2012 Carol Service
Christ Church Gipsy Hill, 16 December 2012
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.
(William Shakespeare - The Tempest)
Welcome to our Carol Service this evening. This is a time to celebrate the coming of Jesus - the eternal story and the human story drawn together in the incarnation.
As we to join our own stories with God’s eternal story tonight, we take inspiration from some of the human stories of the past year.
2012 marks the 150th anniversary of the original church in Gipsy Hill. This evening, we will hear a contemporary account of carol singing in Victorian Upper Norwood, and think about how we continue that story of seeking God’s kingdom in Gipsy Hill.
2012 also saw the world come to London during the Olympic games. We saw men and women achieve remarkable feats of courage and cooperation, an inspiring example of what peace and goodwill on Earth can look like.
Christmas is a time of visions of angels, and straw in a stable; loud rejoicing and quiet reflection; miracles and mince pies - Heaven in ordinary.
We hope that this evening will give each of us a glimpse of God’s riches in our midst, and wish you a very Happy Christmas.
Opening:
(child's voice)
And did those feet in ancient time.
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined.
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
The angel and the girl are met
Earth was the only meeting place.
For the embodied never yet
Travelled beyond the shore of space.
The eternal spirits in freedom go.
See, they have come together, see,
While the destroying minutes flow,
Each reflects the other's face
Till heaven in hers and earth in his
Shine steady there. He's come to her
From far beyond the farthest star,
Feathered through time. Immediacy
Of strangest strangeness is the bliss
That from their limbs all movement takes.
Yet the increasing rapture brings
So great a wonder that it makess
Each feather tremble on his wings
Outside the window footsteps fall
Into the ordinary day
And with the sun along the wall
Pursue their unreturning way
Sound's perpetual roundabout
Rolls its numbered octaves out
And hoarsely grinds its battered tune
But through the endless afternoon
These neither speak nor movement make.
But stare into their deepening trance
As if their grace would never break.
And the rain tossed about us, in the garden of the world,
But a flame arrives to guide us, cast in gold between the anvils of the stars
Watch you over all your children in the rain, and the streets where I remember,
Where the fire lights are candle souls again.
Affirming flame, hear me call.
Through the darkness, hear it call to us all.
And stir again.
This beating heart, come to care.
And the light drive out our fears, And the joy drive out our pain,
And the nations come to greet us, waving open arms like waves of golden corn.
Ever hear us, oh the spirit of the world. May your light be ever near us,
Always lead us from the dark, though we may fall.
We will fly.
And with love, ever call.
Music: Caliban’s Dream (Underworld)
(child's voice)