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So much of our Christmas vocabulary is about quiet or silence.

This has always been true, but it’s only lately that I’ve noticed just how prevalent the theme of turning down the volume is in the Nativity season. And today, on St. John’s Day, I think the Gospel of John also has something to tell us about this.

The most famous hymn for midnight Mass sets the scene:

Silent night, holy night,
all is calm, all is bright
round yon virgin mother and child.
Holy infant, so tender and mild,
sleep in heavenly peace.

Hymn 111 (hymn numbers refer to the Hymnal 1982): Joseph Mohr (1792–1848); tr. John Freeman Young (1820–1885)

The traditional mood of the central part of the narrative is one of quietness. Even the livestock in a 19th century African-American spiritual sense the mood.

While shepherds kept their watching
o’er silent flocks by night,
behold, throughout the heavens
there shone a holy light.

Hymn 99: "Go tell it on the mountain." adapt. John W. Work (1901-1967)

Another famous hymn begs us to quiet ourselves so that we can better enter into the narrative.

“O hush the noise and cease your strife
and hear the angels sing!”

Hymn 89/90: "It came upon the midnight clear." Edmund H. Sears.

Many beloved Christmas carols also rely on the acoustical properties of snow. This accumulating precipitation is a phenomenon traditionally associated with the Christmas season in the northern hemisphere. When the snow piles up, the world gets even softer.

In the bleak midwinter,
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone;
snow had fallen, snow on snow,
snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
      long ago.

Hymn 112: Christina Rosetti.

The snow lay on the ground,
the stars shone bright,
when Christ our Lord was born
on Christmas night.

Hymn 110

But singing about silence isn’t just reserved for a quiet candlelight ceremony, fluffy fauna, or meteorological muffling. There’s some real theological something or other going on. A famous nineteenth-century American text has a bit more depth to it:

O little town of Bethlehem
how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by...

How silently, how silently,
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming,
but in this world of sin,
where meek souls will receive him, still
the dear Christ enters in.

Hymn 78/79: Phillips Brooks

Other hymns and even the Introit for the First Sunday after Christmas variously juxtapose silence with the Word. In some instances, it is the Word itself that is silent.

“Why lies he in such mean estate
where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christian, fear: for sinners here
the silent Word is pleading.”

Hymn 115: “What child is this, who, laid to rest.” William Chatterton Dix

But silent knelt the mother blest
of the yet silent Word,
and pondering all things in her heart,
with speechless praise adored.

Hymn 257: “O Zion, open wide thy gates.” Jean Baptiste de Santeüil (1630–1697); tr. Edward Caswall (1814–1878), alt.

But in the Introit for the First Sunday after Christmas, we encounter perhaps what is the underlying reason for this obsession with silence. God speaks the Word at Christmas, and naturally, he chose a quiet moment to do it so that the Word would be heard.

Dum medium silentium tenerent omnia,
et nox in suo cursu medium iter haberet,
omnipotens sermo tuus, Domine,
de caelis a regalibus sedibus venit.

Whenas all the world was in profoundest quietness,
and night was in the midst of her swift course:
thine almighty word, O Lord,
leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne.

The prologue hymn to the Gospel of John elaborates on this. “In the beginning was the Word.” At the beginning of creation, or so one theory goes, there was a “big bang.” Before the creation of sound, even the existence of a single Word would be a big bang. And so, in the Incarnation, the coming of the Word to a silent, receptive world most closely mirrors the moment of creation.

A Merry Christmas to you! And may you find some quiet in this Christmastide. It's the way God wants it.

Labels: Christmas, Hymn 110, Hymn 111, Hymn 112, Hymn 115, Hymn 257, Hymn 78/79, Hymn 89/90, Hymn 99, silence

Sinden.org published its traditional preview of the music list for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge on November 24.

Now, for the days leading up to the service, we'll offer a Kalendar of Carols: a more in-depth look at each piece of music to be sung.

So far, we've covered the opening hymn, Bidding Prayer, In the bleak mid-winter – Harold Darke, Adam's Fall – Richard Elfyn Jones, Love came down at Christmas – arr. Stephen Cleobury, How shall I fitly meet thee – Bach, I saw three ships – arr. Ledger, and Illuminare Jerusalem – Judith Weir.

While the first hymn is fixed every year, there is some variability in which hymn is sung here. But the choices seem to be limited to four hymns in recent years:

• God rest ye merry, gentlemen
• It came upon the midnight clear
• O little town of Bethlehem
• Unto us is born a Son

Allow me to get ahead of myself a bit to say there is far less variability in the two hymns that are sung after the Seventh Lesson; at that point, the hymn choices are either "God rest ye merry, gentlemen" or "While shepherds watched their flocks by night".

You'll notice that "God rest ye merry, gentlemen" appears on both lists. There was the great Crossover of 2009 when this hymn jumped from the repertoire for after the Seventh Lesson into the slot after the Third. As I'm sure you recall it was quite a scandal, and it has not been repeated. So, more accurately, one might say that there are three choices of hymns for after the Third Lesson.

And one of them is "O little town".

Most in Cambridge and its environs surely know this hymn to the tune FOREST GREEN.

Americans tend to know the tune to ST. LOUIS.

