Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas (5 page)

O
ddly enough, understanding the original meaning behind this song—one of the most misunderstood carols of Christmas—also helps explain one of the most misused words describing Christmas itself. What Americans hear when they listen to “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is not anything like what the English peasants meant when they first sang this song more than five hundred years ago. Because of how wonderfully it tells the Christmas story, the song earned a prominent spot in Dickens’s classic novel
A Christmas Carol.
If people today fully understood its unique lyrics, most would probably designate “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” as one of the most profound and meaningful hymns in the world.

Like so many early Christmas songs, this carol was written as a direct reaction to the music of the fifteenth-century church. During this period, songs used by organized religion for worship were usually written in Latin and had dark, somber melodies, offering singers and listeners little inspiration or joy.
In fact, though few admitted it in public, most church members secretly disliked the accepted religious songs of the day. Yet the laymen of the time had no power over the way they worshiped and had to accept things as they were.

So, while they continued to go to worship, commoners created their own church music outside the walls of the cathedrals and chapels. In this way, the peasant class led a quiet rebellion against the tone of current religious music by writing religious folk songs that were light, lively, and penned in common language. These Christmas folk songs became the foundation of what are now known as Christmas carols.

“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was the most famous and most loved of all the early carols. Written with an upbeat melody and speaking of the birth of Jesus in joyful terms, the song may have shocked early church leaders, but it charmed their flocks. Not only did they sing to this carol, they danced to it.

The lyrics of the song reveal that the unknown writer knew the story of Jesus’ birth well. He included the high points of the gospel throughout the carol’s verses. The writer also fully understood the power of Christ and what his arrival meant to all who embraced it. In the case of this writer, comprehending the full and personal meaning of the birth of the Son of God brought forth enthusiasm and joy simply not found in any other church songs of the period. Though it might have been rejected by the church leaders, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” better presented the message of the first Christmas and the life of Jesus than did many of the songs used in formal worship of the day.

The carol was sung for hundreds of years before it was finally published in the nineteenth century. By that time—thanks in part to Queen Victoria’s love of such songs—it found favor in the Anglican church. Soon even the protestant English clergy of the Victorian era were enthusiastically teaching “God
Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” to their parishioners. Crossing the ocean to both Europe and America, the carol became popular throughout the Christian world. It is still sung in much the same way as it was five hundred years ago. The only problem is that, as a result of the evolution of the English language, few of today’s singers fully understand the beginning of each of the carol’s many verses.

When people today say “Merry Christmas!” the word
merry
means “happy.” When “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was written,
merry
had a very different meaning. Robin Hood’s Merry Men might have been happy, but the
merry
that described them meant “great” and “mighty.” Thus, in the Middle Ages, a strong army was a merry army, a great singer was a merry singer, and a mighty ruler was a merry ruler.

So when the English carolers of the Victorian era sang the words “merry gentlemen,” they meant great or mighty men. Ye means “you,” but even when translated to “God rest you mighty gentlemen,” the song still makes very little sense. This is due to one last word that has a much different meaning in today’s world, as well as a lost punctuation mark.

The word rest in “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” simply means “keep” or “make.” And to completely uncover the final key to solving this mystery of meaning, a comma needs to be placed after the word
merry.
Therefore, in modern English, the first line of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” should read, “God make you mighty, gentlemen.” Using this translation, the old carol suddenly makes perfect sense, as does the most common saying of the holidays, “Merry Christmas!”

You might wonder why, when most don’t fully understand the real meaning of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” the old carol has remained popular. The world’s love for this song is probably due to its upbeat melody paired with the telling of the most upbeat story the world has ever known. Those who sing it naturally get caught up in the celebratory mood of the message, embracing the same emotions that those first to visit the baby Jesus must have felt. As the angel told the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy.” That joy and the power of faith can be felt and experienced in every note and word of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” You just have to know how to translate the words into the language of the day in order to have a very “Mighty Christmas!”

O
ne of the most uplifting of the ancient carols, “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” is the product of two men who were persecuted for their religious convictions, endured great personal hardships, suffered through lingering illness, and died in relative obscurity, never accepted by the church they loved. Though both vowed to serve the Lord and take the message of salvation to a lost world, both probably believed they had accomplished little of lasting value as they struggled to follow their call. For Heinrich Suso and John Mason Neale, nothing could have been farther from the truth.

Heinrich Suso was born in 1295, the son of a German nobleman. Educated at the best schools, pampered in luxury, Heinrich was largely insulated from a world where only a precious few did more than endure each passing day. Poverty and disease were everywhere. The aptly named Dark Age was a time of cruelty, prejudice, and despair. A separation of people into social classes meant the very small, elite branch had almost everything and the rest of society had nothing.
Sadly, there was no movement between classes; if you were born without means, you were doomed to live and die that way. And if you were born poor, for every laugh there were a thousand cries.

