The Oldest Christmas Carol

Have you clopped along the cobbled streets of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, one of Germany's oldest and best-preserved medieval towns, where it feels like Christmas all year? This time-capsule of days gone by, tracing back to the 10th century, was once home to a handsome nutcracker that I took back to the States with me in August of 1989. Yes, that was a long time ago. The Berlin Wall was just a couple of months away from coming down. For those of us who heard President Ronald Reagan say some of history's most famous words, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" those were thrilling times. The cry for freedom rippled around the world, despite its tragic suppression several months earlier in Tiananmen Square, where student-led protests against Chinese dictatorship resulted in horrifically brutal military massacre. But what does any of this have to do with Christmas?

If you have scanned the lyrics of classic Christmas carols recently or paid attention to them on your favorite Christmas CDs, you are aware that the message of Christmas--the real message, that is--is inextricably linked with deliverance from oppression. In fact, if you really want to stir things up politically, go back to square one of why Jesus came. Oh, He came to save us from our sins, or to make our lives bearable, people will say with a vague sense of conviction. Indeed, He did, but the real Jesus is likely to be swaddled these days in a muddle of sentiment and materialism--that's if He is even remembered at all. But the Christmas carols tell very clearly why Jesus came. And His reasons are ultimately every bit as political as they are spiritual, for politics in its purest form cannot be separated from daily life. Certainly, we will not see political fulfillment of our Savior's power until He comes again, but many of the Christmas carols point to His Second Advent, too.

Suppose someone asked you if you could name the oldest Christmas carol. What would you say? This question came to my mind this past week, not because I was thinking specifically about Christmas, but because I stumbled onto a felicitous discovery as a result of writing last week's blogpost. I had a hunch what the answer might be: I wondered if the oldest Christmas carol is actually in the Bible. My digging did not leave me disappointed. Before exploring the answer, let's do a little review of some of the greatest Christmas carols. I often wonder if these wonderful songs will be lost entirely to future generations, along with those glorious hymns hiding in plain sight in those seldom-opened hymnals still peeking out of some churches' pew racks.

Let's start with some of the classics dating back to the 1600s. "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night," "O Come, All Ye Faithful," "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen," and Handel's Messiah echo days of Renaissance and Enlightenment passion for the celebration of Christmas. But these songs, as old as they seem to us now, as if permanently embedded in the collective consciousness, are by no means the earliest Christmas songs. Even earlier than these are songs like "Ding Dong Merrily on High," from the 1500s, and "Good King Wenceslas," dating back to the 1200s. Songs like this awaken our imaginations of medieval castles, outlandish costumes, and lavish feasts. Songs like this, as traditional as they may seem, may capture the Christmas spirit, but they do not necessarily capture the true meaning of why Jesus came.

If we fast forward to the Victorian era, we find a burst of the carols we think of most today when we picture a vintage Christmas. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, complete with Scrooge, looms over our associations of Christmas with cobblestoned streets, carolers, gas lamps, shaped sugar cookies, and evergreen swags. Amid its obvious festivities and traditions, this era found a deeper connection to the true meaning of Christmas than did some of the medieval folk artists. We can name one after another of the great carols from this era and find in all of them correct theology and sound doctrine. "Joy to the World," " Silent Night," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "We Three Kings," "Away in a Manger," and even "Jingle Bells" have survived virtually untouched to this day, even though the story of the typical Christmas carol involves many revisions and evolutions.

These songs hint at justice and righteousness, but even more vividly do we hear this message in abolitionist Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's beloved carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," written out of his broken heart amid war-torn America in 1863. With what conviction can we even now join in to sing his famous words: "And in despair I bowed my head: 'There is no peace on earth,' I said, 'For hate is strong, and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men.'" Even more explicit are the timeless lyrics of "O Holy Night," written a generation earlier in 1847, by French poet Placide Cappeau. What carol combines reverence and revolution with greater beauty than this one, prophesying with Biblical fervor, "Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother, and in His Name all oppression shall cease"? Both of these carols carry a political and social message, seeing in Christmas the archetype of freedom for all. And who doesn't love singing "Go Tell It on the Mountain"? This slave spiritual surviving in oral tradition but perhaps written down in 1865 broadcasts Christmas's simplest message: "Jesus Christ is born!"

