Mary, Did You Know?

It’s an old standby, but maybe these images of a modern taken at Mary would freshen that song up. There are so many versions of this song. Take your pick.
lyrics/chords
listen to an mp3 (scroll down until you see the player)

Breath of Heaven (Mary’s Song)

I remember this being sung by Amy Grant. It’s a beautiful song lyrically that tells the story of Mary’s anxieties and her faith. It’s interesting musically because of its melodic nature and meter changes.
lyrics/chords
listen to Breath of Heaven

Labor of Love

This a relatively new Christmas song about Jesus’ birth. It paints the scene of that night in vivid detail. It’s from Andrew Petersen’s Behoold the Lamb of God Album (which I talk about here) album that tells the story of Christmas by starting with Passover. I couldn’t find the chords online, but you can purchase the music book and a performance track directly from artist.
listen to an mp3

Mary’s Boy Child

This is sometimes done in a calypso style. Doing so can be really fun or really disastrous. For the former result, I suggest doing this with children.
lyrics/chords
listen to an mp3 (scroll down a little. It’s on Disc 1)

Ave Maria

This is an obvious one if you’re not squeamish about doing something considered “Catholic.” By all accounts it’s a beautiful song, but isn’t it unbiblical? Isn’t it heretical because it’s that Roman Catholic prayer, Hail Mary, which is heretical? You’ll want to do your own research, but here’s reading a translation of it is a good place to start. Maybe I’ll write a little more on this later.
listen to an mp3 of Chris Cornell with Eleven

Some Ideas for These Mary Photos

I know you already have some ideas already for how to use these pictures of Mary. If not, here are a few to get you started. Remember, you don’t have to use the text St. Stephen’s did. Go to his Flickr set of Mary photos to find one or two that would work for you and add your own words.

Christmas Outreach Postcards

It’s a little late this year, but you do what Ben Bell’s church did and send them out as Christmas cards to let your community about your Christmas services.

Screen Projection

Put her up on your screens when you sing or speak about Jesus’ mother. Here are some songs about Mary that might go well with this.

You could also string all of the different photos together, maybe add some additional text, and make a slideshow.

Bulletin Insert or Cover Art

Print a special bulletin cover or insert. Use it to advertise your Christmas programs

What else could you do with this? What other text would you write to go along with these photos?

Thoughts About the Image

Since we’re so used to seeing Mary with her head covered under a flowing cloth, I love seeing this modern Mary in a hoodie. It calls to mind the iconic image while showing her to be a youth. The card uses the words shunned and rejected, but I wondered how much teen moms are shunned today. Isn’t pre-marital sex, even among teens, pretty much accepted? Then I read that Bell has heard of a a teen mom spat on for being a teen mom. Now that I think about it, there is shame attached to being a teen mom. Besides the rejection came from being pregnant before marriage. For young women that stigma is still true.

Another possible breakdown in the analogy between the real Mary and this modern Mary is difference culture. It wasn’t uncommon for women in that place and that time to be married and have children. But I’m not sure how much it matters what your culture is like; there is a world of difference between a fifteen year old and 25 year old.

If you’re a worship leader looking for a complete Christmas program, but are want something besides the standard Word Publishing choir show, consider this Christmas concert. Andrew Petersen’s Christmas CD, Behold the Lamb of God: The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ, tells the Christmas story beginning with Moses and the Passover and carrying through with echoes of Jesus’ ministry as an adult. It only enriches Christmas to recount the birth of Jesus this way because it connects it to everything that happened before and what will come after. This is important to remember in evangelism because more and more people grow up with no knowledge of the Bible.

The Songs

The songs have a folk feel to them (Petersen is chummy with Caedmon’s Call if that gives you any indication to the sound) with a couple of instrumentals included that can get a bit intricate, but generally the songs are doable by a competent band with maybe a bit of adaption.

The folk music vibe works well with spinning a story of such mythic proportions. The first song is an invitation to “gather round, ye children” to “listen to the old, old story.” This version of the Christmas story begins with Passover and moves to the Israelite slavery in Egypt. Then the story picks up with “Matthew’s Begats” which is a fun novelty song that includes all the people in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus.

So far the songs are solid and will be powerful in the context of Christmas. They set up the thousands of years of waiting expectantly for the Messiah so when Jill Phillips finally sings of the “Labor of Love,” one of the stronger songs on the album, you know it’s not just Mary in labor. The entire nation of Israel has been going through birthing pains for their Savior.

The title track featuring Fernando Ortega looks ahead to tell of “the pow’r of Death undone.” This drifts seamlessly into tribal sounding reprise of all the melodic themes from the previous songs. Again, it shows the anticipation of generations yearning for His advent has come to fruition.

Purchase Behold the Lamb Tracks and Other Resources

Some of the music will be challenging for your worship band; one song jumps from 4/4 to a 7/8 meter. If it’s beyond your instrumentalists, you can buy backing tracks as well as other resources directly from the Andrew Petersen, including songbooks, strings score, and bulk pricing on the CD. The PowerPoint graphics are so detailed, unless you have very large screen or a screen that’s real close to the audience, you may just want to skip it (or print the graphics into the program). You can also find a DVD of a performance that includes Phil Keaggy, Derek Webb, and Sandra McCracken. (Speaking of McCracken, I wish there were more songs written for female voices).

Narration?

There aren’t any dramatic readings or scenes written in, but it wouldn’t be hard to find appropriate Scripture passages if you wanted to break up the concert feel, especially when Petersen does the work for you in the liner notes. Behold the Lamb of God would work well on its own and it also provides a solid foundation for a more elaborate production.

Here’s a simple Christmas idea that’s multimedia explosion of incarnational goodness. It’s a reading accompanied by a ultrasound graphic and a womb sound effect. And I’ll give them all to you.

