Angels We Have Heard On High – Anonymous or James Chadwick

The writer tried to walk in somebody else’s shoes, is one way of elaborating on the method he or she used to write this song. Put yourself in the place of some shepherds from long ago, and think how they might have said “Angels We Have Heard On High”, as they related the biblical account of the Christ-child’s birth. It was a Frenchmen who may have crafted the original words, but the words English-speaking peoples would recognize today arrived via a Catholic priest, James Chadwick, who was in Britain in the mid-1800s. The scenes of this divine event that this bishop has to share are those of another writer whom you and I might recognize too, someone who’s been around for a while.

Chadwick was undoubtedly thinking of the events that the biblical writer Luke related in his second chapter, and it’s no stretch to say he and the original French artist were mulling over these events during the Christmas season. The scenes drawn in the four stanzas include angels singing to coax shepherds toward Bethlehem in a joyous celebration of His arrival, even if it was in a humble manger-crib. That’s the gist of what Luke wanted to say, versus what Matthew shared about the same event that has us see this bit of history through the eyes of the Magi (wise men) from the East. Was there some significance in that the 49-year old English- Catholic bishop James Chadwick, and his French poet-counterpart, focused on the shepherd’s story of this miraculous event, instead of the Magi one? Did they somehow want the Christmas celebrants to see this occasion through a more ‘common’ viewpoint – the shepherds? Perhaps it was the harrowing, malevolent parts of Matthew’s version, with an escape from Herod’s capture, that these poets wanted to avoid. Instead, let us be free to marvel at God’s rather meek arrival, and yet exclaim the wonder of His purpose here: to save us. Listen to the angels proclaim the stunning news. It’s a bit different than the alternative that Matthew offers, in which we cringe at the flight the parents of the Messiah-child are forced to make, and the bit of subterfuge in which the wise men engage to fool the evil Herod. Those shepherds were free to be awestruck by God’s presence, rather than to feel anxious about the security of the situation. Christmas is a time for peace and wonder, not foreboding. That’s Luke’s message, and what these poets seem to want to convey, too.   

Gloria, in Excelsis Deo. Do we understand what we sing there, what the angels first said on that starry night? Literally, it’s ‘glory to God in the highest’. Ironic, isn’t it, that we sing that while visualizing Him in a humble manger! It’s just as amazing that He descended to us, so that we can relate to Him in this way. A most unusual God, this babe that some of us think about only at Christmas. Was it different for the French poet who wrote this, or for James Chadwick as he translated the poem into English, and has it changed since their days? The ‘Excelsis Deo’ is also the ‘Sui Generis Deo’ – unique God. No others like Him. Are you listening to the angels today?     

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006; and Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions by Kenneth W. Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1990.