Advent: The Songs of Christmas

It was as natural as making a cup of coffee in the morning. Thanksgiving was merely a sweet memory when my wife awoke on Friday and took command of our family’s traditional Day-After-Thanksgiving taskforce. Her objective? To decorate the house for Christmas in one day! So there I was, hauling boxes over my head, with John Michael following close behind firing questions about how this or that Christmas ornament came to grace our tree. My wife, at no time happier, always pulls this daunting task of bringing organization out of chaos off with grace, enchantment and wonder. And that, for me, is part of the glory of the season.

Another part of the wonder of that day of decorating and the enchantment of the days of Advent leading up to Christmas, for me and I suspect for you, is the music. The music of Christmas is forever linked to the season of Christmas. We all anticipate the time when we can crank up Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” or Mel Torme belting out “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…” Those are wonderful musical decorations to be sure, but Christmas is not Christmas without the genuine Songs of Christmas: The hymns heralding the coming of Christ. From the ancient “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” sung on the first Sunday in Advent to the joyous strains of “Joy to the World” sung on Christmas Eve; from the hauntingly beautiful chorus of “What Child Is This?” to the quiet, assuring German folk hymn “Silent Night”—the Songs of Christmas reach deep into our hearts and stir believers to adoration and, I suspect, stir many unbelieving hearts to reconsider the Old, Old Story.

The Songs of Christmas is my theme during the Sundays in Advent and Christmas Day. I will not be preaching from hymn texts, but from the biblical narratives of the birth of Christ in Luke 1 and 2. Now, there are no musical notations given to these “Songs of Christmas” in the Bible. But when I read of the spontaneous, poetic and profoundly theological response of Mary bursting forth onto the pages of God’s Word, I cannot help but call that a song. When I read of John the Baptist’s father, Zachariah filled with the Holy Spirit, and breaking forth from a previously mute voice with the voice of rejoicing and prophecy, I call that a song. Likewise, the sight of angels appearing to shepherds in a night sky and praising God in a heavenly chorus is a Song of Christmas. So is the prayer from the lips of faithful old Simeon who ushered in the New Covenant with a prayer of astonishing wonder and hope.

The songs of Christmas are needed today. I don’t simply mean the great hymns of the faith (although the world needs those as well), but these divinely inspired, wondrous lyrics sung early in the dawning days of the Church. There was darkness then. There was still more waiting to be done, but what became clear is that God’s promises were coming true and the Lord was entering lives in a way not known before. The Songs of Christmas were announcements that God was here.