Epiphany Carol Service

The season of Epiphany continues the great season of Christmas up to its culmination in the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas). Its central story is that of the three wise men from the east, the Magi. Their coming to the Christ-child in Bethlehem shows that in Jesus' birth God reaches out to all the people of the world, Jewish and Gentile.

This service reprises the whole sweep of the Christmas story, from the Annunciation to Mary through to the Presentation, with the story of the Magi at its heart. We are celebrating the fact and meaning of a birth which utterly changed the course of history. Jesus is Emmanuel, 'God with us'. As the earliest theologians put it, God became human that we might become divine.

The choir sings hymns and carols that retell this story in settings by Goldschmidt, Pettman, Byrd, Preston, Quilter, Britten, Howells, Kirbye, Gardner, and Holst under the direction of interim director of music, Stephen Darlington.