[10] 96 Christians, Awake, Salute the Happy Morn

‘Christians, awake, salute the happy morn
Whereon the Saviour of the world was born;
Rise to adore the mystery of love,
Which hosts of angels chanted from above;
With them the joyful tidings first begun
Of God incarnate and the Virgin’s Son.’

Every morning starts the same. The very real need for tea dictates the first five minutes of any day, for me at least. Alarm rings, stairs creak, door squeaks, I curse as my bare feet touch the cold linoleum, click, wait, bubble, rush, glug, tinkle, done. Then and only then can the morning continue. Tea then day. That’s how it must be.

In other news, I hate this carol. If I’m playing in church and I see number 96 on the order of service, a certain feeling of dread envelops me. The metre is long and cumbersome (ten syllables per line!), the AABBCC rhyme structure is incredibly twee, there are 6 lines per verse (which makes no proportional sense) and to top it all off, there are six whole verses! Any congregation starting off with the best of intentions will be flagging by the midpoint, only to be lifted half-heartedly to make an attempt at a big finish in verse 6. In my experience, it’s a carol that has the opposite effect to the one intended: it leaves you feeling demoralised, tired and thoroughly turned-off for the rest of the service. It’s a shame, because the first verse contains a bright and fresh message.

Anyone who has lived with me or seen me in a 9:15 seminar will know that I am not an early-riser, nor am I a morning person. My waking-up routine involves repetitious mashing of the ‘snooze’ button, a quick gulp of hastily made tea, then hot-footing it to campus, where I can only really engage with lessons after the eleven o’clock coffee break. This carol demands a different approach to waking up.

The words are designed as a bucket of water to throw over a sleepy congregation. It gives us four verbs which are directed at us Christians as commands: ‘awake’, ‘salute’, ‘rise’ and ‘adore’. These are much better than ‘groan’, ‘squint’, ‘yawn’ and ‘drink tea’. How great it would be to get up in order to salute and adore ‘the mystery of love’. How glorious it would be to wake up with worship on our hearts and carols on our tongues!

I, for one, am off to write out this verse and stick it on the kettle. Thanks be to God!