One of the great gifts of the Advent/Christmas tradition is the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. At Bethlehem, we hold this service on the Wednesday evening before Christmas. It has become a cherished gift of grace and beauty that our choir joyfully bestows on all.
Besides getting rehearsed for each Sunday, our choir has been preparing for the Lessons and Carols for months already. You are very welcome to join us next Wednesday.
For as long as I can remember this festival has been a blessing to my experience of Christmas. My father had an album (remember the old vinyl 33 rpm) of the Kings College Lessons and Carols. That beautiful music and the powerful lessons would fill our house through each of my childhood Christmases. I also loved the distinct British accents of the readers. A strong and pleasant memory.
The history of the service itself is quite a story. It began on Christmas Eve 1880 when the Rev. E. W. Benson, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury, arranged a service of nine carols and nine short lessons which he gathered from old sources at the time. The sanctuary where he would serve was under construction, and so the first service was held in the wooden shed on a lot adjacent to the building site. Almost immediately other churches borrowed and adapted the festival of lessons and carols. In 1918 in the aftermath of the Great War, the Rev. Eric Milner-White of Kings College, who had been an army chaplain, added his own passion for the comfort and healing this festival is capable of providing.
Rev. Milner-White pointed out that the strength of the Festival is not the music as beautiful as that may be, but insisted “the main theme is the development of the loving purpose of God,” seen “through the windows and work of the Bible.” With lessons from Genesis, Isaiah, Matthew, Luke, and John I know he is right; but I also know that the good news of God’s purpose and grace is also conveyed with such beauty in the carols the choir will sing.
For me, part of the power of the Festival also derives from the Bidding prayer with which it starts, and which I am honored to offer. The prayer reminds us that the story we celebrate comes to fruition in generosity of spirit.
“But first let us pray for the needs of God’s whole world…. And because this of all things would rejoice God’s heart, let us at this time remember in his name the poor and the helpless, the cold, the hungry and the oppressed; the sick in body and in mind and them that mourn, the lonely and the unloved; the aged and the little children; all who know not the Lord Jesus, or who love him not, or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.” And so we pray and cherish the message of grace by which God reforms each heart and indeed the world. We remember that Christmas in purity is about love.
The Bidding prayer closes with a remembrance “before God all those who rejoice with us, but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no one can number.” That remembrance adds that bittersweet comfort everyone knows at Christmas time, that we remember and grieve again the absence of people so dear to us. The Bidding prayer graces and honors those memories while issuing the comfort of the promise of life in God.
I give thanks to my father again for this wonderful Christmas blessing he shared with me. And like you each Christmas I am able, with tears and joy, to commend all into the salvation that God came to share. Ours, of course, is not the only church to offer this spiritual blessing. It will be heard all over the world.
As I enjoy this gift of grace and beauty in our warm sanctuary next Wednesday at 6 p.m., I’ll give additional thanks for the inspiration given to Rev. E. W. Benson which he shared in that cold wooden shed in Truro, Cornwall, England so long ago.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
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