Monday Morning Music Ministry

Start Your Week with a Spiritual Song in Your Heart

The Christmas Lullaby.

12-19-22

Do we realize that the birth pangs of the first Christmas were not Mary’s alone?

The Bible tells us that all the aspects of Christ’s Birth were not unalloyed joy. The birth pangs of Mary were prophesied in Scripture, even from the Garden, and birth pangs are frequent Biblical metaphors for the distress believers will endure, even persecution unto the End Times.

Specifically at Christmastide the reference is not solely to one mother’s labor.

There was the grief of Judean mothers. It is ironic, especially in our secular time when the Divinity of Jesus is questioned – even in the pulpits of “liberal” churches – yet the pagan Roman ruler Herod acknowledged the mysterious, incarnate Savior to the extent that he ordered the slaughter of little boys under the age of two when he was told of prophecies.

This is no surprise when we remember that the devil himself acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, Son of the Living God. Herod was an amateur when we consider other enemies of Christianity; and the devil ultimately will be defeated (was defeated at the Resurrection). Yet birth pangs, too often, enflame the faithful, from tearful mothers of those baby boys, to mighty saints and martyrs.

Please, at least for a moment, put aside the Hallmark cards and boughs of holly. It is important to remember that He came… why He came… and how He came. In fact, Jesus was born amid tears; He dealt with tears; and He died on the cross – which was His mission – amid tears. Even 700 years before His Birth, Jesus was identified as a Man of Sorrows.

He shall grow up… as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned each of us to our own ways; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and he opened not his mouth…(Isaiah 53)

What has come to be called the Massacre or the Slaughter of Innocents today, as a historical fact, is described in Matthew 2:16-18. It has become a symbol, too – a twisted, evil inspiration to uncountable people around the world who slaughter innocents today. The abortion nightmare is not waged to thwart a Savior, but to save peoples’ comfort and convenience. I am in no way callous to the angst of these mothers when they make tortured decisions; believe me, I am specially tender, but we must always opt for life.

Some believe – or want to believe – that America marches lock-step with the contemporary world on this “issue.” But the US, with Communist China and North Korea, is virtually alone among nations in allowing the cruelest of procedures, and late-term deaths. Merry Christmas, by the way, to all survivors.

One of the most beautiful-sounding Christmas tunes is the lullaby we know as the Coventry Carol. Mother sings to child, “Bye, bye, lully lu-lay,” a transliteration of Old French. It is sweet, certainly; but many have forgotten that the mother in this lullaby is whispering good-bye to her son, about to be slaughtered. It is so named because this song, in Old English first called “Thow Littel Tyne Childe,” had its origins in a “Mystery Play” of Norman France and performed at the Coventry Cathedral in England. The play was called “The Mystery of the Shearmen and the Tailors,” based on the second chapter of Matthew. The earliest transcription extant is from 1534; the oldest example of its musical setting is from 1591.

How can it be that the grieving, almost insensate, lullabies of mothers, their dead babies in their laps or facing imminent slaughter, can reflect a matter of foundational faith? That is a question I cannot answer, either as a man or as a reflective Christian. Yet the Coventry Carol tells the story of this awful occurrence in a way that is achingly haunting and beautiful.

Many people – many mothers – superficially think the ancient carol with its Old French roots of English, “Bye, bye, lully, lullay…” is merely a bedtime song. Yet the lullaby (which word derives from the lament) is a reminder of the hideous opposition the world harbors against the Gospel; and it commemorates the price, sometimes, of being a Christian. For all its beauty, it is the lamentation of an innocent mother cradling her innocent slaughtered child in her lap: a horrible reflection of birth pangs.

Its plaintive melody is one of the great flowerings of polyphony over plainsong in Western music.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

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Click Video Clip: Coventry Carol

Christmas As Birth Pangs

12-17-18

Bells, presents, decorations, smiles, carols, parties… is there anything about Christmas that is not happy – or Merry, the inevitably paired adjective?

A few things, we note with sorrow and regret. It is commercialized to the point of smarm, almost everyone admits; but kitsch increases relentlessly. It is the time of year when the incidents of suicide spikes; remember, therefore, the lonely and “forgotten.”

The holiday (holy day) itself, however, has a DNA of sadness, even grief. The Bible tells us that King Herod, aware of the prophesies of the Messiah’s birth in his time and his domain, ordered the death of baby boys. This horror was visited on a grand scale and was, as we know, the reason that Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt with their Baby boy. Throughout Bethlehem and Judea there was widespread lamentation.

