Lift Your Voice in Songs of Praise by Nina Faye Morey

 

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly;

teach and admonish one another in all wisdom;

and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms,

hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

~ Colossians 3:16

Have you been brave (or perhaps foolhardy) enough to be out and about shopping for gifts this Christmas season despite the current Covid-19 Pandemic? I completed all of my Christmas shopping armed with my face mask and lots of hand sanitizer. But now the Saskatchewan government has restricted us to members of our own household. So Christmas celebrations with my daughter and her family, who were planning to travel here from Alberta, will be placed on hold for the foreseeable future. Their gifts have now been stored away, and cards with a little something tucked inside have been delivered. At least, as the only person in my household, I’m allowed one guest, so I’ll still be able to celebrate with my son who lives nearby.

If you have gone out Christmas shopping this year, whether you’ve visited the huge shopping malls or just frequented the little gift shop around the corner, you’ve no doubt been either entertained or exasperated by the constant refrain of familiar Christmas carols. If, like me, you fall into the entertained category, you probably know most of the words to these carols and enjoy cheerfully singing or humming along.

No matter what troubles I might be dealing with at that moment, whenever I hear voices raised in hymns of praise to my Lord, I always experience feelings of love in my heart, joy in my spirit, and peace in my soul. These well-known and well-loved carols that Christians sing during the Christmas season are really inspirational hymns that express our love for Jesus and our thanks to God for His glorious gift.

Have you ever been curious, as I often have, about what inspired those creative songwriters to write their Christmas carols? My curiosity led me to look into the lives of some of these gifted hymn writers to find out the stories behind their expressions of praise to the Lord that I’ve listened to and sung along to for many joyous Christmas seasons: Martin Luther, father of the Reformation; Charles Wesley, co-founder of Methodism; and John Mason Neale, recognized Anglican minister and poet.

In the 1500’s, congregational hymn singing flourished under Lutheranism. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk; his wife, Katharina Von Bora, belonged to a cloister of nuns. When these nuns sought Luther’s help to escape the confines of their convent, he recruited a nearby merchant to smuggle them out in the empty barrels from the pickled herring he delivered. Luther successfully arranged marriages for all but the young, bright, and spirited Katharina. When Luther teased that he might have to marry her, his father encouraged the match. After they wed, they moved into a former Augustinian monastery on Wittenberg’s main street.

Soon their son, Hans, arrived and Luther was an adoring father. He wrote Hans a children’s Christmas carol, “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come.” The couple sang this renowned Lutheran carol with their children every Christmas Eve. A contemporary songbook entitled Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses, also contained another carol written by Luther that’s been one of my favourites since childhood, “Away in a Manger.” Its compiler, James R. Murray, referred to this carol as “Luther’s Cradle Hymn.” His citation read, “Composed by Martin Luther for his children and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.” Although its authorship has been disputed, many still credit Luther with writing this popular children’s carol.

Congregational hymn singing continued to thrive in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During his years of itinerant ministry in England and America, Charles Wesley, co-founder of the Methodist movement, constantly composed hymns as he completed his “circuit” on horseback. Requiring no specific creative inspiration, Wesley composed approximately 6,000 hymns during his lifetime.

Wesley was always adamant that others reprint his hymns exactly as he had written them. Fortunately, his old friend and fellow preacher, George Whitefield, wisely rewrote some of the lines from Wesley’s 1739 carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” to create the now familiar version he reprinted in his 1753 collection. This is one of my all-time favourite Christmas carols. Its rousing verses never fail to lift my spirits.

As a recognized Cambridge scholar and poet, John Mason Neale dedicated himself to the preservation of ancient churches and medieval “songs of praise.” He translated several Medieval Latin and Greek hymns into English and recovered several segments of Latin responsorial songs that he combined to create the Christmas carol, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” His research also led him to write a translation of the fourteenth-century hymn, “Good Christian Men Rejoice.” His devotion to charitable work resulted in the poem, “Good King Wenceslas,” in honour of this medieval king’s Christian charity.

We Christians, despite our diversity, are united in fellowship every Christmas by our love for these carols. These melodious hymns provide a means to convey our heartfelt gratitude for Gods’ glorious gift of redemption and abundant life through His son, Jesus Christ. So in this spirit of unanimity, let us proclaim our love for our gracious Lord and Saviour by lifting our voices in “songs of praise” this Christmas season.