Lessons & Carols: Retold

Dec 4

Today’s worship service is entitled, “A Traditional Lessons & Carols Service — Retold.” Why retold? In keeping with our Awkward Family Christmas worship series, today’s lessons and carols service features a series of monologues and dialogues from the characters of the stories typically associated with this annual service. For example, rather than hearing the story of Adam and Eve, we will hear from Eve directly. That could be… well, awkward! Except, we know that the story of God’s faithfulness, mercy, love, and grace did not end at the garden gate. Rather, the scripture lessons tell of a God of love, who meets God’s people in their circumstances repeatedly, and, ultimately, chooses to share their human existence with them in the person of Jesus Christ. This is the message of the traditional nine lessons and carols, and we present it in a slightly different manner today.

To accompany these character vignettes, we are using music almost entirely from the 16th Century. Don’t worry, you’ll know many of them! Why the 16th Century? On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the doors of the church in Wittenburg, Germany launching what would become known as the Protestant Reformation. The church as it had been for a really long time was changed forever. Talk about awkward! The people of the church desired a more embodied faith, and Luther’s reforms, followed by many more who came after him, encouraged congregational singing and participation in ways that had never been possible. People read scripture for themselves. Sacred songs that had been popular outside of the church became part of worship inside the church. Things were turned upside down. What we know as a carol had been an almost exclusively non-liturgical (that means in worship) thing. Now, with the advances of the protestant reformation, these songs were reshaping the musical landscape that would eventually lead to our 21st Century understanding of worship and music. Things like singing in English instead of Latin would become common ground! Even the Catholic Church couldn’t ignore some of these changes having to acknowledge that people in the pews (or, most likely, standing) wanted something a little more exciting. (The Gabrieli O Magnum Mysterium comes from this tradition).