How can it be that a circumstance of God’s plan was not unalloyed joy? The simple answer is to help explain the complexity of God’s ways. As with Salvation itself, God’s gifts like the Incarnation of the Savior free, but not cheap or easy. Like a mother’s birth pangs, the world had to know the price of Jesus’s entrance into the world. Humanity ultimately would despise and reject Him; His difficult birth foreshadowed such sober reminders.

How can it be that a pagan ruler believed the prophesies about the Messiah – even if he rejected the theology in his heart – when many “Christians” 2000 years later question the Virgin Birth? Contemporary theologians, enablers of the secularists in society as they are, deny many divine attributes of Jesus. Surely Herod would not have ordered mass killings to forestall the coming ministry of a great teacher!

How can it be that the grieving, almost insensate, lullabies of mothers, their dead babies in their laps, or facing imminent slaughter, can reflect a matter of foundational faith? That is a question I cannot answer, as a man or as a reflective Christian. Yet the “Coventry Carol” tells the story of this awful occurrence in a way that is achingly haunting and beautiful.

Many people – many mothers – superficially think the ancient carol with its Old French roots of English, “By, by, lully, lullay…” is merely a bedtime song. Yet the lullaby (which word derives from the lament) is a reminder of what is aptly named The Slaughter of the Innocents, and commemorates the price, sometimes, of being a Christian.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay.
O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day.
This poor youngling for whom we do sing By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight, All children young to slay.
Then, woe is me, poor Child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh For thy parting neither say nor sing,
By, by, lully, lullay.

As with Good Friday – the awful price Christ paid, over and above the worst that humankind could assign, even the death of the cross – we can linger at the sad aspects of God’s mysteries. But, as with Easter, Jesus’s life and ministry should be our focus. His atoning gift of Salvation.

“The world received Him not…” Birth pangs indeed, but born not only into the world, but into our hearts. Every day, not just that holiday otherwise known for bells, presents, decorations, smiles, carols, and parties.

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Click: The Coventry Carol

A Different Christmas

12-26-16

One of the things a lot of us like about Christmas is the comforting security and tradition of it. Right? The one time of year, we are wont to think, when conflicts and arguments are suspended; when families gather; when people go to church for time-honored services and familiar hymns bathe our souls. Even if it is the only day of the year that some people go to church.

I am not going to be Scrooge here, but the Christmas we know so well would have been a mystery in many ways to history’s generations of Christians.

Christmas cards really commenced, in thoughts and printed versions, in the 1840s. The image of Santa Claus as we know him – know him?? – dates from about the same time. Thomas Nast depicted the basic Santa we know; illustrator Haddon Sondblom created the definitive version for Coca-Cola ads in the 1940s. Many familiar Christmas songs were written in the past few decades; and the “old favorites,” with only a few exceptions, were unknown before two or three centuries ago – a blip in 2000 years of Christian worship.

Most of us know, even if we do not dwell on the facts, that Christmas trees, red-and-green, probably the exchange of gifts, and certainly the date of December 25, all are of pagan origins. “Gifts” can be grafted onto God’s purpose of the Incarnation; and various Christian faiths disagree on the date of the Christ’s birth.

But the actual observance of Jesus’s birth was for centuries one of the Church’s minor festivals and commemorations. Easter was, of course, a focal point of belief and believers. At one time Ascension was – I think properly – the major holy day that Christmas was not, quite. Pentecost, also.

So, am I a Scrooge after all? I have no problem, at all, with observing all the “traditional” cultural trappings of Christmas. Yes, I am glad that many people feel free to say “Merry Christmas” again. I never stopped; and I am fine with the presents and the colors and the decorations and the food. Street lightings in October, and radio marathons, annoy me.

What annoys me a lot, however, is the mandatory cheer of this “season.”
If some people, some Christians or well-intentioned revelers, try hard to be cheery at Christmastide, it is not bad… but only to the extent that we should always be charitable and exercise good will to men.

But we should all – all of us – temper our cheer. Stick with me. There are many aspects of Christmas that should turn us contemplative, not into elves with frozen smiles. The Incarnation was the most incredible miracle of God, the greatest gift to humankind. And we should be joyful. Scrooge has left the building, OK?

But. God became flesh and dwelt among us… because the human race was corrupt and lost, headed for damnation, loving sin more than God. That is sobering, especially because so many of us are still lost in sin; still needing a Savior after 2000 years.

Hallmark cards have sanitized the Birth story. I personally am persuaded that there was “no room in the inns” because inn-keepers rejected providing rooms to teenage girls who conceived before marriage. Abuse and calumny likely followed Mary and Joseph through the streets of Bethlehem.

