Good Christian Men Rejoice -
Philippians 4:4 - Rejoice in the Lord always. I
will say it again: Rejoice!
Today we have another Christmas Carol where we cannot trace
the original author. We do know that it
is a macaronic carol which means it was written while eating macaroni. You should try it sometime – macaroni does
get the inspiration going. You too could
write a carol sung 100’s of years from now!
Just joking. A macaronic carol
means that it was translated from Latin and the original language. They usually were upbeat tunes that begged
for extra instrumentation like percussion and they lent themselves easily to
dancing. For this reason, macaronic
carols were not sung in the medieval Catholic church. Baptists didn’t like the dancing either. Just kidding my dear Baptists. I think someone put something in my coffee
this morning.
The fact that this wasn’t sung in church did not keep the
song from being sung. It became what is
called a “folk carol,” meaning it was sung in celebrations of more a civic or
secular nature. That is heartening to me
because the carol is obviously about the birth of Christ and not one of the
more secular aspects that were and still are popular in most English
cultures.
A couple of other notes of interest about this Carol should
be noted. First, the “men” in the first line has fallen out of favor now in the
age of more inclusive language. For that
reason, many modern hymnals have changed it to “friends,” “all” or folk.” The interesting thing about this is that the
original Latin version of this song did not even have a reference to
“men.” The literal translation of the
Latin first line is “in sweet jubilation.”
In this case the early Catholics were more “politically correct” than
their medieval counterparts. Go figure.
The other interesting feature of this hymn something I
remember thinking was odd when I sung this growing up. The “News, News” part is not in keeping with
the meter of the rest of the song.
Musically, it doesn’t fit. I
wouldn’t have said it that way growing up because I didn’t know what musical
meter was (and largely still don’t) but
I knew it was weird. Turns out, these
notes were added on accident by someone who was transcribing the music for
Neale, (the English translator). Instead
of having it done again, Neale added the lyrics to match the accidentally added
notes. The rest, as they say, is history
(or, as I call it, weird).
In any case, we have a fun carol that begs for folk
instrumentation and makes you want to dance – a true example of music for the
masses (but not for mass). It actually commands us to rejoice! If any event should be worthy of such
revelry, it has to be the birth of Christ.
So sing and dance to this folk carol today – I double-dog dare you – and
see if it doesn’t lift your spirit.
Question: Has forcing
yourself to do something festive (even when you weren’t feeling it) every
actually made you feel more festive?
Prayer: Jesus, as we look
forward to celebrating your birth at our services tonight, may you lift our
spirits and bring us the good “news, news.”
Prayer Focus: Take
some extra time to pray for yourself today – especially for what you are
feeling you need most from God right now.
Good Christian Men, Rejoice – King's College Choir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4yYb6yCNws
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