Christmas has become, across the centuries, every Judeo-Christian culture's beacon of hope for a dark world. But none of the songs above can boast of being the earliest to shine this light. Arguably the oldest Christmas carol outside of the Bible is the poem set to medieval plainchant 1500 years ago. "Of The Father's Love Begotten," written by Roman poet Aurelius Prudentius in the fourth century, is truly the oldest-surviving Christmas carol whose tune and lyrics are both still performed today. This poem was written to combat heresy and arose out of the core teachings of the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. Its melody captures the mystery of the Incarnation with unforgettably haunting simplicity. Here are two different renditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14KJY0Z_9O4 or you may prefer this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCzftU79qJg. This carol isn't often found in hymnals of the mid-1900s, but the words are powerful: https://hymnary.org/text/of_the_fathers_love_begotten The fact that this carol is the earliest known outside of the Bible--written over 300 years after the birth of Christ--reflects the early Christians' resistance to celebrating Christmas. Pope Julius I was the first to establish the celebration of Christmas on December 25th, in 336 A. D.

Now let's fast forward several hundred years to look at one more very old carol before examining truly the oldest one. Perhaps the most arrestingly beautiful Christmas carol of all time and one which retains the original holy night's purest message, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" arises like the star of Bethlehem from the medieval darkness of the eighth and ninth centuries as a monastic chant, with Latin words evolving in the 12th century. This carol deserves study in its own right as a mystical blend of political and spiritual freedoms, invoking our Redeemer to "ransom captive Israel." It uses Zacharias's prophetic words from Luke 1:78-79, referring to the Messiah as the "Dayspring" from on High, who "has visited us, to give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." This carol shows our Lord as the Dawn of a New Day who will "disperse the gloomy clouds of night." The authors of this great carol are unknown, although John Mason Neale translated it in 1851 with the words we know today. Carols like this one, perhaps more than any other, give us the visceral sense of days gone by, preserving the actual sounds of a generation's plaintive voice calling across a turbulent millennium for their Messiah to come again.

This brings us truly to the oldest Christmas carol, which is also literally the first: not the song of the angelic host on that silent, holy night, but the song of Mary herself when her cousin Elisabeth greets her prophetically in Luke 1:42-45. Although the tune to these words has long since been lost, if, indeed, these words carried a tune in the traditional sense to begin with, Mary's song follows the lyrical pattern common to Hebrew songs as found in the Psalms. With or without a tune, Mary's utterance is indeed a song and is widely considered the first Christmas carol. Called the Magnificat, it has often been put to music and is commonly still sung today. As old as Mary's song is now--more than 2000 years old--its message is even older, reaching back not only 1500 years earlier to songs of deliverance such as Miriam's after Israel crossed the Red Sea (Exodus 15:21; incidentally, "Mary" is the English translation of the Hebrew name, "Miriam"), but echoing Elohim's promise to Eve in Genesis 3:15, that the seed of "the woman" would crush the serpent's head. Well does Mary understand the Messianic promises of the ages, and how she comes to grasp the reality that she herself is "the woman" is a thrilling story indeed.

Truly, the context of Mary's song is in itself amazing. Mary had been told a short time earlier by the angel Gabriel that she would conceive and bear a son by the Holy Spirit, Who would overshadow her. Amid Mary's bewilderment, Gabriel had told her that her cousin Elisabeth was now six months with child. Emboldened by this miraculous news, this timid young virgin obediently embraced her destiny: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord: be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38). Knowing her cousin's overwhelming joy at conceiving the forerunner to Christ Himself after long years of barrenness, Mary rushes off to the hill country to a city of Judah to see Elisabeth and to share her own news. But Elisabeth beats her to it: she already knows. How does she know? The very moment Mary greets her, Elisabeth's son John leaps for joy in her womb. Elisabeth, full of the Holy Spirit, salutes Mary with the greatest greeting a woman could receive as "the mother of my Lord."