Among American Episcopalians, I think preference is fairly evenly split between the two tunes. With Choirs almost invariably preferring FOREST GREEN, and congregations at large (particularly those members that were raised in other Protestant denominations) preferring ST. LOUIS.

The Episcopal Hymnal 1982 includes both tunes and seemingly expresses a preference for FOREST GREEN, the "first" tune, appearing at Hymn 78. The other appears at Hymn 79.

Speaking as someone who actually lives and works in St. Louis, I have come to understand that there is no geographical affinity for the eponymous tune here. I've created a handy graphic to help you remember that:

Labels: Christmas, Hymn 78/79, King's College (Cambridge), Lessons and Carols

There were some silly arguments over the season of Advent on everyone's favorite social networking site over the past few days.

Whether the Great Litany is appropriate (it is), what colors are appropriate for the Advent Wreath (purple? blue? a pink candle too?), which direction one should light the Advent Wreath (clockwise?), what kinds of gummi candies to include in one's traditional Advent Jello Salad, etc.

Let's not argue about Advent – what it is, what it isn't – let's cherish it.

Let's cherish that the first day of the church's year begins with the prayer:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the 
works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now 
in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ 
came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when 
he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the 
quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through 
him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, 
one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Let's relish those dual actions, the casting away of "the works of darkness", the putting upon ourselves "the armor of light".

Let's let Diana Butler Bass have her blue candles.

Advent should not be a mini-Lent; it is not a time to examine sins, engage in self-denial, and confession. It is not about penance. Rather, Advent is of a different spiritual hue: It is a time of waiting, of expectation, of hope in the darkness. The blue candles symbolize the color of the sky right before dawn, that time when the deepest dark is just infused with hints of light.

But let us not be too quick to deny the penitential aspects of the Lent of St. Martin let's also celebrate with rich, dark purple candles if we want to.

Let's think carefully about acknowledging our sins in this season, and at Christmas too.

By acknowledging our own incompleteness and the inadequacy of our own efforts and even our best intentions, we make ready a place for God within us. If we listen to the hymns we sing in Advent, we know this to be the real task set before us:

Then cleansed be every breast from sin;
Make straight the way for God within;
And let each heart prepare a home
Where such a mighty guest may come.

The great hymn text prefigures and prepares us for the prayer that we sing at Christmas:

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.

It is prideful of us to think, because we heard about John the Baptist for two Sundays in Advent, that we have adequately made ready that home within us. If all it took were two Sundays, wouldn’t everything be just hunky-dory? Only the most daft among us, looking within himself and around at his immediate community and the wider world, could imagine that a couple of Sundays of introspection are all that we need to be cured of our various delusions, our thoughtlessness, and our self-absorption.

"Confession and Grace". Sed Angli. 1 January 2015.

Whatever your perspective on the minutiae of Advent, let's remember to cherish the season. I think it's possible for me to love this time of the Church's year, to recommit myself to prayer and worship, and not feel like I need to convince everyone else to do it the way I prefer.

There's something peculiar about the intensity of opinion that people hold for this season.

Maybe it's the sticky-icky residue of our intensity of sentimental feeling around Christmas itself, and it's wrapped up with all that secular/sacred baggage.

But I sort of suspect not. I suspect that it's a short (only four Sundays' worth) season overflowing with rich imagery, tradition, and meaning.

There's so much to cram in to Advent! Twenty-four hymns in the Hymnal 1982. In many years Advent is only about 24 days long. That's about a hymn a day! And don't forget the O Antiphons, too!

But there's more.

Consider, as I heard in a sermon recently, the two arcs of the liturgical year.

The first follows the life of Christ, from Advent to Easter and Ascension. It goes "beyond" the life of Christ, as it must, with Pentecost, and Trinity Sunday.

The second arc, which grows out of Trinity Sunday (or Pentecost, if you must, but remember that Trinity Sunday is one of the seven principal feast days of the Episcopal Church), is all about the life of the Church.

And the meeting place between the two? Advent.

Read forward, Advent foretells the birth of Christ that we celebrate at Christmas.

But read backward, Advent heralds the second coming of Christ the King for which the Church awaits.

This is the audacity of the Advent Sunday alarm clock for the Church! Wake up! Keep watch!

Finally, the weekly letter from Anglicans Online seems to have put this much better than I have.

Thankfully, the problem contains its own solution. The church communities arguing about the meaning and practice of Advent are trying in a feeble, feeble way to begin to declare the coming of the Lord to Standing Rock and Aleppo, Flint and Lampedusa. We're just not always very good at it.

Advent in whatever colour and whatever register is our annual reorientation to the Crib: to the weak, the cold, the margin, the poor, the exile, the pregnant woman, the perplexed father, the traveling strangers possessed of uncommon wisdom, the angels singing in the dark and silent sky. Advent invites us to remember our own first weakness and reliance on the strength of parents, the welcome of our families when we were infants, the provision in our social circles for a stable arrival of a child. In the awareness of these things, it invites us to extend them in the name of the Christchild to others on his behalf.

It is good for us to argue about what Advent means and how to keep it. It means our hearts are in the best place they can be, if we order them aright: attentive, caring, waiting, watching, thinking, hoping, open, gentle, strong. Whatever the colour we see each week in church, we pray our minds will be true to the invitations of the season and its successors.

Labels: Advent, Hymn 76, Hymn 78/79