Merry Christmas!

Last Saturday I heard Schubert's Ave Maria at Walmart (Muzak alas, not Pavarotti), and I knew that the season of Christmas music is upon us. I started even earlier: for the past month or so, I've been rehearsing Christmas music. It's been awhile since I've been in a choir, so I really appreciate the technological advances that make it possible for the director to burn off rehearsal CDs for each section of the choir (the right channel is my tenor part, and the left has the full choir from last year). Several days a week now, I listen to the CD and sing along in rush hour traffic.

Here's my favorite, a song I didn't sing much in previous years: Angels from the Realms of Glory:

Angels from the Realms of Glory

Angels, from the realms of glory,
wing your flight o'er all the earth;
ye who sang creation's story,
now proclaim Messiah's birth:

Refrain:
come and worship, come and worship,
worship Christ, the newborn King.

Shepherds in the field abiding,
watching o'er your flocks by night,
God with man is now residing;
yonder shines the infant Light: Refrain

Sages, leave your contemplations;
brighter visions beam afar:
seek the great Desire of nations;
ye have seen his natal star: Refrain

Saints before the altar bending,
watching long in hope and fear,
suddenly the Lord, descending,
in his temple shall appear: Refrain

Though an infant now we view him,
he shall fill his Father's throne,
gather all the nations to him;
every knee shall then bow down: Refrain

What I love about this song is how it expresses so richly the history and majesty of the angels and their role in the drama of the Incarnation (as does the beautiful film Wings of Desire).

There's much I could say here, but I will content myself with just two notes on the verses:

1. The third verse illustrates wonderfully the way that the Incarnation overturns the ancient method of religion. The sages must distance themselves from their inner intuition of religion and submit themselves to something that happens, to an event and a present reality in a particular place: Bethlehem.
2. The next to the last verse of those shown here reminds us that the Incarnation is still a present fact. The Eastern churches hang a tiny star (asteriskos) above the holy bread during Divine Liturgy as a reminder of this fact.