The stable was “humble”? Certainly, but it was less than that. The manger is where animals’ food was placed, so the Baby Jesus lay amongst old food scraps and the spittle of various animals. If frankincense were needed, it was then… because that stable undoubtedly reeked of excrement.

The advent of Jesus into a needy and hurting world was, sadly, akin to the birth pangs of a mother, all mothers in painful labor. Herod knew of the prophecies about a Savior (isn’t it odd, by the way, that even Herod believed, in his way; yet millions of our contemporaries think that Christianity is a fairy tale?) – and Herod, fearing a rival to his authority… ordered the deaths of boys under age two, throughout his realm.

That is what history came to call the Slaughter of the Innocents. One of the most beautiful-sounding Christmas tunes is the lullaby we know as the Coventry Carol. Mother sings to child, “Bye, bye, lully lu-lay,” a transliteration of ancient French. It is sweet, certainly; but many have forgotten that the mother in this lullaby is whispering good-bye to her son, about to be slaughtered.

And so forth. We dishonor God when we willfully neglect the full meaning of Christ’s Mass. We are happy to assert that Jesus is the reason for the season: just so. But the ancients pondered the truth that “God, with a heavy heart, His Son did impart.” Heavy heart? Yes… God was Incarnate in order to suffer and die for us.

At least we humans have learned much in these two thousand years.

No… we haven’t. That is what I have been arguing. We have managed to sanitize, subvert, corrupt, and disguise Christmas. We make it about our memories, not God’s meaning. The Lord made it all about His Will; and we make it all about our wants. Ultimately, His focus was on us, His beloved children, and our salvation; and we make it… also all about us. Something’s not right.

Indeed, something is not right. After two thousand years of “doing” Christmas, this is still – perhaps more than ever – a needy and hurting world. More Christians were persecuted, tortured, and martyred in the last century than in all the centuries, combined, since the Holy Birth. Around us, here at home, we are beset by hate, injustice, infidelity, apostasy, self-delusion, materialism, and corruption.

Abroad – well, we can just look at the lands where Jesus was born, walked, preached, died, and rose. And loved. Let us just look at Aleppo, where the world has been looking… and looking away. Again, slaughter of innocents.

The “Middle East” is comprised of countries where Christians recently have been in the minority, but sometimes in substantial numbers. Those numbers are depleted, diminished, decimated now. “Ethnic cleansing,” refugee purges, forced conversions and rapes, beheadings and slavery.

Herod was an amateur.

After 2000 years we still await a Savior without really knowing why; or knowing He already has come. Or how to greet Him if we were to meet Him.

If Jesus showed up at your house for Christmas dinner, would you set Him an extra place at the feast, or would you fall at His feet? Would He have to remind you why He came to earth? Would we rethink just what it is we celebrate? Should we accept the present of His Birth… or make a gift of our lives and hearts? And would we cover it up with wrapping paper and fancy ribbons?

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This video is dedicated to all displaced children and in particular Assyrian children who have suffered the most by war and bloodshed in the Middle East. The familiar carol is sung here by people of Jesus’s neighborhoods and languages, Assyrian-Aramaic. These faces like Jesus knew, loved, and was.

Click: The Coventry Carol (Acapella)

The Slaughter Of the Innocents

12-29-14

One of the most beautiful lullabies anyone has heard or sung is known as the Coventry Carol. A mother’s song to her child, its lyrics from the late Medieval era remind us of Olde English, when the presence of French still sweetened the tongue: “By by, lully, lullay,” its comforting choruses end.

It is soothing but eerily compelling, and even mysterious. Certainly, melancholia is a part of its appeal. Why? A lullaby (note the common roots with the comforting words of the chorus), identified with Christmas? Sad? Its tune, especially its oddly modern harmonies and dissonance, seems to transcend the ages.

In truth, no matter how re-purposed by contemporary performers or loving mothers at children’s bedtimes, the Coventry Carol is indeed melancholy: it was meant to solemnly memorialize an event full of sorrow, dread, and grief. The song imagines the lament of a mother protecting her child about to be slaughtered by soldiers of King Herod. As recorded in the Book of Matthew, the Roman-appointed ruler of Palestine was aware of the Wise Men’s prophecy that the King of the Jews would be born in Bethlehem… and that they had warned Joseph to hide the Child of Mary as a precaution against a cruel ruler’s deadly intentions. All this fulfilled Old Testament prophecies (Jesus’ parents fled with Him to Egypt).

