North American Carol Festival - Christmas Eve 2020
Every year when preparing for Christmas Eve, I start
gathering books about a month ahead of time, like John Shea’s Starlight
from which I read several weeks ago. One book I had not looked at for years, The
Physics of Christmas beckoned me, and Lo, and behold! As I scanned the
table of contents, the final chapter is Christmas 2020! The book,
written in 1998, envisions Christmas this year beginning with your flat-screen
TV waking you up with just the right amount of daylight with the current
weather conditions; notice by email that your cloned, high-fiber turkey breast
fillet has been delivered; a 3-D fax machine and printer receives and prints
out gifts, with software that chooses and automatically returns the proper gift
to the sender; a family get together by using Virtual Reality goggles for a
kind of 3-D family gathering and watching of A Christmas Carol together,
where you are able to choose actors you want to play the various parts! The
chapter ends, “You can’t beat a traditional Christmas!” All of this is
accomplished, and more, by oneself at home. All in all, Roger Highfield who
studied science at Oxford University imagines Christmas this year is nearly
spot-on for all the Zoom gatherings and Amazon recommended gifts, including
staying home alone during this Pandemic version of Christmas 2020. And yet, not
a word about singing.
After my friend and mentor Christina Garvan last Sunday
urged us to sing for joy, sing for lost youth, sing so our neighbor can smile,
and sing to thank God for life and to grieve its loss, I’ve decided to lead us
through a Singing Sermon of North American Christmas Carols: the two oldest Carols written in North
America, and what is likely the most recent entry into the Christmas Carol
canon.
The Huron Carol, is the first Carol written in North
America by Saint Jean de Brébeuf ,a Jesuit priest, while a missionary to the
Huron tribe in Canada in 1643; translated into English by Jesse Edgar
Middleton, 1926. It is Hymn # 114 in our Hymnal 1982. Jean de Brebeuf took the
time to learn the Huron language and write a hymn in that language about the
birth of Christ to share the Good News of the birth of Jesus using imagery that
was common to the life and religious stories of the native peoples. Sadly, Fr.
Brebeuf was martyred along with many of the Huron people when the Iroquois
tribe fought to take over the Huron territory. Those who survived and moved
elsewhere, however, continued to sing The Huron Carol. I’ll sing the first
verse in Wyandot, the Huron language, and then you can join in singing the
carol in Middleton’s English translation.
The original words of the carol in the Wyandot language
(Huron).
Ehstehn yayau deh tsaun we yisus ahattonnia
O na wateh wado: kwi nonnwa 'ndasqua entai
Ehnau sherskwa trivota nonnwa 'ndi yaun rashata
Iesus Ahattonnia, Ahattonnia, Iesus Ahattonnia
'Twas in the moon of winter-time
When all the birds had fled,
That God the Lord of all the earth
Sent angel choirs instead;
Before their light the stars grew dim,
And wandering hunters heard the hymn:
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."
Within a lodge of broken bark
The tender Babe was found,
A ragged robe of rabbit skin
Enwrapp'd His beauty round;
But as the hunter braves drew nigh,
The angel song rang loud and high...
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."
The earliest moon of wintertime
Is not so round and fair
As was the ring of glory
On the helpless infant there.
The chiefs from far before him knelt
With gifts of fox and beaver pelt.
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."
O children of the forest free,
O sons of Manitou,
The Holy Child of earth and heaven
Is born today for you.
Come kneel before the radiant Boy
Who brings you beauty, peace and joy.
"Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born,
In excelsis gloria."
Tune: Une jeune
pucelle (A young maid)
Singing this carol today is in itself a way to thank God for
life and to grieve its loss, to honor the native Huron people, as well as
joining in the joy it no doubt brought Fr Brebeuf and his companions back in
1643.
