"Guide us to thy perfect Light."

 

Carol: “We Three Kings” – Words & Music by John Henry Hopkins (1820-1891)
Tune: KINGS OF ORIENT

My mother (Hedy) was the resident director of the annual Christmas Play at First Baptist Church in Pigeon Forge. If any of you wonder where I got my proclivity toward dramatizing biblical events, you need go no further. Each year’s production was pretty much like the previous. I remember how while the choir sang “It Came upon the Midnight Clear,” the angels always interpreted the text with hand movements -- one of which was forming a circle with their arms at “comes round the age of gold,” and leaning forward during “when peace shall over all the earth…” Why do things like that stick in your mind?

Each year she had to employ three men from within the choir to sing “We Three Kings.” They all sang the first and last stanzas, and each did a solo verse based on the gift they carried: gold, frankincense or myrrh. Ours weren’t quite as much fun as the one below featuring Hugh Jackman, but the point was pretty well dramatized, especially for a 1950’s low-budget production.

Even as a child, watching and listening to my mother direct this cast of her peers, I was drawn to THIS hymnline spoken by the bath-robed wise men to the star of wonder, star of night with royal beauty bright: “Guide us to thy perfect Light.” Early on I was learning by osmosis that the Christ Child was the perfect Light of the World.

It is strange how we bring those carol texts with us from our earliest years to our latter days as saints. I’m glad we do, because those tidbits we have learned from our singing/listening-to-singing have enriched our lives, deepened our faith, brought us to belief and service. In other words, they have guided us to the perfect Light.

Let’s keep teaching them to our children’s children.


See Hugh Jackman, David Hobson and Peter Cousen sing fun setting of this carol

Hear Robert Shaw Chorale sing this carol

"So may we with holy joy... all our costliest treasures bring, Christ, to thee."

Matthias Stom - "Adoration of the Magi"

"So may we with holy joy... all our costliest treasures bring, Christ, to thee."
Carol: “As with Gladness Men of Old” – William C. Dix (1837-1898)
Common Tune: DIX

It’s the Sunday most congregations will talk about Magi, wise men, travelers from afar, etc. We are still fascinated with this scripturally un-numbered group’s seeking of the Christ Child. Part of that fascination comes from the fact that they must have been people of great means to make this long trek from east Asia; after all, we’ve learned from pictures that they traveled with quite the entourage… like the Crawley family at Downton Abbey! We’re also caught up in their star-gazing hobby or profession that actually panned out for them; they studied the star alignments and deciphered their meaning… ultimately leading them to the prophesied One whose star had gone before them. People like me are enamored of their desire to worship the King born at Bethlehem in the land of Judah.

We like their haggling with Herod, their continuing their search, their being warned in a dream, etc. But most of all, we marvel at the moment when their worship culminates in their bowing down on their faces before the Christ Child, offering their costliest treasures. It’s one of the most awe-invoking moments in the telling of the birth event – maybe in all of scripture!

When we make our offerings with holy joy – not begrudgingly or by force – then it truly is an act of pure worship: nothing held back. As we sing this carol, we are saying that we want to be true worshipers like the Magi – people who go to great lengths to find God, and who act appropriately and generously when he is found.

Many times after we have that kind of close encounter of the highest kind, we are led by “another way” for our own protection and our own good.


Hear this carol from an English cathedral (The picture choices are weak!)

"Come, peasant, king to own him. The King of kings salvation brings. Let loving hearts enthrone him."

Rubens - "Adoration of the Magi"

"Come, peasant, king to own him. The King of kings salvation brings. Let loving hearts enthrone him."
Carol: “What Child Is This?” – William C. Dix (1827-1898)
Tune: GREENSLEEVES

This hymnline from a familiar carol does three things:
    1. It calls everyone from every social strata to believe that “this, this is Christ the King.”
    2. It tells us that THIS King comes bearing salvation from the throne of his Father.
    3. It inspires all people whose hearts are capable of loving to make a place in their hearts for the King to sit enthroned – in control.

