Dear Beloved Community,
“I’m just not ready for Christmas until our Lessons & Carols service!”
I laughed and nodded along with dozens of you who mentioned this on Sunday upon the conclusion of our Lessons & Carols service, one for the ages. The room was packed, the poinsettias were plentiful, the orchestra was transcendent, the choir was as ready and confident as any year in recent memory. Even the absence of our wonderful Associate Pastor for Worship, Arts, and Administration, David Williamson, who brings it all to life each year (and was home sick this year!) didn’t grind it all to a halt. Because of his tireless, faithful leadership, he handed off the baton to our beloved Organist and Music Associate, Jake Hill, who handed off the keyboard to pianist and choir member extraordinaire, Lauren Winkelman. How incredibly lucky – and grateful! – we are! Lessons & Carols Sunday is an absolute high point for me each Christmas season, and perhaps for you too.
But I confess, it’s not yet Christmas for me until I hear “the chord.” Ask a musician what’s the most famous Christmas chord, and they’ll know it. It’s “the Word of the Father” chord, nestled in the final verse of David Willcocks’ arrangement of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” that we sing each year. In his take on Adeste Fideles, Willcocks writes the music building and ascending along with the verse that reads, “Jesus, to Thee be all glory given.”
And then it lands.
“Word,” we sing out atop an explosive, B half-diminished seventh chord. It’s not just the unusual notes that draw our attention, of course, but the words, or rather, the Word. “Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.” The mystery of the incarnation, of God-with-us, of Word who was in the beginning bringing all things to life sung and played and hoped-for with our whole hearts.
The wonder of it all floods my heart and my throat each year, that when I begin to read the ninth lesson about the Word, its most anticipated chord still ringing in my ears, I can no longer contain the joy. I look at you, beloveds, and I see Word made flesh over and over again.
For that God comes near in Jesus is already mysterious enough, but that God does so in the human form of a poor, refugee, homeless, powerless, baby nonetheless is nearly too much to take in. And why would God do such a thing? The only possible answer is love. Love so unconditional, it’s scandalous. Love so complete, it’s transformative. Love so amazing, it demands our heart, our soul, our very lives, our all.
You might say it’s not Christmas until we experience that love. But the good news? That kind of love is not only for the organ or the musicians and their fancy chords. It’s not only for the church-goers or the pious. It’s not only for those who have their lives in order or their money saved up. Because that love, that Word-made-flesh, God-with-us, unconditional kind of love is love for every last one of us. No exceptions. No matter what. The very best news of them all.
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
Together in God’s work of Love,
Pastor Emily