How astounded Mary must have been to hear these prophetic words from Elisabeth's lips. Surely, Mary could not have appeared to be with child, so soon after the angel's great announcement. Only the Holy Spirit had revealed to Elisabeth that Mary was carrying the Messiah. Not as if Mary had any doubt, Elisabeth's testimony nevertheless carries the legal weight of Old Testament law, that "at the mouth of two witnesses . . . shall the matter be established" (Deuteronomy 19:15). To see how God Himself provides ample witness to His Words all throughout Scripture is a fascinating study in itself. Elisabeth's greeting serves as the second witness to Mary's destiny, Gabriel's being the first, that "with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37). As if she had heard Gabriel's words herself, Elisabeth delivers some of the most beautiful testimony in the entire Bible: "And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord" (Luke 1:45). Can we even begin to imagine the unrestrained joy of these two women who are caught up in spontaneous, self-effacing worship of the Lord?

From this divine moment overflows Mary's Magnificat, with themes straight out of not only Eve's promise and Miriam's victory but especially out of Hannah's song uttered at the dedication of Samuel 1,000 years earlier. Hannah's song captures the prayer of the ages--for deliverance from all oppression, political and personal. The fact that Mary's song so closely parallels Hannah's reveals that the Lord had gone before her, preparing her mind and heart with an intimate view of redemption of which she was scarcely conscious until the divine moment arrived. Although Mary most likely could not read as a Jewish girl receiving minimal formal schooling, she was by no means Biblically illiterate. Her song's links to Hannah's prayer are remarkable and are certainly no coincidence. No doubt her uncanny affinity with Hannah's words linked not only with her own slumbering destiny but also with empathy for her cousin Elisabeth's barrenness, which paralleled Hannah's.

Mary's carol, sung several months before the first "Christmas," mirrors Hannah's prayer in all the same themes and with both political and personal fervor: the exaltation of the lowly, the reversal of the mighty, the holiness of the Lord, the rebuking of pride, the feeding of the hungry, the giving of strength to the stumbling, and, most of all, the coming of the Savior. Hannah's song, itself a prayer, found in I Samuel 2:1-10, expresses the promises which the Messiah alone can fulfill, although her own son Samuel, as the last of the judges and the first of the prophets, fulfills several of these prophecies in part by anointing David as king. Mary's song, found in Luke 1:46-55, is not only the fulfillment of Hannah's song but carries with it a deeper personal connection of everlasting blessedness. Both women's prayers celebrate in song the final political and spiritual victory of the coming Messiah over all of Satan's reign on earth. Most thrilling of all is that Hannah, when saying, "I rejoice in Your salvation," (I Samuel 2:1) uses the word "Yeshuah," which is the Hebrew word for Jesus. She is literally saying, "I rejoice in Your Jesus."

We see in Mary's personalization and fulfillment of Hannah's prayer how the Lord has shown His mercy "on those who fear Him from generation to generation." Our Lord has not forgotten us, and the words that the Holy Spirit gave Elisabeth to give to Mary were indeed fulfilled: there was indeed a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord. And in like manner, there will indeed be a performance of those things the Lord Himself has told His children regarding His return. The best part about Christmas is that Jesus is coming again, and one day you and I will sing the song of the ages with Mary, Hannah, Elisabeth, and John, who wrote the last words of Revelation, "He which testifies these things says, 'Surely I come quickly.' Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).

Meanwhile, may Messiah truly come to every aching heart this Christmas! Let us lift our voices with Mary's exultation and believe in our hearts Elisabeth's exhortation that cued Mary's performance of earth's first Christmas carol. Bessie Porter has beautifully adapted Elisabeth's words to poetry:

There shall be a performance of those things

That loving heart hath waited long to see;

Those words shall be fulfilled to which she clings,

Because her God hath promised faithfully;

And, knowing Him, she ne’er can doubt His Word;

“He speaks and it is done.” The mighty Lord!

There shall be a performance of those things,

O burdened heart, rest ever in His care;

In quietness beneath His shadowing wings

Await the answer to thy longing prayer.

When thou hast “cast thy care,” the heart then sings,

There shall be a performance of those things.

There shall be a performance of those things,

O tired heart, believe and wait and pray;

At eventide the peaceful vesper rings,

Though cloud and rain and storm have filled the day.

Faith pierces through the mist of doubt that bars

The coming night sometimes, and finds the stars.

There shall be a performance of those things,

O trusting heart, the Lord to thee hath told;

Let Faith and Hope arise, and plume their wings,

And soar towards the sunrise clouds of gold;

The portals of the rosy dawn swing wide,

Revealing joys the darkening night did hide.