In Herod’s bloodlust, and in fear that another king of the Jews would be his rival, he decreed that male babies under the age of one in Judea should be killed. Precise history or legend, this became known as the Slaughter of the Innocents or the Massacre, or Martyrdom, of the Holy Innocents.

In annual Christmas programs during the Middle Ages, Nativity plays akin to Passion plays of another time in the church calendar were performed in many chapels and towns. In Coventry, England, the Guild of Shearmen and Tailors between the late 1300s and the late 1500s traditionally staged Nativity plays. One Robert Croo is tentatively ascribed as the author; the tune’s origins are unknown. It became a day of observance, an event in the church calendar, of profound significance, a call to introspection – and is similar to many other spiritually momentous holidays (holy days) that our contemporary world scarcely recognizes any more.

But here we are: the “Innocents’ Day,” sometimes called Childermass – following Christmass – was celebrated around this time. December 27 for many of the ancient churches in the Middle East, the ancient rites of the Syriacs, Chaldeans, Maronites, Syrians. December 28 is the traditional observance date of the Roman Catholic church, the Lutheran and Evangelic churches, and the Church of England. Eastern rites, most of the Orthodox churches, celebrate the day on December 29. In a German tradition of that time, youngsters exchanged roles with adult clergy and teachers on Childermass; sometimes students for the priesthood presided over worship services, with clergy in the pews.

My purpose today, however, is not to open our eyes to obscure or neglected history, despite its fascinating features or appealing music (please click the link, below, to a haunting performance). It is to have a look around us, not just back in time.

We are reminded that all the aspects of Christ’s Birth were not unalloyed joy. The birth pangs of Mary were prophesied in Scripture, even from the Garden… but the purport was not solely one mother’s labor. We have the grief of Judean mothers. The Bible addressed the difficulties attendant to the coming Messiah’s birth… and, indeed, His life, ministry, rejection, betrayal, and death. Yes, the Resurrection was foretold, but His life would not be one without pain and suffering, clearly. The same is foretold of believers like you and me: a startling prediction, but also a challenging warning.

Jesus, centuries before His Birth, was identified as a Man of Sorrows.

And many of the sorrows occurred around Him, and because of Him – such as the Slaughter of the Innocents – are a sorrowful side of this King’s incarnation. This truth, infrequently recognized in today’s churches where clapping, hopping, smiling, and colorful banners predominate… is still truth. Joy is ours, and we rejoice at the reality of God-with-us, and the peace that is to come; but we need to remember that there is much that is serious about Christianity.

To be a Christ-follower – to go where He leads today – sometimes obliges us to be grim. Holy, but grim. The stakes are high. His church, our civilization, the heritage we share, our families and children, the well-being of fellow Christians around the world, are in serious jeopardy. I am not being pessimistic; I am being realistic. I read my Bible.

The Slaughter of the Innocents continues today – the evil world’s gift that keeps on taking, to coin a phrase. Yes, we can look to adults who are being persecuted and martyred for their faith, and we can see them as Children of God, which they are. But let us here remember the children. We start (but sadly do not end) with the slaughter that is abortion. Some children can at least protest or cry out, but millions and millions of the innocent unborn are massacred in routine fashion.

The young girls in Nigeria who were kidnapped and violated because they were Christian… schoolchildren who were massacred by Muslims for not following Mohammed… the children in East Asia who are imprisoned or executed when they refuse to renounce Christ. I could detail places and dates, but you see the headlines. Please read the stories, not just the headlines; and pray. May God forgive us as a nation for not condemning our government – our selves – for condoning such atrocities.

Permit me to list a few more latter-day slaughters of innocents in our own land: youngsters reared in a society that virtually outlaws Christian expressions of belief and faith… children no longer allowed publicly to pray or have Bibles in schools… classrooms that discuss bizarre sex and secular scientific theories but ban Christian viewpoints… the bombardment of worldly, even deviant, lifestyles from every corner of the “entertainment” media… the apostasy and heresies of many churches themselves, who ought to be children’s first responders…

I could go on. We all know it. Our children’s minds and souls are threatened with hideous slaughter. And sometimes, for the cause of their consciences and the Kingdom of Christ, they also are physically massacred. In the Year of Our Lord 2014.

Can we sing with the mothers of the Coventry Carol: “Lully lullay, thou little tiny child, By by lully lullay. That woe is me, poor child, for thee; And ever mourn and pray, For thy parting, neither say nor sing, By by lully lullay.” Can we identify? Can we do more, beyond singing and praying?

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A performance of the ancient carol in the ancient chapel of King’s College, Cambridge, England, by a youth choir.

