haunting performance). It is to have a look around us, not just back in time.

We are reminded that all the aspects of Christ’s Birth were not unalloyed joy. The birth pangs of Mary were prophesied in Scripture, even from the Garden… but the purport was not solely one mother’s labor. We have the grief of Judean mothers. The Bible addressed the difficulties attendant to the coming Messiah’s birth… and, indeed, His life, ministry, rejection, betrayal, and death. Yes, the Resurrection was foretold, but His life would not be one without pain and suffering, clearly. The same is foretold of believers like you and me: a startling prediction, but also a challenging warning.

Jesus, centuries before His Birth, was identified as a Man of Sorrows.

And many of the sorrows occurred around Him, and because of Him – such as the Slaughter of the Innocents – are a sorrowful side of this King’s incarnation. This truth, infrequently recognized in today’s churches where clapping, hopping, smiling, and colorful banners predominate… is still truth. Joy is ours, and we rejoice at the reality of God-with-us, and the peace that is to come; but we need to remember that there is much that is serious about Christianity.

To be a Christ-follower – to go where He leads today – sometimes obliges us to be grim. Holy, but grim. The stakes are high. His church, our civilization, the heritage we share, our families and children, the well-being of fellow Christians around the world, are in serious jeopardy. I am not being pessimistic; I am being realistic. I read my Bible.

The Slaughter of the Innocents continues today – the evil world’s gift that keeps on taking, to coin a phrase. Yes, we can look to adults who are being persecuted and martyred for their faith, and we can see them as Children of God, which they are. But let us here remember the children. We start (but sadly do not end) with the slaughter that is abortion. Some children can at least protest or cry out, but millions and millions of the innocent unborn are massacred in routine fashion.

The young girls in Nigeria who were kidnapped and violated because they were Christian… schoolchildren who were massacred by Muslims for not following Mohammed… the children in East Asia who are imprisoned or executed when they refuse to renounce Christ. I could detail places and dates, but you see the headlines. Please read the stories, not just the headlines; and pray. May God forgive us as a nation for not condemning our government – our selves – for condoning such atrocities.

Permit me to list a few more latter-day slaughters of innocents in our own land: youngsters reared in a society that virtually outlaws Christian expressions of belief and faith… children no longer allowed publicly to pray or have Bibles in schools… classrooms that discuss bizarre sex and secular scientific theories but ban Christian viewpoints… the bombardment of worldly, even deviant, lifestyles from every corner of the “entertainment” media… the apostasy and heresies of many churches themselves, who ought to be children’s first responders…

I could go on. We all know it. Our children’s minds and souls are threatened with hideous slaughter. And sometimes, for the cause of their consciences and the Kingdom of Christ, they also are physically massacred. In the Year of Our Lord 2014.

Can we sing with the mothers of the Coventry Carol: “Lully lullay, thou little tiny child, By by lully lullay. That woe is me, poor child, for thee; And ever mourn and pray, For thy parting, neither say nor sing, By by lully lullay.” Can we identify? Can we do more, beyond singing and praying?

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A performance of the ancient carol in the ancient chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, England, by a youth choir.

Click: The Coventry Carol

12-19-11

With no holiday in observance of the holidays, the unrelenting march of secularism and stupidity continues. This week, during which occurred the death of post-modernism’s most prominent skeptic of Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, uncountable observers pronounced that at last he shall know whether God is not good (to cite the title of his recent best-seller) or in fact is. Ironically, it is the Advent season – that part of the Church calendar that prepares the Coming of the Lord.

Jesus came for the lost and for sinners. Those secure in their faith, putatively, are less in need of a Savior. That is, Jesus came for all mankind, but no less, we need to remember, for such as Hitchens.

Or for anti-Christian bigots in the government bureaucracy. Also this week was the official prohibition (later rescinded) over members of the United States Congress from writing the phrase “Merry Christmas” in their official, “franked,” mail.

Such things as this might seem new since our childhoods, or even a decade ago; don’t we all say such things? But in fact we should remember – we must remember – that Jesus came to earth, God becoming flesh to dwell amongst us, the Incarnation… and the world hated Him. The world-system tried to prevent His birth; it hounded Mary and Joseph into Egypt; it persecuted Him; it framed Him, tortured Him, and killed Him. From manger to tomb, humanity fiercely rejected Him.

Mary and Joseph were desperate the week Jesus was born, and the manger was a despised and dirty place. How welcome Jesus was – and how the world viewed Him – was the same at His birth and His death. And was prophesied precisely by Isaiah 800 years earlier: “He shall grow up… as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…(Chapter 53:2-4).”

The somber aspects of the Christmas story are many, and might discomfit a Hallmark crèche or a Sunday School pageant, but we ultimately are driven to a fuller appreciation of the Incarnation. The “birth pangs” were not just those of Mary. The Bible (Matthew, Chapter 2) and historical tradition point to King Herod’s obsession with preventing a rival to his authority; and when he was convinced that biblical prophecy was close to fulfillment, he ordered the death of boys less than two years old throughout the land. It has become known as “The Slaughter of the Innocents.”

It was symbolic, of course, of the world-system’s vicious resistance to the very existence of a Messiah. The presence of Jesus is a rebuke to those feel no awareness of their sin and dependency, who elevate Self over Revealed Truth. Christ’s enemies are not trivial nor easily dismissed, no matter how surely to be conquered. The Slaughter of the Innocents – a part of the Christmas story as relevant as the shepherds and angels – reminds us that ugly forces in life tried to keep our Savior from us. And still do.

One of the most haunting of Christmas carols is known as The Coventry Carol. It was written in the 1500s, and its plaintive melody is one of the great flowerings of polyphony over plainsong in Western music. “Lullay, thou little tiny child,” is not a lullaby, and does not refer to the baby Jesus.

The carol is a lament by a mother of one of the babies slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers:

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

That woe is me, poor child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Utterly melancholic, as the harmonies are hauntingly beautiful. It is a fitting creation that must be part of our Christmas observances. Kings are still in their raging, but Jesus cannot be stopped by debates. He has never long been thwarted by bureaucratic rules. He was not even subject to death and the grave.

May a merry, and a profound, celebration be yours this Christmas.

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The Coventry Carol is so named because this song, in Old English first called “Thow Littel Tyne Childe,” had its origins in a “Mystery Play” of Norman France and performed at the Coventry cathedral in Britain. The play was called “The Mystery of the Shearmen and the Tailors,” based on the second chapter of Matthew. The anonymous lyrics are a mother’s lament for her doomed baby boy. All but this song from the mystery play are lost today. The earliest transcription extant is from 1534; the oldest example of its musical setting is from 1591. It still speaks to our hearts today. Performed here by Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Peter Dijkstra, in the
Begijnhofkerk at Sint-Truiden, Flanders.

Click: The Coventry Carol