Joy to the World!
First Congregational Church of Evanston
December 30, 2007
First Sunday after Christmas (Carol Sing)
Isaiah 63:7-9
Rev. Dr James E. Roghair, Interim Minister
Music and Words
Today, as you have already noticed, we are concentrating on Christmas Carols. There are so many of them to choose from – 41 hymns in the Christmas section of the Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual Songs that we use. We can’t sing all of them today, nor can we talk about very many of them. But we will discuss a few of them – a reminder of the rich variety that makes up our musical experience of Christmas.
Every hymn and every Christmas carol has a story. It might have been written for specific occasion – perhaps to because of a peculiar set of circumstances. Or it might have been a private inspiration which then became available to a broader constituency. But it can be complicated, because each piece of music has two parts, words and music. But even then, each of these parts may have multiple authorship or contributions. Our most loved music is not simple.
But when we hear a familiar version of the words and the music together, we naturally assume they have always belonged together. We hear the words in our heads, even when a strictly instrumental version is played. It is hard for us to imagine one without the other.
“Away in a Manger”
“Away in a Manger,” which we sang after the baptism today has its history. The familiar tune that we used this morning (called “Mueller”) was surely written by an American, James R. Murray, and attached to these words in a book published in Cincinnati in 1887. Although the tune bore Mr. Murray’s initials, the heading read: “Luther’s Cradle Hymn, Composed by Martin Luther for his children, and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.”
We are not sure why this heading was attached – perhaps it was to honor Luther. There is some evidence that the original text was written in connection with the two hundredth anniversary of Luther’s birth. But it is clear that neither the tune nor the words were actually written by Luther, and the only German version of the words was first published in Missouri in 1934. So we don’t know who wrote the verses, but #1 and #2 appeared in print in 1885 and #3 in 1892. So these words, and this tune have had more than a century to become one of America’s favorite children’s Christmas carols.
“Silent Night”
On the other hand, “Silent Night” the carol we will end with today, is one which has a very clear specific origin. In the Roman Catholic St. Nicholas Church, in the German speaking village of Obendorf, Austria in 1818, they were preparing for a special Christmas Eve service. It would include lots of music. But when they began to pump the bellows for the organ, no sound came out. It seems that mice had chewed through the leather of the bellows and so, with no time to fix it, there would be no organ that night.
The assistant priest Joseph Mohr wrote a little poem, Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht – “Silent Night, Holy Night,” and rushed it to the home of the Franz Gruber, the organist. Quickly, Gruber wrote the simple melody we know. By evening Mohr was playing the new carol on his guitar and he and Gruber were singing the verses and the children’s choir was singing the repeats at the end of each verse: Schlaf in himmlisecher Ruh! – “Sleep in heavenly peace!”
Stille Nacht, was a hit in the little town. The organ repairman who came later, took a copy and introduced it to other churches in the area. A singing family of glovemakers sang it at a fair in Leipzig, Germany in 1831. German speaking immigrants brought it to America, and “Silent Night” showed up in English in an American Methodist hymnal before it went to England. Surely this is among the most beloved Christmas music of all times. We’ll sing all 3 verses at the close of this service.
“While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks”
The experience of the Shepherds on the night of Jesus’, birth as recorded in the birth narrative of Luke is prime material for carol singing. One verse of “Silent Night” is dedicated to it. The next carol retells that whole story. ( Look at #59, if you will.) The words are written by Nahum Tate, the son of a minister, born in Dublin, Ireland. Tate had a number of jobs as poet laureate and as poet to the court in England. This hymn was published in 1702, but did not meet the tune we use until much later.
The tune is by American Lowell Mason born at the end of the 18th century who arranged this hymn-tune out of a George Frederick Handel’s opera aria written in 1728. And so, the words and music of the Carol span the 18th and beginning of the 19th century retelling the ancient Biblical story. Let us sing “While Shepherds Watched their Flocks.”
“Rise Up, Shepherd and Follow”
The next one I would invite you to look at is “Rise Up, Shepherd and Follow.” As with most of the African-American Spirituals, the original author and composer are lost to us. This one appeared in print in a 1909 book of Spirituals at Hampton School in Virginia. Later it was printed in a book of Spirituals by James Weldon and J. Rosamond Johnson. In the preface to that book, James Weldon Johnson states the belief that this Spiritual comes from the period after the Emancipation, and is thus relatively late among the Spirituals. There is plenty of room in this music for merging the meaning of the star, which wise men saw in Matthew’s story with the experience of the shepherds seeing the angel in Luke’s story.
Perhaps this Spiritual is new to some of you, but I invite you to join in: “Rise Up, Shepherd and Follow.”
“Joy to the World”
Our next carol is surely a favorite. And there are several good reasons why it should be so for us. One of the first reasons, of which you may not be aware is that Isaac Watts who wrote the poetry of this one, was an English congregationalist. They call him a non-conformist in many of the historical references. But his papers, when he died, went to the library at Yale University, the Congregationalist institution.
Watts is called the father of English hymnody, leaving us with over 600 hymns (not to mention his many other books of sermons and theology). Watts had a method to his hymn-writing. Most singing in churches previously had been musical settings of the Psalms, set in English verse. Watts followed that tradition of Psalm singing, with the understanding that the Psalms should be Christianized and modernized. But Watts considered the Psalms to be of Divine origin, because they were from the Bible – one side of Watts’s hymnody.
The other side of his hymn-writing was those of human origin – new poetry in which the poet expresses praise and prayer to God in his/her own words. I think “Joy to the World” is one of these. They are Watts’s words which become opportunities for us to praise God in his words.
But the tune, like that earlier one we sang today, is put together by the American Lowell Mason – this time out of two of George Frederick Handel’s tunes. Handel’s legacy has been great for us this season. How would we express our praise to God at Christmas time with out the wonder of Watts, Mason and especially Handel! “Joy to the World!”
Conclusion:
Finally I want to mention “O Holy Night” which Cindy Senneke will sing for us. As you see it was written by Adolphe Adam, and as you might guess, Adam was a Jew. He was commissioned by a friend to write this music for Christmas, and he did it – the original in French. But the French version of this song was at first largely boycotted by the French Christians because it had been written by a Jew. And it first became popular in America in an English version. It is amazing how the prejudices of people can keep them from enjoying good music, and in missing so much that is a blessing on God’s earth.
I hope and pray that through these Carols that we have spoken of and sung in their entirety and those we only touched earlier in the service, you have experienced the birth of the Savior and you have been encouraged in to worship him today.
Amen.
Source consulted: LindaJo H. McKim, The Presbyterian Hymnal Companion. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993.
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