December 17, 2006

3^rd Sunday of Advent - Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

Preparation for Worship

What sweeter music can we bring

Than a carol, for to sing

The birth of this our heavenly King?

Advent Prayer

O God of every joyful heart, renew your Holy Spirit among us. As we watch and wait, fill our preparations and prayers with deep gladness, which comes from you as a gift. Fill us with joy, and help us to share it with those weighed down with sadness; through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, One God, now and forever. Amen.

The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was first held on Christmas Eve in 1918 at King’s College at Cambridge, England. The service was adapted from an order prepared by the Archbishop of Canterbury for a Christmas Eve service in 1880 by Eric Milner-White, a former army chaplain, who, at age 34, had just been appointed Dean of King’s College.

     With the exception of 1930, the Cambridge Festival has been broadcast annually on the radio since 1928. (In Madison, the Cambridge Festival can be heard live on Wisconsin Public Radio on the morning of Christmas Eve.) Although the anthems and carols change each year, the lessons read from the King James Bible and the prayers used in the service have remained virtually unchanged since 1918. Like Westminster, churches around the world have adapted the Cambridge Festival service for use in worship during the Advent and Christmas seasons.  This year marks Westminster ’s fifth Festival.

     Eric Milner-White describes the Festival service: “Its liturgical order and pattern is the strength of the service; the main theme is the development of the loving purposes of God, from the Creation to the Incarnation, through the windows and words of the Bible: the scriptures, not the carols, are the backbone.” 

     As with all worship services at Westminster , the faithful expression of God’s word is our primary focus.  The music - handmaid of the liturgy - is our response to God’s word proclaimed. Through music dating from the fifteenth to the twenty-first centuries, we have an opportunity today to respond to God’s word by drawing from a diverse and rich heritage of choral repertoire and carols.

What sweeter music can we bring

Than a carol, for to sing

The birth of this our heavenly King?

May the tidings of God’s promises of hope, peace, joy and love fill our hearts so that the star of Bethlehem shines in our lives and world this Christmas season.