I’d like to do that as we celebrate Epiphany (the arrival of the Magi). I would call everybody everywhere to forget about their ‘place’ in this world’s societal hierarchy to come to Jesus… to take ownership of their place in the Kingdom. I’d like to remind them that this salvation is brought to them as a free gift from the hand of Almighty God through the pierced hands of his Redeeming Son. Then I would encourage them to invite Christ into their heart as controller of their thoughts and actions; I might even go off-season here with another hymn text: “If you are tired of the load of your sin, let Jesus come into your heart.”

I’ve never cared for canned evangelistic presentations: those ‘plan of salvation’ gimmicks. But in this case, these three sentences from a Christmas carol give us an outline for leading people into the Kingdom… moving them from darkness to light, from death to life.



Hear violin solo on this tune by Lindsey Stirling

"He is still the undefiled, but no more a stranger."

"He is still the undefiled, but no more a stranger."
Carol: “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child” – Joseph Simpson Cook (1859-1933)
Tune: TEMPUS ADEST FLORIDUM

This is one of those story-telling carols of which there are many! In stanza one the Baby is born; in stanza two the angels appear and the shepherds arrive, etc. The teaching point at the center of this carol, however, is the sinlessness of Christ – at his birth, during his earthly life, and (seemingly) beyond!

Hymns and carols have always helped us understand theology and/or tenets of the faith, and here Cook tucked away two references to the fact that Jesus was un-touched by sin entering this world or living in it – a feat of which none of the rest of us can boast.

In the first line of the carol, we sing, “There he lay the undefiled, to the world a stranger.” In THIS hymnline in the last stanza, not only is he still undefiled, he is no longer a stranger! Not only is he a celebrity of sorts – most everybody in the world has heard of him – but we can get to know him personally as the reigning Son of God… and we can join with all the earth in the praise of this Baby laid so gently by his mother on a bed of hay.

Speaking of theology, we are able to get to know Christ partly because of his sinlessness. You just cannot say a bad thing about the way he lived; he cannot be penalized for any infraction. (I’ve obviously watched too much football this week!) His spotless record made it possible for him to stand in for us as the sacrificial Lamb.

We will never become sinless during the new year, but we can become less sinful. Now THAT is an achievable resolution.

Hear a simple solo singing of this carol

P.S. - I’ve mentioned Christmastide a couple of times and want to clarify that a bit for those of you who aren’t “up” on the Church Year. Christmastide is commonly called the Twelve Days of Christmas. This includes eleven days after Christmas and culminates on the twelfth day which is Epiphany… the day we celebrate the coming of the Magi. We observe that in worship on the Sunday nearest that twelfth day – or the first Sunday in the new year. The season of Sundays after the Epiphany don’t end this year until February 23; these include the celebration of the presentation of Christ at the Temple and his baptism. I won’t, by the way try to fill up another month and a half with Epiphany hymns!!!

"Deep within our hearts now shine; there light a flame undying."

Carol: “O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright” – Words & Music by Philip Nicolai (1556-1608)
Tune: WIE SCHON LEUCHET (Harmonized by J. S. Bach)

Now that Christmas Day has moved past us, as we close out Christmastide and move into Epiphany, this old German carol seems an appropriate text to land on. Cherished by Lutherans, this may be one with which you are not all that familiar… as has been true with many things during the Advent/Christmas seasons – because there’s such a vast amount of hymnody attached to these times of the Christian calendar.

The first lines of this carol read as follows:
    O Morning Star, how fair and bright!
    You shine with God’s own truth and light,
    Aglow with grace and mercy.

Sometimes used as one of the anticipation songs of Advent, this one often looks back at the fair and bright Christ child, calling on us to look ‘visually’ at the visage of the newborn King. If we approach today’s hymnline (from the second stanza) in that way – as looking into the Baby’s face – we may “see” him from a different angle.

After all the hoopla of Christmas, this hymnline is also a great prayer to face the new year. If indeed Christ shone brightly at the center of who we are – that part that controls us – becoming in us an undying flame, we SHOULD be better people for it, shouldn’t we?

The flame is already aglow. Perhaps it needs some fanning!

A men’s group sings only the first stanza
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fj1COyzrf54

A Paul Manz organ setting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XBnyK__BPSM