At Sewanee, Lessons and Carols services ground choral students in faith

[Episcopal News Service] The student body at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, is religiously diverse, with Episcopalians making up about 20%, but the Episcopal institution holds on to its Anglican identity through its campus traditions, including its popular annual Lessons and Carols services during Advent.

“I think it’s really beautiful that people from all different walks of life can come to Lessons and Carols and, whether they’re religious or not, can feel peace and grounded-ness in the holiday season,” Hattie Robbins, a senior English and environmental sciences student from Chicago, Illinois, told Episcopal News Service. She serves as vice president of Sewanee’s 70-member University Choir.

At least 3,000 students, faculty, staff and community members are expected to attend Sewanee’s in-person three Lessons and Carols services, which will take place Dec. 6 and 7 at All Saints’ Chapel. About 60 members of the University Choir will sing.

Click here to watch a livestream of a Lessons and Carols service at Sewanee.

Lessons and Carols — also known as Nine Lessons and Carols, the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, and the Service of Nine Lessons and Carols — is an Anglican worship service traditionally celebrated on or around Christmas Eve. During Lessons and Carols, nine stories from Scripture, including the promise of the Messiah and the birth of Jesus, are read aloud. The service usually includes singing Christmas carols, hymns and choir anthems.

There are two very similar, yet different, services: Advent and Christmas. The prayers have slight wording changes; some of the readings are different; and the concluding prayer must be a collect particular to Advent or Christmas.

Bishop Edward White Benson, who would become archbishop of Canterbury, created the first service of nine alternating Scripture readings and carols for use in the wooden shed serving as his cathedral in Truro, England, for Christmas Eve 1880. The service was based on a medieval vigil service. Other churches adapted the format, and King’s College, Cambridge, began holding its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in 1918.

Sewanee’s Lessons and Carols tradition began in 1960.

“For me, Lessons and Carols is about listening for the still voice of God through the reading of the Scriptures, through the music and the liturgical movement of the service that has always spoken,” the Very Rev. Christopher “Chris” Epperson, dean of All Saints’ Chapel, told ENS. “It’s quiet, it’s still and it’s a moment to gather yourself as you prepare for the bedlam of Christmas.”

The hectic Christmas season holds extra meaning in a college setting, as students and professors are busy with final exams and graduation ceremonies in December before the fall semester concludes.

Amid the end-of-semester commotions, however, many Sewanee students and professors still take time to attend a Lessons and Carols service.

“As a student, I have a crazy busy schedule and choir practice three times a week preparing for Lessons and Carols, but even though rehearsals can be kind of a blur at times, they’re honestly some of the most peaceful moments I have at school,” said Robbins, a lifelong Episcopalian whose home parish is the Church of the Holy Spirit in Lake Forest, Illinois. “As we light our candles and get in line as the service is about to start, an immense calm comes over all of us, and it’s so wonderful and amazing.”

Blake Burgiss, a sophomore neuroscience major from Raleigh, North Carolina, told ENS he feels the same, and though he is a Missouri Synod Lutheran, participating in the traditional Anglican services as a chorist has strengthened his faith.

“Lessons and Carols has brought me closer to the Lord through music,” said Burgiss, who leads the University Choir’s tenor section. “These services have helped me see the teachings in this new light, because the music does this great job of explaining the lessons. … The emphasis that music can have on worship can further our understanding of what we know of Scripture.”

Burgiss said he would encourage his home parish and other non-Anglican churches to begin a Lessons and Carols tradition.

“I think it’s a beautiful opportunity for any church to bring the community together and to allow the Lord to be seen in the community in that context,” he said.

For Geoffrey Harris Ward, Sewanee’s organist and choirmaster, the “ebb and flow” of reading from Scripture between singing the choral anthems and hymns enhances the learning experience. Beginning the services in silence and darkness and with the choir processing from the back to the front of the chapel, holding lit candles singing a cappella, also sets the tone for both the audience and the musicians.

“It’s embracing the feel of the season of Advent and waiting for the Lord, whose day is near. It’s significant,” Ward told ENS. “We have students in the choir who are certainly questioning their faith identity, but traditions like Lessons and Carols are planting seeds for everyone not just to enjoy and appreciate the worship experience in the moment, but also so that they continue the process of growth in terms of not only their academics and musical ability, but also their faith.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.