Music

Receiving the Christmas Spirit through A Service of Lessons and Carols

Christmastime leads us to reflect on the nature of childhood like no other season. It’s the nostalgia that comes with Christmas: the comfort, the security, the warmth. The glow of candles lighting homes, shielding against the cold of the December world. If we are still children, this hits our open hearts immediately, and if we are not, the sight of the grand tree that used to seem so tall– now level with our adult gaze– makes us sigh and remember a time when our eager souls were youthful. When the anticipation of Christmas day felt like ages, not a mad, frenzied headache, too rushed for us to feel. During this season, like no other, we realize afresh– and if we are not Scrooge, perhaps we grieve– the great impasse between the child and adult heart.

But it’s not just the nostalgic trappings and aesthetics of Christmas that makes us reflect on childhood and innocence. After all, the impossible paradox of Christ as child, King of the world as defenseless Lamb, is the central theme. And while we do feel a sense of awe, and the heaviness of our own crusty, worn souls in contrast, we don’t need to dwell here. And that, to me, is the point of the season.

Christmas reminds me that I never need to be anywhere other than where I am in my soul. Indeed, it is not time to say “My heart is not ready, as it was in childhood” but instead “In my unreadiness, a child has come to restore me.” It is a story of receiving, not just of giving.

The service of Lessons and Carols offers us a space to receive the peace of the Christ Child in a very unique, intimate way. With the calmly recited words of each reading interspersed with beloved carols, sung in the warm, dimly lit sanctuary, the attitude of the babe in the manger comes to life. And the ideas and themes of Christmas become sensations and touch our hearts, not simply our minds. It is not the idea of innocence, but the tangible feeling of it, that comes through in the sweet solo of “Once in Royal David’s City”. The spontaneous jump of our hearts join together in the brighter carols like

“O Come All Ye Faithful” and lively spirituals like Rutter’s “Rise Up Shepherd and Follow”. We feel sudden reverence for Mary, Christ’s Mother, in Britten’s atmospheric and haunting “Hymn To The Virgin”. We almost prance through an ancient forest upon hearing Rutter’s “‘Twas In The Moon of Wintertime”. And feel the tragedy of Herod’s bloodshed of children in the jarring and discordant notes of “Coventry Carol”. Most importantly, however, we feel a great calm, as the words “sleep in heavenly peace” float over the pews.

My prayer tonight is that you can enter that special space I’ll attempt to bring to you through this evening’s program.

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas,

Audrey Drennen

St. Andrew’s Director of Music