Why We Have Tongues: Carols Across the Centuries

Christmas carols! We hear the tunes and our minds conjure up visions of decorated trees, family gatherings, piles of presents. We recall the eager anticipation of Christmas Day we experienced as children, and try to help the children around us to feel the same.

So carols serve to tie generations together. Many of the songs we’ll sing on Sundays this month were sung in my childhood church fifty years ago; were sung in my mother’s childhood church eighty years ago; were sung in her mother’s church 120 years ago; and on back through the decades and centuries. Music and lyrics bind Christians together across time.

Scripture tells us Christians of every time, from every place, of every culture form one Body – we are members one of another. Music reminds us of that truth.

Thus, we aim at DGCC to include music and lyrics both old and new – and we include the year the lyrics were written in the bulletin. These dates remind us: we are part of that One Church that the Spirit is building and perfecting, from every tribe and tongue and nation, from every decade and century and millennium.

So praise God for familiar carols that have been sung regularly for centuries!

But our unity with believers from earlier eras can also prompt us to discover carols that have dropped out of modern hymnals, that are almost never sung today. By digging into the past, we delight that much more in our common worship with brothers and sisters from earlier eras.

Here is a carol you probably have never heard sung: Shepherds Rejoice, by one of the earliest English hymn writers, Isaac Watts. I came across these three-hundred-year-old lyrics in the late 90s, and then was delighted to find that a tune commonly used for this carol right after the American Revolution was composed by William Billings, perhaps the greatest early American composer.

The lyrics are below. You can listen to the first and last stanzas sung to Billings’ tune via this link.

The first two stanzas are spoken by the angel to the shepherds, proclaiming the coming of the King of kings – but this king sits on a humble throne. So the angel invites these humble shepherds to kiss the Son (echoing Psalm 2:12).

The whole company of angels then gives glory to God in the third stanza.

In the fourth stanza, Isaac Watts addresses us: Angels are praising God in song – shouldn’t we men do the same? He then writes one of the greatest lines in all hymnody:

O may we lose these useless tongues
When they forget to praise!

God created us for His glory. He gave us tongues so that we might praise and glorify Him – including in speech, in song, in counsel, and in comfort.

So do so this season! Join Christians across the centuries by praising Him with old carols! And express our culture’s different forms of praise by singing new carols! And then also: praise Him through this new old carol from centuries past, that reminds us why we have tongues.

‘Shepherds, rejoice! lift up your eyes
And send your fears away;
News from the region of the skies:
Salvation’s born today!
Jesus, the God whom angels fear,
Comes down to dwell with you;
Today he makes his entrance here,
But not as monarchs do.

‘No gold, nor purple swaddling bands,
Nor royal shining things;
A manger for his cradle stands,
And holds the King of kings.
Go, shepherds, where the Infant lies,
And see his humble throne;
With tears of joy in all your eyes,
Go, shepherds, kiss the Son.’

Thus Gabriel sang, and straight around
The heavenly armies throng;
They tune their harps to lofty sound
And thus conclude the song:
‘Glory to God that reigns above,
Let peace surround the earth;
Mortals shall know their Maker’s love
At their Redeemer’s birth.’

Lord! and shall angels have their songs
And men no tunes to raise?
O may we lose these useless tongues
When they forget to praise!
‘Glory to God that reigns above,
That pitied us forlorn!’
We join to sing our Maker’s love,
For there’s a Saviour born.

Hear Instruction!

What did you give thanks for this last week? Many of us gave God thanks for our families and friends. But what about for the counselors and guides He has put into your life? Did you thank Him for them?

Some of us did. Some of us readily acknowledge our need for advisors, our need to hear instruction from those who have experience and wisdom. Others of us balk at that: We’re thankful for friends, but we think we can guide ourselves, we think we can make our own decisions.

The book of Proverbs emphasizes time and again our need for guides. Let’s consider a few verses from Chapter 19.

Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future. (Proverbs 19:20)

The implication is: You don’t have wisdom now – or at least not sufficient wisdom to guide yourself through the maze of life’s choices. You need help. God provides His grace to us in part through granting us His church; within the church are those who have walked wisely with Him for more years than we have, as well as those older or younger who have walked similar paths to ours.  We learn wisdom by listening to them, and by sharing life with them.

This chapter then warns of the danger facing the stubborn among us, those who are wise in their own eyes:

Cease to hear instruction, my son, and you will stray from the words of knowledge. (Proverbs 19:27)

Note that this verse is not speaking primarily to those who have never listened to instruction. Such folks have never walked in wisdom and thus can’t stray from the words of knowledge. Rather, Proverbs 19:27 warns those who once listened but no longer do. For we never outgrow our need to gain wisdom from the advice of others. We may have experience and wisdom in one area of life, which is valuable for us personally and helpful to share with others, while simultaneously needing help in other areas of life. God therefore puts us together in the Body of Christ, His Church, so that together we might “spur one another on to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24), so that together we might be built up and “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”  (Ephesians 4:13).

When we quit listening to God’s truth through others, however, we deviate more and more from His path. We may have heard those truths numerous times in the past, but without that regular reminder from His people, we drift away. We close our ears; we are responsible for our wandering.

And yet who do we blame? In such situations, do we take responsibility ourselves?

When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the Lord. (Proverbs 19:3)

Do you know people like this? Those who have been blessed with a witness to the Gospel, who have read God’s Word, who have had every opportunity to follow Him – and yet angrily reject the Jesus of the Bible and try to turn others away from Him? This proverb tells us: Expect to encounter such people. They have ceased to hear instruction. They have strayed from the words of knowledge. In their anger against God they are driving themselves further and further from Him.

Pray that our gracious Lord may have mercy on such folks, granting them humility and repentance before Him. But then all the more, examine your own heart: Are you seeking out instruction? Or are you implicitly acting as if you have arrived, you have become wise, you don’t need instruction?

God has provided us with all that we need to know Him, to follow Him, to grow in Him, to take on His character, and to play our role in helping others to grow in Christ. May we therefore feed on His Word; may we seek out instruction and guidance from those wise in Him; and may He thereby conform us to His likeness more and more through these means, day by day, month by month – so that on Thanksgiving Day 2019 we may have many counselors, advisors, and guides to praise Him for.