Lessons and Carols

The nine lessons and carols format was introduced in the Anglican Church in 1880 and has become one of the most enduring traditions of how Christians walk through the Scriptures to “look for Jesus” at Christmastime. But regardless of its denominational backgrounds, it is helpful because:

it helps us with reading Scripture, esp the Old Testament.
it’s a community effort, and takes attention away from any one individual and brings it to the gathering.
it focuses on the person of Jesus throughout the history of redemption leading up to His birth, or it helps explain the real whole story of Christmas.
it is comprehensive in how it incorporates prophecy with narrative and law with gospel, weaving all of them into one story.
it uses songs to express how we feel and should respond using the best theological language in good carols and hymns.

A Christ-centred reading of Scripture

Here are two points that undergird why we read through a range of Scripture. We want to approach His Word with a Christ-centred reading of Scripture. In doing so, we treat the Bible as one story with one climatic moment: the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth (who he is and what he came to do). The Bible consists of 66 books, 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. These books are from different genres such as historical narrative, law, wisdom, poetry, prophecy and apocalyptic, the gospels, and epistles. Even at Christmas, it is important not to forget the Bible’s “big story.” Specifically, it is crucial to understand that the whole Bible is about Jesus Christ—who he is and what he came to do. The Old Testament anticipates Jesus and the New Testament reveals Jesus. Every book contributes to the Bible’s message of a holy God’s saving mercy in Jesus Christ.

This also means that each smaller story individually leads to or are fulfilled in the person of Christ. While not every Old Testament passage explicitly anticipates Christ, every text does move the story forward. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees, devoted students of Scripture, for their failure to see him throughout the Old Testament: “You search the Scriptures,” Jesus said, “because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me” (John 5:39).

What is this story? The themes of this story line are creation, the fall, redemption, and restoration. Most of the Bible is given to unfolding the 3rd of these, the great drama of redemption through Jesus Christ. But this redemption is set against the backdrop of creation and the fall, and this redemption will find its final completion in restoration and final judgment, when the original creation is restored to what it was originally intended to be. The Old Testament develops this story line, preparing for Jesus, and the New Testament fulfills this story line, portraying Jesus. The person and work of Christ, therefore, is what unites the entire Bible.

This year, we read from and sang the following:

OT: Anticipating Christ

(1) Gen 3:8-15, 17-19 — The curse of sin and the seed of the woman promise

Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

(2) Gen 22:15-18 — Abraham offering his son and God’s covenantal promise

Every Promise

(3) Isaiah 9:2, 6-7 — The prophesied virgin conceiving one who will reign

He Who is Mighty

(4) Micah 5:2-4 — The prophecy of Bethlehem

O Little Town of Bethlehem

NT: Revealing Christ

(5) Matthew 1:18-23 — The account of Jesus’s birth