I wrote this note for possible inclusion in an e-mail blast from New Castle Now... [Indeed, it is now online--click here.]
I get into the spirit of Christmas listening Christmas Eve on the BBC to the “Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols” from King’s College, Cambridge. With a history in the U.K. going back over a century, the service is highly traditional, always beginning with the same carol and following the same order of readings from the Hebrew prophets and the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
I am delighted to be serving as Interim Pastor for the Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco, which has its own tradition of “Lessons and Carols,” and will be sharing this service with our community Saturday, Dec. 18, at 8 PM. I love hearing the church resonate with music, and look forward so much to all the people singing carols and celebrating the stories and songs of Jesus' birth.
The Christmas story is more ample in scope than the traditional readings from Matthew and Luke with which most of us are familiar. We’ve made changes we believe may open some eyes this Christmas season.
To give you a preview, in addition to the four traditional Gospel lessons, we will read:
- The Prologue to John's Gospel (1:1-14), which begins the Christmas story with the Incarnation of the Divine Word-and-Wisdom, present with God at Creation.
- Mary's exultant “Magnificat” (Luke 1:46-55), which is left out of the Lessons and Carols in Cambridge, England. (Perhaps it’s seen as anti-monarchy?)
- The Cosmic Infancy Narrative of Revelation 12, which features a pregnant woman who looks like the Virgin of Guadalupe and gives birth to a child who is to rule the world but is nearly devoured by a red dragon.
- Sayings from The Gospel of Thomas (not found in our Bible) which invite us into all roles: mother, child, and the “All-of-It.” Jesus says, "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you." and “From Me did the All come forth….”
- Philippians' early Christian poem which plots the downward-upward parabola of the Divine Drama with the vertex touching the earth at Bethlehem: “Christ Jesus, who….was in the form of God,…emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness…. He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death… Therefore God also highly exalted him…”
Our organist Terence Flanagan and the Congregational Choir, Abi Gray and the Adult Bell Choir, and nine readers will guide us on our journey.
My hope is that the Lessons and Carols will bring us all closer to God, and to the mystery and joy of these days.
The church is located on Route 133 outside the Town of Mount Kisco, opposite Crow Hill Road. Childcare will be provided. For more info: call 914-666-7001.
No comments:
Post a Comment