Then there is Mary Had A Baby, from the Carolina
lowland Gullah culture – African-Americans who speak a kind of Creole, and believed
by many to be the first Carol “written” in America, around the time we had just
become the United States. It’s telling of the Christmas story does recall the
days of our youth, and I have often used this in Nursery School Chapel services
as long as I can remember. The imagery of the “train,” however, is common in
African-American spirituals with varied meaning: the gospel train to glory,
salvation and Jesus, but also represents the desire to escape the shackles of
slavery. Many well-known spirituals sung in the cotton fields were coded in this
way. Wade in the Water, offers advice to wade across rivers to slip the
trail of the bloodhounds chasing the runaways. You will note Mary Had a Baby
includes the escape of the Holy Family to Egypt to avoid the slaughter of the
innocents wrought by Herod, which also has at least two meanings: again, a
desire to escape, but also a reminder that our Lord and Savior was first and
foremost a refugee escaping a violent Roman government occupation of his
homeland and Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents.
Mary had a baby
Mary had a baby, Mi Lord
Mary had a baby, O mi lord
Mary had a baby, Mi Lord
The people keep comin’
But the train has gone
Where did she lay him
Laid him in a manger
What did she name him
Named him King Jesus
Angels were singin’
Who heard the singing
The shepherds heard the singing
The star kept a shinin’
Movin’ in the elements
Jesus went to Egypt,
Travelled on a donkey,
Angels went around Him,
Gullah Spiritual, St Helena Island, SC
“Train” = Gospel
Train to Jesus/Salvation/Escape from slavery
Finally, I used to subscribe to a folk song journal, Sing
Out! Each issue came with a CD of songs by the singer songwriters featured
in the current issue. In 2003 it featured a song by Joyce Andersen of York,
Maine, called My Heart Is Filled with Love. She wrote it the night we
invaded Iraq during the George W. Bush administration. I immediately learned it
and began using it in sermons. I found Joyce on Facebook and told her I was
singing her song, and we have been messaging back and forth ever since. During
this Time of the Pandemic, she and her husband Harvey Reid, a music historian
as well as multi-instrumentalist, have been doing Friday Night Concerts out of
their barn on YouTube Live to keep up our spirits. Their recent Christmas
Concerts featured a new song of Joyce’s, quite possibly the newest Christmas
Carol in North America. Please join me in singing,
In A Lowly Manger
By Joyce Andersen
Unto us a child is born
In a lowly manger
Christ the King, a baby boy
The Prince of Peace, a stranger
Be not afraid the angels sing
Come see the newborn baby
Tiding of Joy and Peace we bring
This babe has come to save thee ooh ahhh
Listen for the angels now
That sing of Christmas morning
Hear them ring their clarion call
Come! Let us adore him!
Love your God and love your life
Love creation with abandon
Love the stranger as yourself
And sing like Christmas morning ooh ahhh
Unto us a child is born
In a lowly manger
Christ the King, a baby boy
The Prince of Peace, the stranger
Christ the King, a baby boy
Born in a lowly manger
ooh ahh
Copyright Joyscream Music
We might note, common to all three of these Carols spanning
the time many of us have been on this continent as refugees, strangers, and
resident aliens ourselves, are the references to animals. A manger is a feeding
trough for an animal, and this is where the Son of God first lay down his head.
The Christ comes not only for humankind, but for all creatures and all of
creation. All creation awaits his coming. All creatures and all creation are to
share in his peace and good will.
May we be like the shepherds who heard the angels proclaim,
“Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all
the people…” Not for some people, and certainly not for a few people, but the
birth of Jesus is to be Good News for all people. Just as we are to be those
people who seek and serve Christ in all people, loving our neighbor as ourself.
The shepherds go to see for themselves, and then spill out onto the streets
with joy telling all who would listen all they had heard and seen that night.
While Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.
May we all ponder these American carols, or, even sing these
songs again and again these coming Twelve Nights of Christmas Season. Listen to
what these old songs and new song tell us about who we are and whose we are!
Then let others know the Good News – Christ has been born, in Bethlehem, and in
our hearts! His coming is Good News for everyone. Our hearts are filled with
his Love. Join us in the Love. Love creation with abandon! This is what
Christmas 2020 really looks like:
Love your God and love your life
Love creation with abandon
Love the stranger as yourself.
And sing like Christmas morning!
Christ the King, a baby boy
Born in a lowly manger.
In the immortal words of Charles Dickens’s Tiny Tim, “God
bless us, every one!”
Amen. It is so. It is truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment