Angels We Have Heard On High

December 12, 2013
"Angels We Have Heard On High"

My prevailing memory of this song is a debate with the director of a charming Christmas show that features the appearance of the angel to the shepherds.  He was complaining that the first verse actually sounded a little funny coming from the angel herself.  I recommended he look at the later verses, thinking of the third verse:

Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing
Come adore on bended knee
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.

Instead, he went with:

Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be,
Which inspire your heavenly song?

This was delivered to three sleeping shepherds, by the way.

Looking at it today (looking for the first time because this morning I had to rush to school and pick a song I already know well), I love the semi-conversational nature of it.  If the fourth verse were in response to the shepherds, it would be a proper conversation.  Instead, there is just the lone second verse asking the shepherds what gives and the rest is their words:

Angels we have heard on high!
Sweetly singing o'er the plains
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains!

Actually, now I look at it, "Shepherds, why this jubilee?" seems a bit daft after all of that amazement.  Of course, the verse goes on to ask what the celebration is for -- which is great.  The person or persons responding does not doubt their rather fantastical story of angels singing and mountains replying in the middle of nowhere Bethlehem of all places, just asks what the wonderful news is.

I bet it was something in the shepherds' eyes.  I bet their look was new.  I bet they were changed men.

I would have liked to see the responder's reaction to first the tale of the birth of the Messiah and then the follow up explanation that he was being laid in a feeding trough for animals.  In excelsis Deo.

But as blessed as the shepherds are, I think I am more impressed by whoever answers them.  That is what I want to strive to be -- someone who doesn't question other people's joys and glories but asks to share them instantly.  I want to be someone who does not doubt the awe and wonder of the world as other people see it.

I want to shed the skepticism and cynicism I have acquired in my life (admittedly less than many).  I want to believe instinctively.

But more than that, I want my instinct to be to share others' joy rather than covet it or dismiss it as something I have no part in.  The responder to the shepherds could have gone about their own business, but they didn't.  They saw joy, and they wanted to take part.  So they asked to share it, and they learned of the great Good News of their or any time.

Communities of love and faith however small or brief, I so often forget their importance.