Suso, who could have risen through his family ranks to a ruling status in his native land, instead chose to be a servant. Accepting a call to the priesthood, he became a Dominican monk. If all he had done was serve in a parish, he would have probably remained unknown. Yet in 1326, the priest felt moved to write the
Little Book of Truth,
a vibrant defense of progressive thinking in the church. In his work, Suso justified taking the gospel and opening it in a way that would bring hope, compassion, and understanding to the common people. But instead of being held up as a man who truly understood the message that Jesus had brought to the earth, the priest was tried for heresy.

Rather than still his voice, Suso felt a call to continue what he saw as a divine war. A year later, the unrepentant monk continued his battle with figures of authority by penning the
Little Book of Eternal Wisdom.
Unlike most religious books of the time, this one was essentially a practical work written in simple language. It wasn’t for clerics or professors, it was for the common people. This was a radical concept. Who would dare think that simple people would have any interest in understanding God and the message he brought to the world in the form of Christ?

Unable to control the priest and afraid that his radical thinking might cause a revolt, in 1329 the Pope condemned Suso. Eventually the German king exiled him. Suso fled to Switzerland. For a man born of noble blood, exile was the ultimate humiliation. Over the course of the next few years, the wellmeaning priest suffered vicious persecution and slander. Yet
even in the face of death threats, he refused to turn his back on the church, his calling, or his desire to share the gospel with the masses.

Wanting to bring joy to the practice of the Christian faith, Suso preached of the happiness he found in walking with God. Many wondered how such a reviled man could find such blessings in life. He explained that God gave him peace and inspiration during every waking hour, and even while he rested. It was during the latter that the priest was given a vehicle to carry his message to the people.

One night, Suso found himself immersed in a dream so real that he became a part of it. In his dream, the priest saw countless angels not only singing, but dancing. He listened as they sang, and eventually joined with them in “an ecstatic dance.” When he awoke, he not only remembered the dream in vivid detail, but also recalled the words and the music. Feeling led by divine guidance, Suso picked up a quill and ink and recorded “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” to paper. Until his death in 1366, he continued to reach the common man with this song and its message.

“Good Christian Men, Rejoice” was as radical a hymn as Suso’s thinking was progressive. Christian music of that era was usually solemn, based totally on Scripture, and never written in the common language. Suso had broken all three rules. His song embraced the joy of being a believer and enjoined a spirit whose meaning any child could understand. Although it was not immediately accepted by the church itself, the German people quickly and enthusiastically took the song to heart. They believed that just as Suso had been a priest to the common people, his song was a song for them as well.

It would be more than 150 years before the carol inspired by a priest’s dream found its way into print, but just because it
wasn’t published didn’t mean that the song didn’t inspire other writers in Germany—including Martin Luther—to compose hymns in the common language for the common people. Suso’s radical thinking became part of the primary foundation for a revolution in the way most people viewed their relationship with Christ. Even the Catholic church would come to realize that the priest had been right, and in 1831 the Pope canonized Heinrich Suso.

James Mason Neale, a Church of England priest, hymn writer, and scholar whose work included “All Glory, Laud and Honor,” was another free thinker impressed with Suso’s ideas and song. It is understandable that Neale was deeply moved by the song’s attempt to bring the joy of salvation to the common man. In a world filled with sadness, he wanted everyone to know the joy that came when Christ entered a believer’s heart. Sadly, in the mid–1800s, Neale’s views of an exuberant faith were viewed as radical.

He was exiled to a pastorate far from his native England and even stoned and beaten by a crowd once for his beliefs. Although ridiculed by the leadership of his own denomination, Neale still sought out ways to reach the lost and forgotten. In a radical move for a priest in the Church of England, and over the objections of his superiors, Neale began an order of women, the Sisterhood of St. Margaret, to feed the poor, take care of orphaned children, and minister to prostitutes. Though this group would touch tens of thousands, it
brought death threats to Neale and the women who served in the Sisterhood. Nevertheless, in 1853 an English publisher released Neale’s English translation of “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” in
Carols for Christmastide.
This book would pave the way for the song to be taken to the world.

By 1900, “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” had become one of the most popular carols in both America and Europe. A century later, it is still one of the most beloved Christmas songs in the world.

In spite of its popularity, “Good Christian Men, Rejoice” is rarely performed by huge choirs or in the best concert halls and cathedrals. The fact that the classical crowd has largely overlooked this song would probably please Hcinrich Suso and John Mason Neale. After all, both men had suffered shame and ridicule because of their efforts to spread the Good News to the very people Christ spoke of during his own life on earth—“the least of these.”