The Miracle of the Christmas Carols
The story I'm 'bout to tell y'all is more or less true -- I may be fancying it up a bit to add a little drama, so bear with me here.
The story I'm 'bout to tell y'all is more or less true -- I may be fancying it up a bit to add a little drama, so bear with me here.
Once upon a time (it doesn't matter when), there was a little church (it doesn't matter where) putting on a Christmas pageant. Pastor said to the choir at the end of the last choir practice before the pageant, "Right after little Sarah reads the verse in Luke 2 about the angels singing, I want y'all to sing that song about angels". Now let me back up a sec and explain about the choir in this little church -- it was made up of Barry and Alma Miller, who sang the low parts (bass and alto), and Ted and Sophie Johnson, who sang the high parts (tenor and soprano). The Millers and the Johnsons didn't get along very well, because the Millers were a little jealous that the good parts always went to the Johnsons, and the Johnsons were a little jealous that the Millers were juuuust a little better at reading music and all that theoretical stuff. Anyway, the choir nodded their heads to the pastor, who thought that they would put aside their differences and get the song ready that he had in mind.
Well, he couldn't've been more wrong -- the Millers went home right away and hatched a plan to turn the song into a duet, and the Johnsons forgot all about the pastor's request. So when the pageant rolled around, sure enough, little Sarah read her verse in Luke 2 about the angels singing, and the pastor stage whispered to the choir, "Here's where you sing that song about angels!" Ted and Sophie went wide-eyed as they remembered that they had been asked, but they didn't have anything ready, so Barry and Alma started right in singing "Angels From the Realms of Glory". Thing was, they pitched it down in the key of G instead of the B flat in the hymnal just so it'd be too low for Sophie to sing it. The Millers got about half way through the first verse, and the pastor stage whispered, "That wasn't the song I meant!" Cheered up by the pastor's put-down of the Millers, when the verse came to an end, Sophie started singing "Angels We Have Heard on High" just so she could sing the "GLOOOOORIA" part. That didn't stop those stubborn Millers, though; they launched right into the second verse of their hymn and paid no attention to the other singer. Just as Sophie got to the "GLOOOOORIA" part of her hymn, the pastor stage whispered, "I meant 'Hark the Herald', guys!" And Sophie frowned and somehow turned her ending into "glory to the newborn king". Ted then took the cue and started singing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing", but the rest of the choir kept singing the hymns they had already picked.
So, then, folks, this was the miracle of the Christmas Carols -- there were 4 people singing 3 different Christmas carols, and somehow it all worked! Ted finished the first verse of "Hark the Herald" and went on to the second verse while Sophie sang the third and last verse of "Angels We Have Heard on High" and the Millers sang the fourth and last verse of "Angels From the Realms of Glory", and for once, they actually listened to one another and were amazed at what had happened.
Now, I'd like to end the story with some kind of moral or wrap it up with "and they lived happily ever after", but actually, the Millers and the Johnsons never did become the best of friends; they just sort of tolerated each other a little better after that special Christmas pageant, and they never sang those carols together again. Is that enough for y'all? Music can do some miraculous things, and in this case, maybe it was just a little miracle that four people got a little bit closer because of the music they made together in that little church once upon a time.