Click: The Coventry Carol

The Other Side of the Holiday

12-19-11

With no holiday in observance of the holidays, the unrelenting march of secularism and stupidity continues. This week, during which occurred the death of post-modernism’s most prominent skeptic of Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, uncountable observers pronounced that at last he shall know whether God is not good (to cite the title of his recent best-seller) or in fact is. Ironically, it is the Advent season – that part of the Church calendar that prepares the Coming of the Lord.

Jesus came for the lost and for sinners. Those secure in their faith, putatively, are less in need of a Savior. That is, Jesus came for all mankind, but no less, we need to remember, for such as Hitchens.

Or for anti-Christian bigots in the government bureaucracy. Also this week was the official prohibition (later rescinded) over members of the United States Congress from writing the phrase “Merry Christmas” in their official, “franked,” mail.

Such things as this might seem new since our childhoods, or even a decade ago; don’t we all say such things? But in fact we should remember – we must remember – that Jesus came to earth, God becoming flesh to dwell amongst us, the Incarnation… and the world hated Him. The world-system tried to prevent His birth; it hounded Mary and Joseph into Egypt; it persecuted Him; it framed Him, tortured Him, and killed Him. From manger to tomb, humanity fiercely rejected Him.

Mary and Joseph were desperate the week Jesus was born, and the manger was a despised and dirty place. How welcome Jesus was – and how the world viewed Him – was the same at His birth and His death. And was prophesied precisely by Isaiah 800 years earlier: “He shall grow up… as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…(Chapter 53:2-4).”

The somber aspects of the Christmas story are many, and might discomfit a Hallmark crèche or a Sunday School pageant, but we ultimately are driven to a fuller appreciation of the Incarnation. The “birth pangs” were not just those of Mary. The Bible (Matthew, Chapter 2) and historical tradition point to King Herod’s obsession with preventing a rival to his authority; and when he was convinced that biblical prophecy was close to fulfillment, he ordered the death of boys less than two years old throughout the land. It has become known as “The Slaughter of the Innocents.”

It was symbolic, of course, of the world-system’s vicious resistance to the very existence of a Messiah. The presence of Jesus is a rebuke to those feel no awareness of their sin and dependency, who elevate Self over Revealed Truth. Christ’s enemies are not trivial nor easily dismissed, no matter how surely to be conquered. The Slaughter of the Innocents – a part of the Christmas story as relevant as the shepherds and angels – reminds us that ugly forces in life tried to keep our Savior from us. And still do.

One of the most haunting of Christmas carols is known as The Coventry Carol. It was written in the 1500s, and its plaintive melody is one of the great flowerings of polyphony over plainsong in Western music. “Lullay, thou little tiny child,” is not a lullaby, and does not refer to the baby Jesus.

The carol is a lament by a mother of one of the babies slaughtered by Herod’s soldiers:

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay, thou little tiny child,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we do sing
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Herod, the king, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child for Thee!
And ever mourn and sigh,
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.

Utterly melancholic, as the harmonies are hauntingly beautiful. It is a fitting creation that must be part of our Christmas observances. Kings are still in their raging, but Jesus cannot be stopped by debates. He has never long been thwarted by bureaucratic rules. He was not even subject to death and the grave.

May a merry, and a profound, celebration be yours this Christmas.

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The Coventry Carol is so named because this song, in Old English first called “Thow Littel Tyne Childe,” had its origins in a “Mystery Play” of Norman France and performed at the Coventry cathedral in Britain. The play was called “The Mystery of the Shearmen and the Tailors,” based on the second chapter of Matthew. The anonymous lyrics are a mother’s lament for her doomed baby boy. All but this song from the mystery play are lost today. The earliest transcription extant is from 1534; the oldest example of its musical setting is from 1591. It still speaks to our hearts today. Performed here by Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Peter Dijkstra, in the
Begijnhofkerk at Sint-Truiden, Flanders.

Click: The Coventry Carol

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... Rick Marschall is the author of 74 books and hundreds of magazine articles in many fields, from popular culture (Bostonia magazine called him "perhaps America's foremost authority on popular culture") to history and criticism; country music; television history; biography; and children's books. He is a former political cartoonist, editor of Marvel Comics, and writer for Disney comics. For 20 years he has been active in the Christian field, writing devotionals and magazine articles; he was co-author of "The Secret Revealed" with Dr Jim Garlow. His biography of Johann Sebastian Bach for the “Christian Encounters” series was published by Thomas Nelson. He currently is writing a biography of the Rev Jimmy Swaggart and his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis. Read More