Advent 09- Carols

I spent most of Saturday afternoon singing carols to raise money for charity at York station.  I love singing, and there really is something special about carols.  I've written about them here before.  It's hard to make carols sound bad.  Most people who've grown up in Britain know at least a few.  But having a choir singing in four-part harmony in the open air is something that we only expect to happen around Christmas.

A large group of us turned up on Saturday afternoon.  Most of us only knew a few of the others, most of us had never sung together before, let alone rehearsed the carols we were going to be singing.  Music was handed out, the organised who was conducting gave us our starting notes, and away we went.  And raised over £350.  The only downside is that the organiser wouldn't let us sopranos sing the descant harmonies in the last verses! :(

Most carols are in the category of songs which were written to tell a story, in this case the Christmas story, the story of how God sent his Son to earth as a human baby and why.  There's the familiar Once in royal David's city and Away in a manger which tell of his birth, to We three kings with its prophecies of who this child is and will grow up to be, or the less familiar Coventry Carol that tells of the sorrow of the mothers whose children were killed in King Herod's attempt to kill Jesus.  Others focus on what Jesus achieved: Hark! The herald-angels sing, for example, or all those songs which are some variation on a theme of holly and ivy, trying to spiritualise traditional decorations.

Perhaps that's part of what's special about carols.  The words and music help remind us of what actually happened at Christmas, and what an amazing story it is.  That God, usually worshipped with frankincense, should come to earth as a vulnerable human baby and go through all the ups and downs of life that we do; that he, a king deserving gifts of gold should be born to a poor family in a small rural settlement where his first visitors were outcast shepherds; that this child should grow up and give his life for us and be buried with myrrh only to rise again having defeated death- that's something to celebrate.  That's a Good Thing.

"Glorious now behold him arise

King, and God, and sacrifice,

Heaven sings Alleluia,

Alleluia the earth replies."*

The last verse of We three kings says it all.