Luke’s Gospel narrative is unique in many ways, and among them is the attention he gave to the presence and role of angels in his nativity account. It is from the mouth of angels that we have the third of Luke’s nativity hymns, their “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” (glory in the highest to God). This Latin phrase has been featured in many choral settings, like Antonio Vivaldi’s 1715 twelve-movement “Gloria,” often performed by choirs at Christmas time. Luke’s four nativity carols are those of Mary (1:46-55), Zechariah (1:68-79), the angels (2:14), and Simeon (2:29-32). These have each come to be known by the opening Latin words in the 5th century Vulgate: Mary’s “Magnificat,” Zechariah’s “Benedictus,” the angels’ “Gloria,” and Simeon’s “Nunc Dimittis.”
There are quite a few hymns about angels in the Christmas sections of our hymnals. Among them are “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” “Angels from the Realms of Glory,” “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night,” “Angels We Have Heard on High,” “The First Noel,” and Martin Luther’s hymn, “From Heaven High (or Above) to Earth I Come,” which puts the whole nativity story into lyrics as spoken by the angel.
Another of those hymns in which we sing about the angels is “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” It is the earliest American Christmas carol or hymn that is included in the repertoire of most hymnals and congregations throughout North America. Written on a snowy December Day by Edmund Sears (1810-1876), a Harvard graduate and Unitarian minister, it was first printed in 1849. He wrote this text while serving as a pastor in Wayland, Massachusetts.