The Word as One of Us

for SATB Choir

Duration: 3:00 min.

Program Notes:

The original request for The Word as One of Us came from a local high school wanting me to write a piece for its Lessons and Carols Christmas Service. I endeavoured to add a piece to the choral repertoire that would find its place both in Christmas concerts and throughout the year; festive, but without all the Christmas clichés. Thus, I chose texts that focus on the dual nature of Christ as God and Man, an important theme at Christmas, but less exclusive to the season than the story of Jesus’ birth itself. As I contemplated the texts, I alternated between two experiences: wonder and awe at the mystery that God could be a Man, and joy and jubilation that He indeed is. This piece embodies both the alternation between and the emotional progression of these moods with a higher proportion of contemplative chant at the beginning giving way to primarily upbeat tempo and rhythms by the end.

Text:

John 1:1 (ASV)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Philippians 2:5-11 (ASV)

Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and gave unto him the name which is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.