carols

Candles by Carollight

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I was listening to one of my favourite Christmas CDs in the car today: Annie Lennox’s Christmas Cornucopia. She has a beautiful voice and the arrangements of the carols and songs are lovely. I find it very uplifting and inspiring. (In the middle of the collection of songs is a French carol, sung in French. I will come back to that later.)

I don’t know if Annie Lennox has an active Christian faith. But at the very least in recording these Christmas carols she will have a greater awareness of the nativity and what Christians believe about who Jesus is. I wondered whether those recording the songs regarded them as something spiritually significant or simply as a variety of folk song.

Worship BackgroundTonight I will be attending one of my favourite services of the year. (I am not sure I actually have a favourite, they are all special, but I think you know what I mean.) I love a traditional Carols by Candlelight service. This will be the first time for a number of years where I will be attending as a member of the congregation rather than being part of the planning and preparation and leading of the service. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea (he says ironically as a coffee-drinker). I know some people who don’t find it uplifting (including some Ministers). That’s okay. There will be other services that bless them more.

But it’s also the service that sees attendance at church increase significantly because there is still enough residual affection for the service within our society that attending the Carol Service is an important part of what makes up Christmas. There will be a number of people there whose church attendance is limited to once a year – regular if not frequent!

Churches get quite excited by this annual influx and will also work hard at helping people to feel welcome and inviting them to increase the frequency of their attendance or deepen the level of their engagement with the church. Messages will be preached that explain that it’s not just a nice story but really happened and has significance for us today, that Jesus can be incarnate in our lives as much as he was in the stable. Friends and relatives will be there and Christians who invited them will be pleased that they came and heard the message and sang the carols. But should we be that excited? Singing the words of a carol will not make people a Christian any more than singing in French makes Annie Lennox a Frenchwoman (I told you I’d come back to that). And going to church won’t do that either, no matter how frequently we attend.

There will be people there tonight who come to enjoy singing the Carols and who need to hear that message, but who will go away untouched by the message. They will have sung their lungs out, enjoyed the atmosphere, appreciated the welcome, nommed the mince pies and will go away mentally ticking that off their to do list for Christmas without it making any difference to them.

Before you think I have gone all ‘Bah Humbug!’ on you, let me say that I am delighted that people come regularly once a year. I think it is important that we can provide this part of their Christmas experience. I think it is right that we offer a different perspective on the festival and remind people what it’s really about. I hope and pray that it will make a difference.

But it’s not the church’s job to make that change happen. It’s not even up to us (although we have to do the inviting). That’s up to God and the people who come. Let’s come with expectation of a special service, expectation that we will enjoy ourselves, and expectation that we will experience a fresh encounter with God.

Be blessed, be a blessing

shiver

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I had a shiver-down-the-spine moment in my car yesterday. It was not the cold. Nor was it my driving. I was listening to the radio and they played Annie Lennox singing ‘See Amid The Winter’s Snow’.

Ooooooh. It was a combination of her wonderful voice, a beautiful arrangement and the words that sent the shiver:

See, amid the winter’s snow,
Born for us on Earth below,
See, the tender Lamb appears,
Promised from eternal years.
Chorus:
Hail, thou ever blessed morn,
Hail redemption’s happy dawn,
Sing through all Jerusalem,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Lo, within a manger lies
He who built the starry skies;
He who, throned in height sublime,
Sits among the cherubim.
Chorus
Say, ye holy shepherds,say,
What your joyful news today;
Wherefore have ye left your sheep
On the lonely mountain steep?
Chorus
“As we watched at dead of night,
Lo, we saw a wondrous light:
Angels singing ‘Peace On Earth’
Told us of the Saviour’s birth.”
Chorus
Sacred Infant, all divine,
What a tender love was Thine,
Thus to come from highest bliss
Down to such a world as this.
Chorus
It was so inspiring that I have ordered the CD (‘Christmas Cornucopia’). I know, I am a bit old fashioned in wanting a CD rather than downloading the album, but there is still something significant to me in having something tangible in my hands rather than just data streams on the computer / MP3 player. I have had disappointments a couple of times now where I have bought tracks online and then the place from which I have bought them has ceased trading or I have stopped a subscription and lost the licence to play them – effectively losing the songs. At least a CD is there in my hands.
There is an incarnational analogy there if you don’t push it too far. Jesus’ birth means that we have a tangible experience of God rather than ‘just’ hearing from him through his prophets. And we are called to be free samples of Jesus – making him incarnate in people’s lives now. Do we send a shiver down people’s spine? Not because we are creepy or scary but because they have had an encounter with Jesus through us.
A group of children decided to raise some money for a local charity so they went carol singing around their community. They knocked on one door and a man opened it to them. After a quick untuneful rendition of ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ they went on to murder ‘Silent Night’.
When they had finished the man had tears running down his face.
“Are you okay mister?” asked the oldest child. “Did that bring back memories for you?”
“No,” said the man, “I am a music teacher.”