Year C: Music for the Second Sunday of Christmas January 2, 2022

 

OPENING VOLUNTARY Prelude on “Divinum mysterium”

Wilbur Held, 1914-2015

This voluntary is based on a plainchant tune from the 13^th century. Plainchant melodies are written in a flowing style that may have rhythmic pulses, but does not have a meter. (You can’t count 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.) Plainchant was the primary expression of the church’s song and existed long before modern hymns came on the scene.

“Divinum mysterium” comes back in the service as the tune for the Hymn of the Day.

 

GATHERING HYMN O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste fideles)
ELW 283

Nativity window at Trinity Lutheran Church
Jacksonville, Florida

HYMN OF THE DAY In a Deep, Unbounded Darkness (Divinum mysterium)

This text that originated as the theme song for a Bible study institute in China is a meditation on the eternal nature of God. Like the hymn “Of the Father’s love begotten,” with which this tune is often paired, we begin in the time before creation when God claimed us. After praising God’s steadfastness in stanza two, our joy overflows at the incarnation in stanza three. Finally, stanza four returns us to the realm of eternity, joining together the beginning and final chapters of the Bible by connecting references to stories from Genesis and Exodus with the wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation. (from Sundays and Seasons)

Christ with the Eucharist
Vicente Juan Masip
16th century

COMMUNION HYMN What Feast of Love (Greensleeves)

ELW 487
It might be helpful to look at this hymn as 3 questions with 3 answers.
Q: What feast of love is offered here. . .?
A: This, this is Christ the king. . .

Paired with the English ballad Greensleeves, it keeps us clearly still in the mindset of Christmas – something the author, Delores Dufner, did on purpose! She says, “By using this melody already associated with the Christmas mystery, I wanted my text to show the close relationship between the historical gift of Godself in the Incarnation, and Christ’s ongoing gift of self in the scriptural word and in the Eucharistic bread and wine.”

The Christmas trees at my house are adorned with angels.

SENDING HYMN Let All Together Praise Our God (Lobt Gott, ihr Christen)
ELW 287

 

CLOSING VOLUNTARY O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste fideles)

setting, Sigvart A. Hofland

Sigvart Hofland was born in Bergen, Norway in 1889 and came to the United States as a teenager. In addition to being a composer, he taught at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

sources:
Wikipedia
nordic.luther.edu
Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship
sundaysandseasons.com
Masip painting: By Juan de Juanes - The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=153313