You’ll need:

1. Flesh of Our Flesh, a poem/meditation/reading by Martin Wroe
2. Eighteen Weeks, a visual piece based on an ultrasound by Elizabeth Mitchell (aka PiscusFiche, aka PixelFish).
3. Free Heartbeat womb sounds courtesy of Peter King (who conceived of pairing the reading with the heartbeat independent of me and earlier too)

How It Plays Out

Start playing the heartbeat loop or roll your own loop and music with this original heartbeat.wav file (Remix!).
Probably better if the room was dimly lit, perhaps by candlelight to signify the coming of the Light. Maybe you have your Advent Candle wreath on display.
Fade in the visual if you can. Let the heartbeat loop run for a bit before reading with some vibrancy. Remember this is Christmas not Good Friday.

Eighteen Weeks - Ultrasound Art

This was created by Elizabeth Mitchell for a friend of hers. It’s from an actual ultrasound. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but the ultrasound for my boy was gray and boring, which makes me suspect that Elizabeth Mitchell enhanced this one to get that evocative blue medical monitor glow. The text she added is a clinical description of the developmental stage of a fetus at eighteen weeks, hence the title of the work.

eighteen weeks
The fetus is now about five inches long.
The child blinks, grasps, and moves her mouth.
Hair grows on the head and body.

If Jesus were born today, is this ultrasound monitor where the fast food shift supervisors, who were visited by an angel, would gather around to tell Mary of what they had seen and heard about her son?

Eighteen Weeks
hi-res Eighteen Weeks

Womb Sounds Loop

Peter King from the UK had the same idea I had except he was able to create the heartbeat womb sounds into a loop. The mp3 is a four minute loop which should be plenty long.

original heartbeat.wav
looped heartbeat womb sounds mp3

Spoken Word - Flesh of Our Flesh

There are a couple of versions of this meditation on the dual nature of Christ. Here’s another version of Wroe’s poem found in the book When You Haven’t Got a Prayer: A Journalist Talks to God (Giftlines).

The central idea of the poem, which is addressed to Jesus, is asked after a few lines.

And if the Word was made flesh
are you flesh of our flesh
bone of our bones

It’s a series of questions to God the Son inquiring about his humanity. Are you really a human being Jesus or are you just putting on a our clothes? I mean, really, what does God look like when he becomes human?

Here are some choice bits:

… little Lord Jesus no crying he makes
well, that’s not true is it
the thing about flesh is it makes you cry

and

and did the flesh inconvenience and annoy
and anger you like it does the
rest of us…

There are a couple of passages that are even more challenging. Wroe asks if that really is Jesus “slipping clumsily out from between a Virgin’s legs.” I don’t think he means to be disrespectful or irreverent. He wants us to ask ourselves why this is shocking to us. True human beings don’t sprout fully formed from your forehead. True human beings are born in one of two ways. And while I wouldn’t talk about anyone “slipping clumsily out” in normal conversation. I might express that in some form of creative writing to make a point.

Having said that, I don’t recommend using this portion for a public performance. The language is so graphic I think it would distract from the theme. It’d be better to read this in a smaller groups where you can discuss it.

Read over the piece and then edit it to suit your audience.

Copyright Information

Heartbeat Sound Effect

Peter King has given permission for churches and other groups to use the loop.

Eighteen Weeks

Elizabeth Mitchell has given permission for her graphic art to be used for this purpose only. Because this is a personal piece, she wants to limit its use. Please be kind to attribute the piece to Ms. Mitchell somehow.

Flesh of Our Flesh

I’m most concerned with editing someone else’s poem. Do we have permission to do that?

This spoken word piece can be found on the album Life, Death, God which used to be available from Sticky Music’s old website. I’m not sure if it is anymore. Their current website is has been updated and it’s no where to be found. I don’t own this CD.

I bring this up because in the liner notes of another similar CD of Wroe’s work, Seven, (which I do own) he gives churches and individuals license to modify the poems for their purpose. I imagine the license is the same for the other CD. So, if you need edit the poem, I’m confident you have the author’s permission.

Of course, you to have the software to play and (this is key) edit the files for your particular use. But if you’ve already been tinkering with loops and sequencing and need some inspiration, the tracks act as a great tutorial as you reverse engineer them.

Here’s an Easter idea from a couple of years ago. I wanted to do a spoken word thing to set up the song Why by Nichole Nordeman on her This Mystery CD. Why tells the story of girl and her father on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They happen upon Jesus being condemned to die by the crowd. It’s a real tear-jerker that won Nordeman a Dove Song of the Year award. It’s perfect for a young girl to sing.

I opted for a sonnet form and recorded it with an ambient background. Listen for the piano teasing the song in minor key (a sadder, darker sound), especially the last phrase which plays a variation of the line “Why does everyone want him to die?”

As with any purely audio (non-performance) event, you probably want to have some sort of visual accompanying this piece. Maybe a depiction of any (or all) of Passion events or using lighting to focus attention on the cross or something else in your sanctuary.

Please feel free to use this for your church. Attribution would be nice, but isn’t necessary.

Download A Child at Calvary mp3

A Child at Calvary - Sonnet

A thousand and a thousand years ago
He took a cross to lay upon his back
Although the week before a crowd had cheered
The time was opportune for an attack

They hurled their hate on love; they called for death
Not knowing blood would gladly spill for sin
His love was without limit, without end
And all within its bounds would be forgiven

How from a child’s eyes this must appear
Who knew the man as Mighty and as Good
To see the mob insult him without fear
March to a hill and nail him flesh to wood

Would that child know that he must die
Or would she need to learn the reason why?