On this fourth Sunday of Advent we take a welcome turn away from the themes of apocalyptic endings and wild looking wilderness prophets and focus on what finally feels like an appropriate figure as Christmas nears: Mary, the mother of our Lord. She is a wonderful devotional figure who, down through the centuries, has inspired and fueled the arts: painting, sculpture, poetry, writing, music, and hymnody. In this one humble young woman we find so much worthy to ponder.
And speaking
of pondering, many of you know of my love of Christmas music. Last year I came across a carol called “The
Lily and the Rose”. The lyrics come from
an anonymous 16th century poem that is set to music by Bob Chilcott,
who is described as being “a contemporary hero of British choral music”. As a special treat, our own Al Reese is going
to play this beautiful carol for us this morning. I want you to follow the words (and you may want to watch a video of the carol on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8rYOl_GcUU) and ponder what the lyrics are all about.
I had all that I would.
The bailey beareth the bell away.
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay
The silver is
white, red is the gold.
The robes they
lay in fold.
The bailey beareth the bell away.
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay.
And through the
glass window shines the sun
How could I love
and I so young.
The bailey beareth the bell away.
The lily, the rose, the rose I lay
Well, as you can
tell, the music is beautiful, but the poem itself is, as one critic described,
“elusive and layered.”
At one level, it
appears to be a poem about a young girl who has been given in marriage to an
older man. The maidens come for her on
her wedding day and find her in her mother’s private room (the bower). The ‘bailey’ may be slang for bailiff. What he is taking away is not certain. It could be the girl’s virginity (the white)
– ‘the lily and the rose’ she lays down for her new husband. Well, all of this is well and good, but it
does not strike one as a Christmas carol.
Another
interpretation has to do with an on-going war between England (the Rose) and
France (the Lily). The husband, or
perhaps a more true love, is the victim of war whose dead body is carried away
by the bailey. Still, not much of a
carol.
Chilcott himself
says that the poem describes the Virgin Mary mourning the death of her
son. Bells are rung over the body of a
corpse as it is carried away to a ‘Keep’ known as a ‘bailey’. Another interpretation revolves around the
French word ‘Belle’ – ‘the beautiful one’.
Jesus, the beautiful one, is born away to heaven by the bailiff –
God. In this interpretation, the white silver
refers to Mary’s gift of her virginity to bear God’s son. While it is a marvelous offering, it pales in
comparison to the red gold of Christ’s blood shed for all humanity.
So, why is this a
carol?
Most contemporary
inspirational writing (both poems and lyrics) tends to downplay an ancient
tradition of Mary contemplating her son’s death as she cradles his infant
body. Chilcott’s carol invites us to
imagine Mary in her mid-forties holding the beaten and bloodied body of her
lifeless thirty-year-old son. In that
moment every moment she had with him comes flooding back into her memory. Pondering the angel’s announcement we heard
today and reflecting back to events of his birth, the poem places these words
on Mary’s lips:
How could I love
and I so young.
In her grief,
Mary is able to sense the greater good of her offering, along with the offering
of her son. In that dark moment the sun
shines through the window – an image of hope – and Mary reflects back to her
son’s birth in wonderment of her ability to love and care and bear all she has
from such a young age.
There are three
great scriptural images of Mary: when she hears Gabriel’s announcement and embraces
God’s will, when she gives birth to Jesus, and when she waits at the foot of
Cross. There are other stories of course, but these
three are the most central. Chilcott’s
carol binds together these moments by reflecting on innocence, wonder, and
sorrow. While being elusive and layered,
it invites us to ponder levels of deeper meaning.
What I like most
about the carol is its beautiful melody.
But I also like that it challenges the notion that Christmas and all the
events around it are static; that they are and have been described, quantified,
and understood. There is a temptation to
wrap up the meaning of Christmas into a box as nice and tidy as any present
under a tree and think, “there, that is it.”
But at its heart, the Incarnation is an event wonderful and complex beyond
knowing and beyond description.
Al and I spent
forty-five minutes one afternoon pondering the meaning of this carol. While I don’t know that we found ‘the’
answer, I believe we are richer for the experience. It has reminded me that the Incarnation is a
luminous moment radiating the mysterious glory of God’s infinite Being as it is
cradled in the arms of a young mother.
It is something you experience more than you understand, something you
feel more than you describe, something that moves and molds you more as you try
less to make sense of it.
