This December the Service of Lessons and Carols will be on the Sunday before Christmas, December 23 at 10:00 am. The service itself is a series of readings tracing God’s love from the creation of man and woman and their disobedience in the Garden of Eden, to humanity’s longing for redemption, through the annunciation and birth of the Christ child and the song of the angels to the shepherds, and finishing with the contemplation of the Incarnation in the book of Hebrews and the Gospel of John.

These readings will be interspersed with Advent and Christmas carols, hymns and a choral anthem. The earliest of these is the 4th century hymn “Of the Father’s love begotten,” which is paired with an 11th century tune. Among the others are “O little town of Bethlehem,” written in the 19th century at Holy Trinity Church, Philadelphia, and the French carol, “Angels we have heard on high,” which is a macaronic, or two language, carol. The celebration of “the glorious redemption brought by God’s holy Child Jesus,” as the opening bidding prayer in the service describes it, will be summarized in Charles Wesley’s text on the purpose of the incarnation, “Hark! the herald angels sing.”

The history of the carol and its content shows it to be ideal as an expression of devotion at this time of year. Carols were round dances during the medieval period, but evolved into songs of a dramatic, narrative or lyrical nature, often celebratory or contemplative, with a simple spirit and strophic form (having stanzas). Carols are often about the birth of Christ or the joys of celebrating Christmas. According to Percy Dearmer, the carol is “genial as well as simple; it dances because it is so Christian, echoing St. Paul’s conception of the fruits of the Spirit in its challenge to be merry – ‘Love and joy come to you.’ Indeed, to take life with real seriousness is to take it joyfully, for seriousness is only sad when it is superficial: the carol is thus all the nearer to the ultimate truth because it is joyful.”

In the Episcopal Church, carols are sung at Christmas and during Christmastide (the twelve days of Christmas) until the day of Epiphany on January 6. One of the disciplines of Advent, at least for musicians, is to be surrounded by Christmas music in malls and the mass media and not to actually sing it until Christmas!

By the time Epiphany arrives in 2008, on a Sunday, the congregation and choir will have sung nearly 100 carols, hymns and anthems at Pohick. The St. Francis Choir will sing a locally composed favorite, “Softly the stars are shining,” at the 6:00 pm Christmas Eve service, and they will combine with the St. Cecelia St. Alban Choir to sing “Alepun,” a Spanish carol about Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. John Sessums will accompany singers on the guitar as “Silent Night” is sung at that service. Brass players will be playing carols while everyone enters the Church for the later service beginning at 10:15 pm, and everyone will sing carols during the Carol Service at 10:30 pm, and the Eucharist at 11:00 pm. Some carols will be accompanied by handbells. The Choir of Pohick’s anthem is “O magnum mysterium,” a sixteenth century Spanish anthem of wonder at the paradox that animals were witnesses to the birth of God-become-human.